Big Ten Network Visits Ohio State Campus – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | General
May 14, 2007
Big Network Press Conference
Chat with Big Ten Network president Mark Silverman
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Big Ten Network visited the Ohio State campus Monday during which Mark Silverman, president of the network, addressed the media in a press conference. Below is his opening statement and the full press conference will be available soon on ohiostatebuckeyes.com. Silverman also participated in a chat with Buckeye fans Monday afternoon through the OSU athletics web site.
Mark Silverman, Big Ten Network President
Opening statement of press conference:
“This has been a great visit for the Big Ten Network here at Ohio State. I want to thank Ohio State for its hospitality. It is crucial for the network to build relationships with key alum, administration and the press to gain a better understanding between the network and schools.
The Big Ten Network will launch in August. We would like to represent the schools athletically and academically. We want to represent more than Big Ten sports – extol all virtues of the universities.
As we grow, we would like to add on and increase topics. We want this programming to be unsurpassed. The network will be in High Definition (HD) for 95 percent of the programming, including Olympic and women’s events as well as the nightly show. HD is a key new component in showing sports as attractive as possible.
There will be football games taking place at the same time. We will regionalize those to make sure the fans see what they want. We will air 35-40 football games and 105 men’s basketball games, including about 60 percent of the conference schedule. We will air [Big Ten] tournament games as well. There will be 350-400 live events for women’s and Olympic sports. We will promote and increase viewers for sports in our nightly show and use big games to increase interest in other sports and events, which the universities will benefit from.
Through the network, we have added internships at all Big Ten schools working with TV and production for credit while preparing for a career in sports or television. We also will allow for increased exposure for Olympic and women’s sports. Parents, friends and recruits can watch and the teams will benefit from this. Each school will be given 60 hours of non-sport programming to feature what makes its university special beyond athletics.
We are excited about the Big Ten network. We have deals in place with AT&T and DirecTV. We also have just agreed to a contract with Buckeye Cable in Toledo, which reaches over 150,000 people. We are looking to network Big Ten fans with Big Ten sports and programming.”
