I can't even express how frustrating this article is to me! The President of the BTN says "we’re available just about everywhere in the United States and Canada". He fails that mention that THOUSANDS of Gophers fans right here in Minnesota are NOT included and have very little access to our favorite football and basketball teams anymore because of the BTN.
Many smaller cable companies in outstate Minnesota do not have the BTN because they are charging the small cable companies more per subscriber to carry the BTN than they charge the large Comcasts of the world. Their entire goal was to get into the big markets, as the President says. To do this, they gave the big boys a big discount. In other words, if you are not in the Top 20 media markets...who cares!! As long as the BTN is available in Los Angeles, Houston, New York and other Big Ten hotbeds it doesn't matter if it's not availabe in Marshall, MN or Fergus Falls, MN (not sure...just an example). Those people in small town MN don't care as much about the Big Ten as our fans in Phoenix do!
You can tell by this article it's all about the number of TV houses, which is kind of a joke. When he says it's available in 70% of the TV homes in America, my question is: in how many of those homes is it on Channel 200 or above? Is it really more important for the BTN to be on Channel 458 in New Orleans than it is for it to be on in Worthington, MN at all?!? I don't think so.
This rosy little article about how great the BTN is with quotes from this smug executive who continues to demand that subsribers of small cable companies in MN pay more to see the Gophers than large company customers do in Memphis put a damper on what had been a great Gopher weekend for this fan!
