June 27, 2006
Directors' Cup
Fueled by the tremendous success of our spring teams, we are currently ranked 28th in the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings. The Directors' Cup gives points to schools based on their teams' finishes in NCAA tournament play, and is designed to reward schools for having strong overall athletic programs. Last year, we finished 29th, our best finish ever. Our current ranking is impressive again, particularly in light of the fact that the scoring system for the Cup was changed this year so that our women's lacrosse team only earned half as many points as last year (because lacrosse is sponsored by less than 25% of all Division I schools). If this scoring change had not been made, we would be ranked as high as 26th. The Directors' Cup rankings are not final until later this week and we will likely finish 29th again. It was a great year for our athletic program. We earned more points in the Directors' Cup than last year, and again finished sixth among all Big Ten schools. (Northwestern had never finished higher than 10th among Big Ten schools until our sixth-place finish in 2004-05.) Our finish is especially impressive as we only have 19 sports (most of the top schools in the Cup rankings have 25 or more teams). Congratulations to all our coaches and student-athletes for an outstanding year.
Big Ten Television
The Big Ten Conference held a press conference last week to make two major announcements regarding television. First, the Big Ten announced that it has agreed to extend its agreement with ABC/ESPN for 10 years. Big Ten football and men's basketball games will continue to be the cornerstone of ABC/ESPN's coverage of college sports, and ABC/ESPN has agreed to increase the number of games televised. In addition, the Big Ten announced that it will establish its own channel, the Big Ten Channel, through a partnership with Fox. The Big Ten Channel will carry Big Ten sports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will start in the fall of 2007.
These developments are tremendously positive news for the Big Ten, Northwestern and our athletic department. Commissioner Jim Delany did a masterful job in leading these negotiations. Northwestern President Henry Bienen was actively involved in the negotiations, and deserves special credit for his role in bringing these negotiations to successful conclusions. These two agreements will provide great exposure for the Big Ten and solidify the Big Ten as the leading athletic conference in the country. The increased exposure will be a big help to our coaches in recruiting. The Big Ten Channel will be a great help to our non-revenue sports, providing coverage of events that have rarely been televised in the past. I also think that it will be a big help to our men's and women's basketball teams. Each school also will be provided 60 hours per year for academic programming.
Since the Channel will not start broadcasting until next September, there are many details that need to be worked out about the cable and satellite coverage of the Channel. The biggest question to be determined is where local cable companies will place the Big Ten Channel. Cable companies such as Comcast will have to determine whether to make the Big Ten Channel part of the basic cable package or to place it on a digital sports tier. In the states within the Big Ten footprint, there should be pressure to make the Channel accessible and to place it in the basic cable package. I also think that Fox will be very helpful in this process. They have considerable experience in establishing networks (i.e., Speed Channel, National Geographic Channel) and have strong relationships with cable carriers. In addition, Fox owns Direct TV, the leading satellite TV Company in the country. Direct TV has over 15 million subscribers nationally and will make the Big Ten Channel part of its basic package. This is an exciting time for the Big Ten conference. As things develop with regard to the Big Ten Channel, we will keep our fans up to date.