An amiable session in which the Big Ten and ESPN cleaned up “housekeeping matters” — schedules and announcers — took a nasty turn at the one-hour mark. That’s when talk turned to a contract extension, a negotiating session that went nowhere. Fast.
“The shortest one I ever had,” Delany told the Tribune. “He lowballed us and said: ‘Take it or leave it. If you don’t take our offer, you are rolling the dice.’ I said: ‘Consider them rolled.’ “
Delany had warned ESPN officials that without a significant rights-fee increase, he would try to launch a new channel that would pose competition both for TV viewers and the Big Ten’s inventory of games: the Big Ten Network.
“He threw his weight around,” Shapiro said in a telephone interview, “and said, ‘I’m going to get my big (rights-fee) increase and start my own network.’ Had ESPN stepped up and paid BCS-type dollars, I think we could have prevented the network. In retrospect, that might have been the right thing to do. Jim is making a nice penny on that.”
Said Delany: “If Mark had presented a fair offer, we would have signed it. And there would not be a Big Ten Network.”
Drink up, Disney.
