My impression is that the BTN was already on the cable systems in the New York area even before we joined the Big Ten -- but that adding us greatly increased what the cable companies would pay the BTN. Is that right? Why did the carriage fees increase so much? Was it because the cable companies believed that there would be a lot of viewers on the BTN for Rutgers? Thanks for any light anyone can shed.
When did the BTN come to this area?
- Thread starter Retired711
- Start date
I don't know when BTN was first available. I do know that it got included in my sports package when Rutgers joined the Big 10. If I wanted, I could currently get a PAC-whatever channel currently, but it would cost extra.
I had it with DirecTV in 2007 when it launched. Pretty sure it was in my Comcast package in 2012 when I switched over as well
I always had Big 10 Network but it was part of the sports package (extra fee). When Rutgers became B1G, it moved to a standard channel.
It's common for cable systems, when the team is in the DMA's footprint.. and yes Middlesex County NJ is party of NYC Metro DMA Market Area, among 7,000,000 TV Homes (households). So let's say the carriage fees for a secondary tier sport "outside of the footprint" is only about .10 per household.. Once Rutgers joined the B10, it increased to today's amount of $1.50 per household as new revenue for B10 Network. And that's JUST the carriage fees for BTN, which is money coming directly to the B10 Network, and not shared with anyone. On top of that are the rights fees while adding a team to the NY DMA.
Don't let anyone kid you... Rutgers PAID FOR THEMSELVES. Which is the term Commissioner Warren used to explain how expansion works, and WHY USC and UCLA was a no brainer. Why because normally when you add a team the pie get smaller....BUT when you PAY FOR YOURSELF, the increased revenue for adding you, makes the pie BIGGER..
So they can laugh at Rutgers... but guess what? You have to be in the "footprint".. and NO Syracuse doesn't fit that footprint... ha ha.! AND if Rutgers is removed from the B10, those fees DROP.. so we are here to stay!
Carriage fee are regardless of anyone even watching Rutgers or BTN for that matter.. but since there is a local team it's normal for the carriage fee to increase. And the NYT article did say Rutgers account for 20% of the NYC market root for Rutgers, while 9% root for Notre Dame in the NYC DMA.. What people fail to understand is just how big Rutgers is with over 50,000 students , and each year adding about 10,000 graduates joining the local area, which is why we have the top ten largest alumni count in the country. AND Rutgers is OLD...very OLD.. and now deeply entrenched into NJ.
Don't let anyone kid you... Rutgers PAID FOR THEMSELVES. Which is the term Commissioner Warren used to explain how expansion works, and WHY USC and UCLA was a no brainer. Why because normally when you add a team the pie get smaller....BUT when you PAY FOR YOURSELF, the increased revenue for adding you, makes the pie BIGGER..
So they can laugh at Rutgers... but guess what? You have to be in the "footprint".. and NO Syracuse doesn't fit that footprint... ha ha.! AND if Rutgers is removed from the B10, those fees DROP.. so we are here to stay!
Carriage fee are regardless of anyone even watching Rutgers or BTN for that matter.. but since there is a local team it's normal for the carriage fee to increase. And the NYT article did say Rutgers account for 20% of the NYC market root for Rutgers, while 9% root for Notre Dame in the NYC DMA.. What people fail to understand is just how big Rutgers is with over 50,000 students , and each year adding about 10,000 graduates joining the local area, which is why we have the top ten largest alumni count in the country. AND Rutgers is OLD...very OLD.. and now deeply entrenched into NJ.
Same here. It was added to the Sports Package and there was no extra charge. Same when the SEC channel launched. They just added it for free.
Great post! should be required reading for RU fans and detractors alike,
Excellent reply -- thanks! One reason I asked was because I am a Cal alum. Cal fans are worried sick that they won't be invited to the Big Ten, and what you say shows Cal has an excellent chance because of the increased carriage fees from the Bay Area market (#6 in the country). The Big Ten could take Stanford but not Cal, but I would be surprised if this happens because it would be good for the Big Ten to have an even number of Pacific Coast teams to ease scheduling.
