Big Ten Student Sports Media Will Change Forever
The USC/UCLA will completely change how sports media, particularly in the Big Ten Conference, will change the course for the future of Big Ten Student Sports Media, in positive and negative ways.
The last game I worked at while being a sideline reporter and color commentator for the Big Ten Network Plus crew at Indiana University Bloomington, was a field hockey matchup that might have not meant anything to anyone, and as a matter of fact, with how close the competition was that day between the Hoosiers and Longwood University, even the reporters and videographers I worked with were still exhausted over the exciting, yet close college football game against Western Kentucky University the previous day. All I’m saying was, it was a Sunday morning, in the heat of summer/beginning of fall, and no one wanted to be there.
The match was watched by thousands of people or probably hundreds of people, maybe even around the world who might support field hockey or watch the sport through the Big Ten Plus Network subscription Hoosiers can access it with a free subscription that seems to come and go like the light day whether it is free or not. More on that in a bit. Our crew was full of current and past IU students from the Radio & Television Building assisting with the coverage. To say the least, sweating in a blazer, shirt, and tie, and standing on the field hockey complex was a rewarding experience. My broadcast team consisted of one freshman and one transfer student from, where else, but Western Kentucky University. IU won a low scoring 2–0 affair against the Racers on this beautiful day in late September.
Photo from Big Ten Plus coverage of the Indiana Hoosiers field hockey match vs. Longwood Racers on September 18, 2022. Interview with IU Goalie Arabella Loveridge, in yellow, #7
I interviewed sophomore Arabella Loveridge, whom I covered before the game began as I ranted on for about 2 minutes, with a grouchy producer in my ear telling me to, “Wrap it up,” in my ear, which I did eventually. The experience was worth it on this steamy September day, but I could tell that the future of Big Ten media relations and publications was soon to change due to the vibe one game I worked had over the other.
The experience of doing something other kids in Big Ten media only dream of, even kids in the junior college broadcasting field could only dream of being blessed to work in a Big Ten environment. It’s competitive, front-row-seat action, and highly stressful but also highly rewarding to work in a Power 5 environment.
Sure, I wish we had NIL deals for journalists, but one thing we do get is the experience of working in an environmental space with so many other people that are as smart about broadcasting as I am.
In June 2022, I thought it was a shocking, yet, alarming, yet, an exhilarating feeling to know that the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles were joining the Big Ten Conference starting in the fall of 2024. The expansion would pin the USC Annenberg Media and the UCLA School of Theatre, Television, and Film School against the IU Media School, Ohio State Communications School, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and even Penn State’s Media schools and programs. Not only making us the “cream of the crop” or “the model” for Collegiate broadcasting, media, and journalism, but we would be up there with the elite colleges and universities around the world that could really show the muscle of how America cranks out sports television.
I thought this was just a football thing, and wouldn’t fully affect us as a student body, only on the football field at first, until I learned later how much need the Big Ten has become to other PAC-12 schools such as the University of Oregon who have an independent newspaper company, and an even better athletics program across the pacific coast, but the school is in dire need of two things, money, and recognition. I would also add that since this is about journalism as a whole not about football or athletics, sports have affected all of us as both journalists who follow athletics and media and the athletes getting NIL branding to conquer a quest on the field and earn a buck.
Since the Big Ten on CBS merger last year, who have from time to time hosted Big Ten events other than the Big Ten Basketball Tournament and the NCAA Tournament as they have hosted Big Ten basketball matches from the start of the channel history. I ask myself all the time whether or not this merger would include the small football schools and not just display Ohio State and Michigan for instance. The format intrigues me for a lineup known to have covered SEC football and SEC basketball before February rolls around every year for almost 30 years.
Teams such as Minnesota, Indiana, and Rutgers, I hope are not going to go missing because of the USC/UCLA, expanding Big Ten networking market of the next few years. Let us not forget that we are the most profitable conference in American collegiate athletics, and as more schools move away from a lower-level market to a higher-level market is like having a very tiny FM radio station in Moore, Oklahoma moves up to Seattle, Washington with different watts and a longer hertz. It can be a rewarding task but it doesn’t find a balance because we all know USC as a PAC-12 school, and no one wants to see two teams who competed in the Rose Bowl every year move out east for profit.
This creates even more challenges for student sports media outlets and this also includes the Big Ten Network+ student-run broadcasting and even their partner media channels because if you look at the Indiana Daily Student newspaper and you compare it to the Daily Bruin there is no match to the two of them, but journalistic industries are losing money anyway, and so are weaker markets such as the IDS.
We improve on this by creating journalists to make changes in this ever-changing social media world. The Big Ten is expanding for profit and further entertainment costs, but that doesn’t mean the media schools can die off either.
They can not expand on the new merger, they can grow their products in more ways than one because, again, you have included Hollywood, Sony, Warner Bros. Discovery, and even The Walt Disney Company to be great share holders in finding the next big sportscaster, the next big news anchor, or the next big sideline reporter, to get a great paying job out west with fabulous benefits when they go out to find employment after graduation.
That means that if you’re from a cold school in the winter like Indiana, Ohio State, or Wisconsin, you can find better employment out west and we’re not just talking about California while finding employment. This is the best part of why these two schools are coming out east because the job market could explode in the next 20 years with college graduates going from college to working for a top-named athlete’s social media page or hosting a podcast in a larger western market, even create a startup company.
The Big Ten media sources are changing ever so rapidly with the new expanding ways for outreach and communication not just in sports, but in life as well.
The Big Ten Plus is in a dire future, but with Kevin Warren stepping down from his position to work for the Chicago Bears front office, the time is now to hire someone who cares about media, NIL, and brand recognition now more than ever because, think about it, the possibilities the Big Ten can go to are endless.
The downfall is, how can the Big Ten gain recognition in the smaller schools from the bigger ones. Stations will fall and new ones will rise, but one thing that I have written in every newsletter is to keep journalism alive, and that even includes Big Ten journalism, the best in the land will change forever.
