The Big Ten Network

Rumors have abounded for weeks that the Big Ten Network is close to a deal with cable giant Mediacom. This might or might not be the case, but the irrefutable truth is that the Big Ten Network is having severe difficulty selling ad time -- and that's the life blood for broadcasters. Even a single hour of BTN viewing reveals the dirty little secret. Where the commercial breaks would normally be in BTN programming, we endlessly find instead the "view book brag" spots that used to be obligatory in halftime breaks back when Big Ten sports used to be on the real networks. You know the type. "Bogus State is proud to be America's number one ranked institution for the training of widget engineers...yadda yadda. This self-aggrandizing rot usually symbolizes nothing worse than institutional hubris. But in this present case, it symbolizes something else. The BTN needs to get off of it's ultra-high horse and establish some reasonable rates for the vending of its boring programming, or face economic extinction sooner than later. And there's no shortage of sports fans who'd be happy to see Jim Delaney's farce come to an abrupt end. Then the games move back to free TV or ESPN - channels that most people can actually receive.