College Football Kickoff 2021: Big Ten Network Is Eager for Return of Fans, Launch of Onsite Tailgate Show Plans call for investment in production quality, fan experience By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, September 2, 2021 - 8:53 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
For the past two seasons, the Big Ten Network has been the No. 2 cable network in terms of college-football ratings, so it's no surprise that it continues to invest in upping production quality and viewer experience. After a 2020 season marked by constant pivots, the production team is looking forward (hopefully) to schedules that don't change and more. New tech, a new studio, and new approaches to pregame shows will make a difference.
Michael Calderon, SVP, programming and digital media, Big Ten Network, was at the center of handling all the schedule changes last year.
I am looking forward to hopefully having zero football games canceled or postponed this year as someone whose livelihood depends on planning and scheduling the sports calendar in the Big Ten, he says. It's a giant jigsaw puzzle trying to make all the pieces fit.
A new studio show set will offer a variety of looks for different shows and segments.
Mark Hulsey, SVP, production and executive producer, Big Ten Network, says that the team is also looking forward to the return of fans to college football stadiums.
Last year, we successfully navigated the toughest production year in our careers, he says. We're hoping that this year is easier. It was very difficult to cover live events last year in empty stadiums. We just had a production called this morning, and we're calling it the celebration of the return to full stadiums.
As for production changes, Hulsey says the network will use Skycams for more of the marquee events, including the big Week 1 matchup between No. 17 Indiana and No. 18 Iowa. We're excited about that.
A Megalodon shallow-depth-of-field rig has been added to the Big Ten Network production arsenal. According to Hulsey, it will be used on the eight-game football package and other marquee events, such as basketball tournaments and Olympic-sport championships.
To me, he says, it's like when we transitioned from SD to HD: we thought it couldn't get better than this. And then you watch the Megalodon, and it is far better than even an HD signal. Anything that can give the viewer the sense that they are standing on the field and enhance the telecast the better. And I think that camera does that, and everybody looks at it as a game-changer.
The Megalodon will also be used for the weekly onsite B1G Tailgate show. We think it will have a big impact, Hulsey says, and we're hoping that, as time goes on, we can add more cameras.
Mobile TV Group will once again provide the facilities for the majority of the network's shows requiring trucks. Other events will be produced at-home, a workflow the network has deployed for 12 years.
We're really, really proud of that, says Hulsey. Last year, the at-home model was a necessity for us. We don't look at at-home productions as different from regular truck shows because we have such terrific facilities in Chicago. We also have robust connectivity to all the campuses.
Big Ten Network will produce more than 560 live events for television this year, he says, adding that it is important that gold-star events see continued investment in new technologies.
The Skycams are real game-changers for us, and we're always pushing for more super-slo-mo, Hulsey says. We're fortunate that we're given very good resources from our partners at Fox. It's a huge advantage for us as Fox helps us tremendously when it comes to a lot of our arrangements with vendors. We appreciate that every day.
The Tailgate show isn't a new technology, but it does bring new flexibility. The goal, says Hulsey, is to offer a two-hour Saturday-morning show that gets fans ready for a long day and night of college football.
We want to showcase the energy that you just can't replicate from campus settings as all of our campuses are just electric, he explains. We're going to get away from the traditional desk and have a mini playing field where I want people standing and interacting with fans. It's loose. It's more fun. It's more Saturday-morning. It's more collegiate.
The onsite presence will be complemented with a studio presence from Chicago, with the mix of onsite and studio determined on a week-to-week basis.
It's going to be a combination of a studio-based show and a live-event presence onsite with a regular co-host, says Hulsey. We'll take it week by week as to whether more of the show comes from the studio. For example, if you have bad weather and don't anticipate a bigger crowd, more of the show will come from the studio. But I think the product is always better when you're onsite.
Not having a desk, he adds, allows the host and co-host to interact with the fans in a more personal way. We're going to give the X's and O's and the regular content because we know the Big 10 better than anybody. But it will be a little more of a loose style. With a desk, it's a little harder to do that.
Beyond Football The Big Ten Network is about more than football, and Calderon will be hard at work building on a strategy that ties the football games with volleyball.
It's not only the size of the audience for volleyball but the demographics, he says. It has the youngest audience for an event that we televise. It's an exciting television product, it's really athletic, and the Big Ten excels at it.
The network has worked hard to grow the sport, and, with volleyball back to being a fall sport, there is a chance to go straight from a football game to a volle
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
College Football Kickoff 2021: Big Ten Network Is Eager for Return of Fans, Launch of Onsite Tailgate Show Plans call for investment in production quality, fan experience By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
