The Big Ten is bigger than ever, and that means Big Ten Network is, too.
The network’s coverage of the conference’s men’s basketball tournament this week caps a season in which BTN set a record with 154 men’s basketball games. That included 37 in West Coast prime time, thanks to the additions of UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington.
BTN added broadcast talent and technical staff, Wednesday doubleheaders became tripleheaders and the conference-tournament field grew to 15.
This is big, indeed.
“Other than the founding year of the network, it’s been the most significant year,” BTN president Francois McGillicuddy said. “It’s obviously been about volume. We’re just doing a lot more of everything.”
That continues with the Big Ten quarterfinals Friday from Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where BTN has an on-air crew of 15 set to call and analyze the action.
“This is our Super Bowl,” said BTN lead host Dave Revsine. “These are our most-watched games of the year, particularly those Friday quarterfinals. We’re on all day. Obviously, we understand the NCAA Tournament is to most people a bigger deal than the Big Ten Tournament. But this is our biggest event.”
During the regular season, Revsine’s biggest events were tripleheaders. Since BTN launched in 2007, Revsine has hosted doubleheaders on Wednesdays. On five occasions this season, he hosted tripleheaders, with games tipping off at 5:30, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. He’d sign off after postgame shows past midnight.
“This is the business,” said Revsine, a graduate of Glenbrook North and Northwestern. “When I started at ESPN, I did ESPNews, and our overnight shift started at 12:30 a.m. You would routinely get out of there at 4 o’clock in the morning. The difference is I was 27 years old then, and I’m 55 years old now. But it just is part of the business.”
So is preparing for broadcasts, which became more laborious with four new teams.
“My wife gives me a little grief for the amount of time I spend at the dining-room table preparing,” Revsine said. “For whatever reason, that’s the area that I’ve taken over. It’s all the getting ready for it and preparing information, probably 80% of which you’re never going to use, but you never know what you’re going to need.”
For the network – which is a joint venture between the conference and Fox Sports – that preparation began two years ago, when BTN learned UCLA and USC were joining from the Pac-12. It learned of Oregon and Washington’s move a year later. The network made multiple trips to each campus to meet coaches and staff and explain its role in covering the conference.
“It was really important to us that we have four new passionate fan bases joining the league,” McGillicuddy said, “and we wanted those fan bases to feel like we understood them and that we took their addition seriously. We launched a new studio in the fall and a new graphic look to all of our programming. And then we’ve added a number of new talent.”
Those include broadcasters from the defunct Pac-12 Network, such as analyst and former UCLA star Doug MacLean and play-by-play voice Guy Haberman. When Revsine opened BTN’s second-round pregame show Thursday, he jokingly introduced MacLean as “our chief West Coast correspondent.” Haberman called the first two games Thursday and will do so again Friday.
“One of the things that I always emphasize to our schools is this is a partnership,” Revsine said. “We are there to tell their stories. Obviously, if a team is having a bad year, you’re going to say they’re having a bad year. You have to have credibility with the fans. But it’s different than parachuting in and calling a game. It’s a different feel for it.”
Some of the programming the former Pac-12 schools provide is also different. BTN now has beach volleyball on its schedule, further proof of the changing college landscape.
“We have something like 70 beach-volleyball matches in March and April,” McGillicuddy said. “We had zero last year.”
Remote patrol
The Score will broadcast the Cubs-Dodgers games Tuesday and Wednesday in Tokyo from its booth at Wrigley Field. Pat Hughes, Ron Coomer and Zach Zaidman will have multiple screens and angles supplied by Marquee Sports Network and MLB. The pregame show starts at 4:35 a.m., and the broadcasts will be replayed at 6 p.m. both days. After the game Tuesday, “Mully & Haugh” will broadcast in front of up to 100 listeners in the station’s performance studio.
• The AVP announced national broadcast deals with The CW Network and CBS Sports. The CW, whose local affiliate is WGN, will air “AVP Saturday Nights” from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. CBS will air the AVP championship Aug. 31 from Chicago.
• The Stars’ season opener Friday at Orlando will air on Prime Video. Kickoff is 7 p.m.