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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 24, 2013Mark SilvermanCHICAGO, ILLINOIS MARK SILVERMAN: Hello, everybody. It's great to be here for the beginning of our seventh season on the air. As we start our seventh season, it's really interesting to see how much the TV landscape is changing. When we launched this network, the landscape is nothing like what it's going to be like in the coming years. For us to be able to be successful in this competition, we're just going to need to keep getting better, produce more quality programming, be more in tune with our fans, and deliver what the Big Ten fans are looking for going forward. This past year, we produced close to a thousand events. And going forward, we're going to need to continue to improve these events.  We've gotten a lot better at bringing in big‑name talent, focusing our production values to try and raise the bar. And I think people that watch the network today see a vastly different network than when we first launched the network. Last year we had 14 games, which featured an AP ranked top 25 team on the air. And as we continue to grow the quality of the network, having these highly competitive matchups are key for us to continue to grow our fan base. Last year's advertising grew to our highest level ever, and our ratings increased 12percent over the previous year. We set all‑time ratings records in January and February. And every year that we've been on the air, we've been able to increase our ratings, increase our advertising and increase the quality of our programming, with more and more networks coming, it's going to be vital for us to keep getting better, keep improving, and be able to keep moving ourselves forward. As we start this coming year, we're going to have 47 football games on the air. More than we've ever had before, including 12 prime time matchups. During the first four weeks of the season we're going to have games that include teams from the SEC, from the Pac‑12, from the ACC, squaring off against our Big Ten schools. So it promises to be a really interesting nonconference slate as well as conference season as well. We're going to begin our football coverage this year starting on August12th. We'll begin a school preview show as Dave, Jerry, and Howard get on our bus and do a tour around the Big Ten area. Following a preview for each of our schools, we'll do a provisional show leading into our opening night of coverage on Thursday, August29th. So we're real excited about our football schedule this year. New on the network is going to be BTN Live. It will be five nights a week starting at 6:00 eastern. This show will also be simulcast on radio throughout the Big Ten area and will also be on Sirius XM. It will provide a great lead‑in every night for whether we have events on the air, studio programs, original programs, or whatever that might be. We'll have some scheduling changes. Big Ten Football, The Journey, will be back, and as will Big Ten Basketball, The Journey, later on during basketball season. And these BTN originals, as we call them, has really become a way for us to distinguish ourselves. And as I travel throughout the Big Ten area, always hear, people come up say The Journey is our favorite show. I love The Journey. And it's this kind of programming that's really more important than ever for us to distinguish ourselves to show that we know the Big Ten better. We care about the Big Ten more. We're going to feature more of the Big Ten student‑athletes and coaches and assistant coaches on our air to give you more full‑length coverage of what the Big Ten is all about. Other programming this year is going to include a second season of Big Ten Elite. We're going to focus on seven of the top Big Ten teams in history and have a half‑hour program devoted to them. We'll also have a new show called Forever Big where we go back and we talk with former student‑athletes. They reminisce about their time at school, and we see what they're doing now that their athletic careers have ended as we continue to really push and do more and more of this kind of programming. One other show that we're really excited about is a documentary where we look at an event that changed college football forever, and we'll be talking more about this documentary in the weeks and months ahead, but it's something I know our Big Ten fans are going to be really excited about. And then the big thing we're really focused on is growing BTN To Go as well. Making a little news here today, in case you haven't had enough news made so far, BTN To Go is now available on Comcast. So you can do it right now if you're a BTN subscriber, plug in your customer log‑in information and be able to access BTN To Go. Now, with Comcast now onboard, every single top distributor of BTN offers BTN To Go free to any authenticated subscriber of BTN. So while we're able to continue to grow BTN To Go, it's now one of the most widely penetrated sports television apps there is in the country, and it's something we're going to continue to focus on. And BTN to go is now also available globally, and we started it last year. We have thousands of international subscribers who subscribe to BTN To Go so you can follow your schools, follow the conference, no matter where you are anywhere in the world. So we're really excited about that. And going forward our focus is we want to be the best college sports network there is. It's that simple. We've got over 50 million homes that get BTN. On our way to 60 million homes next year. We've got great content. Our mix of football, basketball, hockey, other events, original