Little Ten

What the hell happened to college football?

Notre Dame stinks. The Big Ten sucks. No one in the Top 10 seemingly wants to remain undefeated. Even Penn State football has scofflaws on the team now. And what the heck is a Nittany anyway?

They've also started a Big Ten Network that freaking no one gets. Here in Michigan, the Big Ten Network made a big deal that they'd finally signed an agreement with the 11th largest cable provider in the state. I'm sure that deal really made all 17 people who now get the Big Ten Network really happy.

See the Big Ten Network is arguing with the cable providers about where the channel should be. You can see the Big Ten games if you have a dish. But if you live here in the Great Grey North where there are trees and snow piled higher than your roof, you're stuck with cable. The BTN is telling the cable providers that they want to be part of the Basic Package and not stuck on some premium sports tier. I think they just want a better channel number. There's probably some marketing geek who is determined that the Big Ten is going to be on channel 10 and not 427.

Both sides are going back and forth with lots of swell PR wizardry. But while they're dicking around with sword fights and sabre rattling, I'm not getting to see the alma mater play ball. Badly, as it turns out. The first rule of sword fight club? Don't talk about sword fight club.

I'm not sure whom I hate the most. I definitely hate them both. And it would be terrible if someone found out where Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman lived and Charter Communications founder and current Chairman of the Board Paul Allen and put a big heaping pile of poo on their door step. That would be a travesty.

I'm sure this will all play out soon and the fine folks at the Big Ten who somehow can't even count how many teams are in the league and are stuck in a 20 year agreement with Fox whom all the cable companies hate and the fine folks at Charter who have a stock that's trading almost three dollars a share on the Nasdaq will work all this acrimony out. Because they've got our best interests at heart.

If this isn't settled by the time basketball season is here, expect some gun play.