The Big Ten Network introduced itself just before the football season started in 2007. Outside of live football and basketball games with teams not quite attractive enough for ABC, ESPN and others, its earliest programs made some viewers scratch their heads — unpolished studio shows with few big names and heavy doses of old, taped games. Well, the network has come a long way since then. Neither the conference nor the Chicago-based cable network publicly talk about their finances, but, according to the Sports Business Journal, three years after it went on the air the network is delivering close to $70 million a year to the Big Ten.
Office of Strategic Communication