I think it’s a bit different.
1) We’re the ONLY football program in the entire state from the NJ perspective - and our satellite campuses all role up into the same state university (Camden, Newark, etc.). So we indisputably added the NJ market.
2) Nobody else but RU justified adding the NYC market. It was us or nothing (arguably Army would’ve been next best choice). NY state and NYC for the purpose of market identification are 2 completely separate entities. That’s why Syracuse ended up adding nothing for the ACC. The Orange don’t spark local interest in NYC when they do well - except with their own alumni. When Rutgers does well in football or basketball it makes local news, the Empire State Building is lit up in Red. Casual sports fans in NYC offices start paying attention to our highlights on the news. When we stink or are mediocre - those ppl don’t care. But the point is they never care about Cuse. There’s zero connection to that market just because Syracuse is located in NY state. California is different. I think the BIG network will be justified in every Cali household as a standard inclusion just from the addition of the state’s 2 flagship sports universities - UCLA and USC. That makes it harder for Cal in my opinion.
It is harder -- but remember the huge rivalry between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. There are fewer Bay Area fans for UCLA and USC than you might think. Keep in mind also that it's not as important how many Bay Area fans watch Cal and Stanford as simply having a team in that market because having a team in the market hugely increases the carriage fees.
please share with us that link where BTN is getting $1.50 mo per sub in NYC.
good luck with that.
no doubt BTN was hoping that would happen, but i highly doubt it did, and had it happened, no doubt Fox/BTN would have made that public.
BTN had no real leverage in NYC, so i'd be shocked if they were getting "in state" per sub fees in NYC.
my guess is that BTN settled for getting on expanded basic, up from the sports tier, but did so without getting the "in state" fees it hoped for, and that the jump to expanded basic was probably close to revenue neutral from what BTN was already pulling out of NYC.
had the B10/Fox gotten the per sub fees they wanted, they would have made that public, because they always did so prior to that.
that they didn't go public with the outcome of the negotiations, and the negotiations being so public, tells me they didn't.
i would have been shocked had they, because like i said, they pretty much had no leverage.
first off, NYC isn't "in state", which has generally been the dividing line, not "in market".
and RU isn't really "in market" anyway in NYC, the way it is in the midwest.
just because RU is in the NYC market, doesn't mean NYC is in the RU market.
and lastly, imho the cable guys were only going to pay that with a gun to their head, which BTN couldn't provide in NYC.
everywhere else, subs switching to satellite, Directv or Dish Net, if they couldn't get BTN through their cable provider, was always the leverage.
A), in NYC, not that many subs care about RU enough that they would switch providers just to get BTN, even if they could.
B), a good percent of NYC subs don't have the option of switching to satellite, even if they wanted to.
i said at the time that no way would BTN get "in state" fees out of NYC, for the reasons i just mentioned.
they just didn't have the leverage imo.
provide evidence that they did, and i'll gladly admit i was wrong.
Last edited:
Just my thoughts, and perhaps you and @rucoe89 could give yours-- would think many Stanford alums are not from the Bay Area and leave the area after graduation. I saw a stat that said 35% of students come from California, whereas 85% of Berkeley students are from in state. Are most of those Cal student from and stay in the Bay area?
But another factor is that the Silicon Valley and the B1G have to already have a good number of B1G alums working in the area.
Overall, however, agree that Cal plus Stanford makes a lot of sense.
Thanks. It's the frustration of watching and hearing, let say, Dan Patrick, or (insert talking head here), trashing Rutgers on these forums. They just don't understand the original plan of how and why Rutgers got in. So you have idiots talking about they should kick Rutgers out. They have no idea the money we bring to the table. And to a lessor extent Maryland did ditto! What you hear is "we bring nothing to the table" or bringing up every past transgression. We were picked for a reason. And we aren't apologizing. We've waited this long just for equal share, so to me the clock starts ticking now.