programming, is unsurpassed anywhere, and by combining our distribution with our content, this goal of being the best college sports network is something I believe we should be able to attain very shortly in our near future. One last thing, as we grow our BTN brand, we're really looking at doing more with our viewers. And this Saturday, here in Chicago, we're doing our second annual BTN 10‑K. Last year we had about 5,000 runners participate. This year we have over 13,000 runners that will be coming to Chicago from all over the country. I think seven different countries. People are coming to participate in. And to really show their school pride. And it's these kinds of events that just make our network a bit different than any of the other networks there. Our viewers care about their schools. They care about their network. They have pride in their schools. And having an event like a 10‑K enables us to get in better touch with our fans. And the fact we could almost triple it one year after the last really shows that we're growing our brand well and that there's a place for BTN in the future. So with that, I will open it up to questions. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. You must believe that there's an interest and an audience for sports that are much smaller than football and men's basketball, that is more women's basketball, more softball, gymnastics all those things. What's BTN's take on that? And do you have the finances and even the equipment to leverage armies of cameras to go various places like ESPN does? MARK SILVERMAN: ESPN owning the SEC network is a challenge for us. But for us, I feel that our brand, our viewers are interested in what we have more than anything else. We're going to produce over a thousand events this year. What we've seen is that we've seen that women's volleyball has grown every year that we put it on the air. We've seen wrestling has grown every year we put it on the air. So we believe that you can build audiences for many of these sports that here to date have never really been on television much. So I do think there's opportunity there. I like our mix of hockey and basketball and women's volleyball and softball and baseball better than anyone else's.  We had more top‑ranked basketball and football teams on our air than any of these other college networks would have. So I think we're positioned very well to be successful. Financially, we're able to produce already a thousand events. It's something we're always looking to produce more as we grow. As we add more subscribers, we grow our ad revenue. There's only more and more opportunity for us to increase the number of events we have on the air. Q. Have you begun to work the markets of Rutgers and Maryland in terms of New York and D.C.? And how difficult is that going to be to get the network in there, in your opinion? MARK SILVERMAN: Sure. I've been to Rutgers. I had one meeting at Rutgers. We're going back in a few weeks to visit both Rutgers and Maryland. We've established a great initial relationship with both athletic departments. And the answer is: It's never easy. Distribution is not easy. If it was easy, things would be a lot different out there. And it's just something that's going to take a lot of effort on our part. I believe our content, after six years on the air, speaks for itself. I believe our ratings speak for itself, and I do believe we'll be successful with our distribution, but it's not going to come without a heck of a lot of effort on our part. Q. How would you define what Big Ten is? A news agency? Promotional vehicle? Broadcast? How would you sum it up? MARK SILVERMAN: It is a leading collegiate sports network that is devoted to bringing the Big Ten programming to all of its fans across the country. Q. The SEC recently announced like a college game day live program. Any chance something like that could be on the Big Ten network's roadmap? MARK SILVERMAN: Good question. We've looked at it. Game Day does such a fantastic job with their show where they go on the road, the amount of resources they're able to put into it. And after many, many years how finely tuned that program is. I think what I tell our folks is I only want to do something if we can do it really well. And I think at this point, I really think our studio group of Dave, Jerry, and Howard do an incredible job breaking down the Big Ten, insightful analysis, knowing our teams better than anyone else. Going on the road is something where if we're going to be able to do it in our future, we just have to be able to live up to kind of the standard that's been established. And I don't see us at this point doing it at that level. I'm going to be very curious to see how that does transpire on the SEC network when they do this. I think the fans and the viewers are used to seeing it done at a place that hopefully in our future will be able to get to. But I don't see it in the next year or two. Q. Follow up on the question about Rutgers, could you be more specific on the timetable as when you hope that might happen for the New York market and what would make that happen sooner than later? MARK SILVERMAN: You know, the timetable would be just right before football season next year, typically when these things get done. I think as a programmer, we would love for these deals to get done many months, if not a year or so in advance. The way these deals typically work is as you get closer and closer to when it matters to the fan base is when the more substantial discussions start taking place. So I anticipate there being some initial conversations in spring of next year. But really moving into the summer