The Big Ten Network and CBSSports.com's College Network yesterday announced a new partnership to create the Big Ten Digital Network, which will bring the official athletics websites for the Big Ten Conference, its member schools and BTN under one umbrella. The newly redesigned and launched BTN.com serves as the hub for the new Big Ten Digital Network. The Big Ten Digital Network will enable greater content sharing, particularly video, across all websites. BTN will gain additional ad inventory across all sites and will provide more than 500 exclusive non-televised events to the official athletics websites’ multimedia subscription services (BTN).
COVER TWO: The DAILY VARIETY’s Sam Thielman noted Velocity is partnering with the NFL on "NFL Single Coverage" and "Greatest NFL Rivalries," set to air tomorrow at 8:00pm and 8:30pm ET, respectively. The two shows are “produced by NFL Films in association with Intersport and the network.” "Single Coverage" will explore key NFL games in depth; "Rivalries" will follow teams and athletes “through the heat of competition.” The net “has ordered eight episodes of each” (VARIETY.com, 9/19).
NOTES: In Oklahoma City, Mel Bracht reported Cox Communications “has launched three On Demand channels” for the Univ. of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State Univ. and Tulsa football teams. Cox Oklahoma will “produce the majority of the content, which is available free to digital customers in the FreeZone” (NEWSOK.com, 9/16).... St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters Bill Coats and Ron Cobb are retiring from the paper. Coats covered the Univ. of Missouri and the Rams and retired Saturday “after nearly 34 years.” Cobb was the Blues' beat writer and covered tennis, and in “the final phase of his 31-year run at the paper Cobb moved to the copy desk” (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 9/17)....SI.com’s Peter King reported the NFL Network has hired the Miami Herald's Jeff Darlington. King: “I think the NFL Network made a great hire. ... He’ll be a difference-maker nationally the way he was in South Florida” (SI.com, 9/19).