Thanks. The $1.50 figure is what they are talking about today with the LA market and USC and UCLA, back when Rutgers got in my memory seems to think it was .90 per household with BTN on any of the tiers vs being pushed to some other tier. But the carriage fee numbers have been talked about for the last, well since the USC UCLA announcements. Back in the day when Rutgers joined the number bandied about was $250,000,000 in revenue they gained with that addition.
You have to understand cable/rights fees to understand thats real.. not made up. We did do that for B10 Network and that footprint is LARGE with many many HH's .. cha ching!! as far as Fairfield CT, and Pike, PA to the north, and down south of Rutgers, but not too far (Thats the Philly DMA) I grew up in Edison so I could get both with over the air. You don't understand how carriage fees work. I'm sorry.
As far as the shift to Dish/Directv/streaming.. nothing changes, carriage fees still apply. This was all cut and dry.
Live Sports Writes the Checks in TV today!!! Understand that... the key is LIVE... can't be time shifted, and everyone is waiting on the additional gambling expansion to drive the bus...
And WHY Rutgers was added to secure that revenue...and market..
Those are good thoughts. I think probably about half of Cal students are from Southern California. It's hard to know if they return there. My impression is that both Cal and Stanford have fan bases in the Bay Area in addition to their students and alums. Neither comes close to selling out its stadium, even for The Big Game between the two schools.
We toured Cal and Stanford in 2018. The Cal tour guide mocked the football team, which was not a good look, but I got the general impression, like Rutgers, a number of profs at Cal were not happy with the money spent on football. Did not get the same feeling at Stanford.
Yep, this. For the Philly and NYC markets (esp on comcast) BTN was on the sports package for extra, but moved over to regular cable once Rutgers went to the Big Ten
Funny I was smiling just remembering when I hear someone talk about Rutgers not being in the NYC market. My answer.. when I was growing up in Central Jersey, ABC NBC and CBS were our network stations, and to this day that hasn't changed. That will usually measure your market. Where are your Network Stations located. For Rutgers, and 66% of the population of NJ that's NYC. And that's how we felt. There were no local news..only NYC news.. ha ha..
The Cal alums talk about how down the faculty is on football, and I tell them that the same is true here and we're in the Big Ten anyway. They are Gloomy Guses over there, probably because the program has been going straight downhill since Jeff Tedford's early success in the 2000s. The basketball program, respectable under Ben Braun, is doing poorly too.
Awful Announcing is a really good TV Sports and Marketing newsletter, and they always get into contract negotiations etc
awfulannouncing.com
Adding USC and UCLA could give B10 Network a huge revenue boost article
Adding USC and UCLA could give Big Ten Network a huge revenue boost
Going from the out-of-footprint per-subscriber fee to the in-footprint one even for just Los Angeles would massively boost Big Ten Network.
awfulannouncing.com
Adding USC and UCLA could give B10 Network a huge revenue boost article
One of my partners is a Cal alum. I often refer to Cal and Rutgers as bookends on opposite coasts because of the similarities in academics and athletics. He is here in NJ to stay. He said it has become extremely difficult to try to watch Cal football on the PAC12 network.
Expansion of the B10 will happen. Just can't say when. Right now they know, but not saying.
I can remember the story of Tim Pernetti, (the AD that was our savior for B10)and how he was tapped on the shoulder (by Delaney the B10 Commissioner who was born in NJ and went to school and knew HOW NYC market worked) and told to be "patient" as Rutgers was freaking out as Big East fell apart and Syracuse, and BC jumped ship (which today they regret, ha ha), and we were the package with Maryland IF they once again failed on the ND offer (and they did),
But that was instrumental in an eastward expansion back then, and history should repeat itself. Just not now.. anti trust issues. fear from the "left behinds" etc. but really probably a legal fear. So they are waiting to see if the P12 falls apart by themselves, specially with the B12 circling looking to pick up anyone... and it sounds like there was some complicity (USC asked us, but "someone" whispered to UCLA- no I can't prove it) and fear they could lose that legal battle.
