Couch: Everyone loses if Big Ten Network, Comcast don't strike a deal – fans especially

“I’ll drop Comcast so fast …”

There was no hesitation, no other reasonable solution, no need to hear the other side. No sympathy for the telecom conglomerate on one side of a fight that threatens to take away Michigan State and Big Ten football.

A friend last weekend asked what was happening in the negotiations between Comcast Corporation and Big Ten Network, whether the cable giant — and primary cable provider in most Big Ten Markets, including Lansing — might drop BTN from its Xfinity cable channel offerings just as college football season begins. I didn’t have an answer then.

And so, as my friend rested on the floor after a game of pick-up basketball, he unleashed his frustration and worry. 

I empathize. When I hear of these sort of disputes, the 11-year-old in me rages. I think about Detroit Lions games being blacked out and begging my father to take us to a sports bar. I see big business callously ruining football season — and thus my life — and I resent everyone involved. The programmers, too. 

No one wins if Comcast and Big Ten Network don’t strike a deal before their 10-year contract expires on Aug. 31. Comcast, this country’s largest cable provider, alienates a customer base that is already seeing friends and neighbors cut the cord on traditional cable. The Big Ten’s influence on a changing media landscape begins to look vulnerable. And fans, at the very least, are inconvenienced. 

“You need the large distributors to carry your network so the viewers can ultimately see it,” Big Ten Network president Mark Silverman said Tuesday. “The risk is just being able to keep a robust network that Big Ten fans can watch and follow their teams.”

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BTN is asking for a significant increase in the fee to carry its programming, according to the folks at Comcast. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, cable subscriptions aren’t exactly on the rise — falling a reported 3.4 percent throughout the industry last year alone. Silverman points out that every other major cable entity has renewed its deal multiple times since BTN launched in 2007. The decade-long deal with Comcast, reached in 2008, was unusually long.

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Big Ten football fans might be a drop in the bucket to Comcast, which is worth about $147 billion. But Comcast is about to lose plenty of them — me included — if the two sides don’t come to an agreement. If I can’t fire up BTN on my television, phone and laptop as part of my ridiculously overpriced but unbelievably convenient cable subscription, I’m out. I’ll either join the increasing mass of cord-cutters or go with another bundled cable or cable-like option.

Because while BTN might be overshooting its worth to Comcast, Comcast, I think, is underestimating the worth of Big Ten football and basketball to consumers in Big Ten country, where Comcast the primary provider in 10 of 14 markets. Comcast is only a means to an end in this world. College football and hoops are hugely important parts of that end to many people. BTN and Fox Sports 1 — which is also part of this mess — are our direct college football suppliers. We have no other choice. They run the corner. Comcast, however, thrives on our willingness to pay a premium for convenience. As soon as that’s disrupted, there isn’t much point in having cable in 2018. There are other ways to watch BTN (in the Midwest especially). 

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Comcast also won’t air Big Ten games on FS1 if a deal isn’t reached. Comcast paid a surcharge to carry Big Ten games on FS1. That separate contract also expired and a renewal is tied to these negotiations. In all, about 60 Big Ten football games are hanging in the balance, slated for BTN or FS1 this season.

This spat won’t affect games on ABC, ESPN or Fox. Those are part of the the Big Ten’s Tier 1 TV contract, which is set to pay each of its schools more than $50 million this year. 

Here’s the good news:

“We usually get these kind of deals done,” said Comcast vice president of financial communications John Demming. “Out of thousands of agreements, we’ve only dropped two, one major network, the Yankees network, which is YES.”

And now the bad:

Comcast and YES came to terms after more than a year and one full Yankees season (2016) unavailable to almost a million customers in three surrounding states.

So do your research now — beyond DirecTV, DISH Network and other cable outlets, there are internet-based television options that carry BTN such as YouTube TV, Hulu, PlayStation Vue and FuboTV, which might fit your needs. There are strengths and weaknesses with each.

As another friend told me this week, once you give up traditional cable, you won’t miss it. 

For many of us, we’re less than three weeks from finding out.

“At least we’re talking now,” Silverman said Tuesday. “I’m still concerned. Football season is a couple weeks away. We have a lot of work to do.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.