Shatel: View of the Big Ten from here is great

Holding on tight to the Big 12/8? This little ditty might make it easier to loosen the reins:

Beginning in 2011, every Nebraska football game could be on national TV.

Chew on that for a second and swallow carefully. Yes, all 12 Husker football games, shown live and in living red color, wherever big, strong and fleet high school kids watch TV.

That was just one of the many jaw-droppers offered this week at the Big Ten Football Kickoff — this one courtesy of Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman.

“Every Big Ten game is nationally distributed on one of the ESPN channels, ABC or us,’’ Silverman said. “In the nonconference, every home game is on nationally.’’

Now figure that NU will play four nonconference games until the Big Ten decides to go to nine conference games in 2015, which is likely. Some years, all four of those nonconference games will be at home for NU, and the occasional nonconference road game will be at Miami, UCLA or Tennessee — all likely to be shown by a national network.

If and when the nine-game rotation starts in Commissioner Jim Delany’s world, figure that NU (and others) will want all three nonconference games at home to ensure the seven home games each season required to feed the athletic department’s mouths. The occasional big-name, out-of-conference game, again, would no doubt be played on a national stage.

And the Big Ten Network couldn’t be more thrilled to do the honors.

“Nebraska is as big ticket a football market nationally as there is,’’ Silverman said. “And being able to show Nebraska games on our network is going to greatly increase the relevance of the network and the distribution of the network nationally over time, like few schools would.’’

Silverman put it another way, when asked if expanding to an eastern school would have helped the Big Ten more: “I think Nebraska does a lot to help us in the east. A national program is a national program. The stature of the program is more important than where the specific team is located geographically. A school like Nebraska just helps us east, west and every direction we go.’’

That last one was for the Missouri folks in the audience.

“It’s as cohesive and natural a fit as I’ve seen in expansion, including ACC, Pac-10 and the Big Eight and Southwest Conference coming together,’’ Silverman said of NU and the Big Ten. “Now, what I’ve told our guys is, we have to bone up on Nebraska history. This is going to become a Nebraska network.’’

And that may be the best part of this Big Ten move, the no-brainer of no-brainers. Nebraska couldn’t do this in the Big 12. Texas and even Oklahoma can think about starting their own cable networks, but the start-up costs are nearly $30 million. For NU, this kind of exposure comes with the deal. Membership has its privileges.

And while a Bevo Network has potential, it’s debatable whether it would be available to 75 million households, through agreements with more than 300 cable, satellite and other affiliates in the United States and Canada, like the BTN.

What we do know is that NU is about to get exposure like never before. The BTN will show classic Nebraska games, do features on NU history, the current team, campus life in Lincoln, etc.

It will start in 2011, although it starts in a few weeks when Silverman and an army of BTN folks arrive in Lincoln to meet with HuskerVision, the NU Alumni Association and athletic officials.

“This year, we’ll just gradually start talking about them,’’ Silverman said. “It will take time. We don’t have the knowledge yet, and we pride ourselves on knowing everything about our teams. We’ve begun the process of obtaining some classic Nebraska games. We want to educate the rest of the Big Ten about Nebraska football.’’

So, to sum up this week: Every Nebraska game will likely be shown on national TV, Husker fans are going to get a fresh, fun rivalry with Iowa and the school will soon make at least $20 million a year just for showing up.

To paraphrase a former Husker athletic director: This is why they did what they did.

Contact the writer:

444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com

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