I'm sure Oregon/Washington rumor was they were told also to be patient. And Cal/Stanford could become an issue between the governor, the Nike guy, Cal needing ND to say no again, so they can couple with Stanford.
But Markets.. will drive expansion. That will maximize revenue without shrinking the pie. My guess. North Cal Market /incl San Fran. Also the Pacific West. And once the GOR situation is settled in the ACC, they will target NC, Virginia, Miami, and/or Georgia Tech. And that will be it... till the next TV contract.... oye!...
I agree with the first part and think that could very well be the case to add more California teams. Can’t only go with 2 west coast teams. It will be 4 eventually in my opinion just from a geography and content perspective.
I don’t know about the last part though. I think once you add USC and UCLA to a conference, that conference will be a standard inclusion in TV packages throughout the state. I don’t think the reason for adding the next set of teams, whoever they are, will be similar to the reasons for adding RU and Maryland though anyway.
It's the "boost" in carriage fees you get from appointing a "new" school in a DMA without a current B10 School. That's why you see such hesitation to add 2 Schools in the same state. The GOR still needs to be broken, and I wonder if ESPN, will sit down with Fox, as the 2 big guys, and figure out how. Too much money lost by the ACC teams that the B10 wants for this to take more too long. We will see however.
The question isn't whether it would be a standard inclusion: it would be how much the cable systems in the Bay Area would have to pay to carry the Big Ten Network. That amount would go way up once Cal and Stanford are members, just as the carriage fees for the Big Ten Network in this area exploded when Rutgers joined the Big Ten -- that's why the Big Ten wanted Rutgers.
From what I understand that's pretty much standard as they used the figure of .10 now in your market "IF" the B10 is available,(and now they should be everywhere). So when they contract with Comcast in San Fran for example, if Comcast has 1,000,000 subscribers, they get .10 per subscriber. So it's Comcast paying the B10 that $1.50 per household. The B10 Network isn't part of the mark up from standard tier to digital or whatever. That's Comcast money.. B10 gets there with the channel cost of $1.50. So to answer they are paying .10 now if they offer B10 Network WITHOUT a B10 school. Once a school arrives in San Fran footprint, Comcast for example would then have to increase that fee to B10.
This article gets into it.
awfulannouncing.com
Adding USC and UCLA could give Big Ten Network a huge revenue boost
Going from the out-of-footprint per-subscriber fee to the in-footprint one even for just Los Angeles would massively boost Big Ten Network.
awfulannouncing.com
Cal has a very vocal minority supporting its athletics programs and they carry enough weight and money to drown out the noise of professors that are anti-athletics. For example, when Cal voted to shut down its baseball program, the alums quickly rallied and funded it. Some of the Cal faculty remind me of what I have read about the Rutgers 1000. There are others from the academic side that are supportive, though, and i've seen some at games. While the anti-sports group shrugged at the UCLA move, others that may have been indifferent to sports are now paying attention seeing potential revenue go bone dry. This is an interesting time as where before UCLA was behind Cal in many areas, they are now on par and UCLA has even risen above Cal. That irks many Cal folks so maybe that is part of what is pushing the indifferent crowd to suddenly perk up.
As for alums, there are quite a few more Cal alums in Northern Cal and Southern Cal than there are Stanford alums. Stanford has the pedigree and money alums but for factors such as raw number of alums, and in terms, tune in audience, Cal has quite a few more.
Stanford is interesting with respect to athletics. About 10% of their student body is involved with NCAA sports. Had an interesting conversation with a Stanford booster who noted that they had concerns about Big Ten membership due to that large student body percentage having to travel to the midwest and east on a regular basis and what that would do to in class learning environments. Stanford courses tend to be very interactive and smaller in size, so missing students are more noticable than state schools like Cal or Rutgers.
I don’t understand all this stuff, but the financial bottom line must involve a lot more than just this right? Otherwise Houston, Memphis, etc. should be hot commodities.This article gets into it.
