• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, October 13, 2006

One of the nation's top collegiate athletic conferences said Thursday that its eponymous cable channel will be branded the Big Ten Network. Scheduled to debut next August, the joint venture with Fox Cable Networks is launching a mobile tour this week to increase awareness and drum up interest.

The channel is part of an emerging trend of athletic conferences aiming to boost revenues by creating their own networks. The Mountain West Conference has formed the mtn. in association with CSTV, and more are expected to follow.

The Big Ten Network is notable for its refusal to accept alcohol advertising, a massive category in sports television--including on collegiate broadcasts where many of the participants aren't old enough to drink. The 24-hour channel will carry conference football and basketball games as well as other sports and some ancillary programming produced by the 11 member schools.

The mobile tour kicks off this weekend with a visit to Penn State for the Michigan football game, and will continue throughout the season.

The network will capitalize on its partnership with Fox Cable to gain distribution in more than 15 million homes on DirecTV--since, like Fox, the satellite service is part of News Corp. The Big Ten Network also has a distribution deal with AT&T's telco TV service.

Its goal at launch is to be fully distributed on MSOs in the eight states with Big Ten teams, but the DirecTV deal already makes it available nationally.

The network is one of two new cable channels News Corp. plans to launch next year, with the other being the Fox Business Channel. News Corp.'s goal is to use its built-in 15-million home distribution on DirecTV to launch one new channel a year.

Fox Cable and the Big Ten (which is the majority owner) have a 20-year deal for the channel.