before we would have a strong idea as to how successful we will be in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and D.C. in expanding BTN to those areas. Q. Just a question about some of the challenges with expansion is in certain sports you'll have too much inventory for a given night or given programming, a little bit with football, primarily with basketball. How do you plan to deal with those challenges where you might‑‑ in a nonconference basketball season, you may make one group happy and ten groups unhappy because their game's not on television. MARK SILVERMAN: That is something that we're just starting to look into now, into next year. What's going to happen when we have‑‑ the two new schools come in. And oftentimes, during basketball season in particular, when we have men's games, women's games, wrestling, hockey, a lot going on on the network and we've got to pick what event to put on the air. What we always try to do is we try to be true to the network and generate ratings so that we can grow. And also be true to the schools and make sure that there is an appropriate amount of appearances on BTN. And it's something that we grapple with. And it's not easy for the network to do that. We kind of have 12 soon to be 14 stakeholders that we all want‑‑ we want to grow all their programs. We want all of them to be successful. We can only do so much with our one air time that we have to pick and choose. So everything is evaluated. I do think it will make it a little more difficult next year when we have to grapple with two more schools coming in. I don't have a solution at this point. Although I can tell you, as time goes by, more and more of what‑‑ like a BTN To Go can offer, maybe utilize to be able to bring more and more games into your home. Technology's always advancing. We're very focused on growing the number of events and increasing the viewership of these events while also growing our business side. And I think you will see in the years ahead more and more avenues for viewers to watch more and more of the programming, even if it's not so much on our linear network, but have other platforms where they can watch the games. Q. Have you found with Rutgers and Maryland that you're almost dealing with a different viewing or sporting culture on the East Coast than what you're used to in the Midwest? MARK SILVERMAN: I'm an East Coast guy. I grew up on the East Coast. I know the East Coast very well. I moved after my junior year of high school out of the East Coast. So I am‑‑ I'm well aware of the differences of the fan bases. We're just starting to get to know the schools and the alumni groups and the fans there. I think that the network needs to educate ourselves so that we know‑‑ when we're going to start covering Maryland and Rutgers athletics, we need to talk from an authoritative voice. And a lot of the next year for us are things that you're not going to see on the air, but it's going to be us looking to increase our talent pool, to include people who know these schools well. Us learning more about the history of these programs, what fans are looking for from a BTN network being there. And it's going to take a lot of effort on our behalf to expand‑‑ it's geographically expanding BTN, but it's really our knowledge. Our credibility takes us everywhere. People ask you why we've been successful to this date. I think it's because we put a product on the air that Big Ten fans really respected. And they saw that we knew what we were talking about. We were respectful and we were knowledgeable, and we have to be that way when we start covering Maryland and Rutgers. And it's going to take a lot of work back in our offices in Chicago and a lot of trips to New York and the Atlantic corridor. And it's something that we're looking forward to growing as a network, being able to do that. Q. Compared to Chicago, in this market, how much bigger or are they, those two markets out East? MARK SILVERMAN: Well, New York is obviously the largest market in the country. Chicago's third. I think D.C. is somewhere in the top ten, maybe seven, eight, nine, in that area. Baltimore is not that far behind D.C. New Jersey area is large as well. These are major, major markets. And a lot of what I try to explain to people when I get excited about expansion for the Big Ten, you know, being able to gradually‑‑ and this is not going to happen overnight, but gradually over time, in the decades ahead, be able to look towards the eastern and the mid‑Atlantic part of the country, and those are Big Ten areas. And being able to have kids grow up in these areas as Big Ten fans, because Big Ten football and basketball and hockey is going to be so prevalent in these areas, you know, the recruiting opportunities are fantastic. The growth for the Big Ten, the growth for both Rutgers and Maryland, it's something that I think has really not fully been appreciated in the overall long‑term benefit that I think all of the schools in the Big Ten are going to realize. And as I look at the Big Ten as being the true national conference out there, you know, this is only going to continue to grow that. We have alumni and fans living all across the country, more so than anyone tells by a large margin. We have more subscribers to BTN that are outside the Big Ten than are inside the Big Ten, just to give you a sense. And this only will increase the amount of national relevance that the Big Ten's going to have and also the responsibility that a BTN is going to have to broadcast Big Ten programming all over the country. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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