Adding USC and UCLA could give Big Ten Network a huge revenue boost
Going from the out-of-footprint per-subscriber fee to the in-footprint one even for just Los Angeles would massively boost Big Ten Network.
RU didn’t just provide an incremental bump. It brought the network into standard packaging in the first place in a hugely dense area.
It appears that B10 understands they control the TV markets of LA(2), Chicago(3), New York(1) and Washington DC(9), Philadelphia(4), Minneapolis(14), Detroit(15), Cleveland(19)Indianapolis(25), Baltimore(28), and so on...
But it isn't as simple as see market - take market... just on size... UNLESS you can give the B10 more NEW revenue, then have you allow everyone take LESS to add YOU!! So, maybe ultimately the first team to take in Texas, let say Texas A & M from the SEC because they don't want to share the SEC with Texas.. .Now that's a market and school that would pay for themselves. My understanding Portland (21) DOESN'T do that hence the delay in adding if any. But I'm sure if they take a sliding scale like what Rutgers did, they AND Stanford/Cal in the San Francisco (6) apparently is possible also.
So it's "do you ADD more revenue than we have to GIVE UP when we cut the pie after your arrival. Could you see 18/20 or 24 Teams... Yes.. as long as they bring REVENUE.
The future is bright at Rutgers to be finally part of the Have's, and not the Have Nots!
obviously i have many times the grasp of subject that you do. (and that you didn't begin to understand my DBS reference, and the part it plays in everything we're discussing, shows you're totally clueless on the subject).
and let me know when you can verify even 90 cents per mo per sub for BTN in NYC.
good luck with that.
and when you can't verify, try and grasp why you can't.
when RU was added, i believe NJ probably went to "in state" BTN fees, but that doesn't mean NYC did, and i highly doubt they did.
they did get broader distribution in NYC, but as i said before, i question if that was much more than a revenue neutral thing.
as for any schools being added in Cal, absent prior contractual language on the matter coming into play, which i very highly doubt but can't say for sure, any increase in BTN fees anywhere in the state, would be a whole new negotiation with every provider.
BTN can demand whatever they want to demand, but that doesn't mean the cable/satellite/streaming distributors will agree to said demands.
will BTN possibly get pulled in any said areas while any such tug of war rages, that's very possible. but perhaps not.
like i said, absent any existing contractual language applying, it's a whole new negotiation with every provider. cable, satellite, and streaming.
as for who pays, while the distributors pay the networks, the subs in turn pay the distributors, plus any markup.
in the end, any increases come out of the consumers' pockets.
why that once $6.95 mo cable bill for 36 or 41 channels, is now closer to $100 mo.
and that $49 mo bill for cable and hi speed internet, is now $150 plus per mo.
BIG network became part of standard cable packages in Manhattan and Brooklyn when Rutgers was added. I’m not sure first hand about the other boroughs.
Also true for streaming. Hulu Live TV has B10 but no PAC, even within the PAC footprint. Not sure about California and all over PAC land, but true in parts.
Believe Hulu has SEC, too.
Great link that describes the financial gain for the Big Ten back in 2014.
amp.awfulannouncing.com
Big Ten Network hits the NYC jackpot worth tens of millions of dollars
amp.awfulannouncing.com
This graph should be posted any time someone questions why Rutgers and Maryland were invited to join the B1G:Great link that describes the financial gain for the Big Ten back in 2014.
Big Ten Network hits the NYC jackpot worth tens of millions of dollars
Latest
-
01
The Knight Report
From FCS to the Big Ten, Bradlee Jones is betting his speed opens the door at Rutgers
-
02
The Knight Report
Rutgers Football Fall Camp: Get 75% off The Knight Report - Final Day!
-
03
The Knight Report
2028 Illinois EDGE Kristian Chadick adds Rutgers Football Offer
-
04
The Knight Report
WAR ROOM: Latest Recruit Scoop and Team News on Rutgers Athletics
-
05
The Knight Report
Chin, Walker named to Comeback Player of the Year Watch List