We all remember last year’s failed strategy with the NFL NETWORK. When Roger Goodell had a game with an unbeaten Patriots squad and the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants playing in Week 17 on the Network, he had to have the worst of both worlds and allow CBS and NBC to simulcast the game under threat from Senators Arlen Specter and John Kerry.

The fans got a classic game on broadcast television (which wound up being a Super Bowl preview), but it wasn’t the business coup that Goodell & Co. had imagined (and did not come off well following Packers-Cowboys a few weeks earlier) since most of the games on the schedule (like Colts-Falcons) were forgettable and fans were carping about the good ones being on a channel very few could get.

Now, the L.A. TIMES relays news from the WALL STREET JOURNAL that the league is talking to ESPN about broadcasting that package of games that its own network was claiming all for itself.

Read more…

Apparently, Comcast may be close to finally ending their deep and sadistic hatred of young men and women merely trying to get an education through the noble pursuit of athletic excellence. Also, it seems that the Big Ten could soon stop abusing their young wards by cruelly trying to turn their efforts into wads of cash to be spent wildly by heartless university officials.

(If you like me, check this box. And this one. And sign here.)

All of this might happen, that is, if SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL accurately gauges the possibility that both sides will reach an agreement soon on carriage costs for Comcast to carry the Big Ten Network, ending the hopelessly overheated public rhetoric and underhanded tactics.
Read more…