Aug. 11, 2010
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; August 11, 2010 - For the fourth straight year, Dave Revsine, Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith will travel nearly 3,000 miles during a 15-day stretch to bring fans an hour-long, on-site preview show from every Big Ten campus on the Big Ten Football Preview Tour. This year, fans will be able to follow the tour online, with a behind-the-scenes look at the tour on the network's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages.
The Big Ten Icons bus pulled into State College Tuesday night and today the Network was at the Nittany Lions' practice, as the first week of pre-season camp concluded. The studio team spoke with head coach Joe Paterno, as well as quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, junior defensive end Jack Crawford (Longport, N.J.), junior wide receiver Derek Moye (Rochester) and senior guard Stefen Wisniewski (Bridgeville) for the Penn State Football Preview Show.
The Penn State Football Preview Show will debut on Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 8:00 p.m. on the Big Ten Network as the centerpiece event of nine consecutive hours of Nittany Lion Football programming that night. The network will air Penn State's 2006 FedEx Orange Bowl win over Florida State at 6:00 p.m., followed by the debut of the Preview Show.
At 9:00 p.m., Penn State's dramatic win over LSU in the 2010 Capital One Bowl will air on BTN, followed at 11:00 p.m. by a re-airing of the Preview Show. At 12:00 a.m., the Nittany Lions' historic 2001 win over Ohio State will air on the network, followed by the Preview Show at 2:00 a.m.
The Penn State Football Preview Show also will re-air on Big Ten Network on Thursday, August 19 at 5:00, 8:00 and 11:00 a.m., as well as 5:00 p.m. At 2:00 p.m., the NIttany Lions' 1983 Sugar Bowl win over Georgia for the national championship will air on the network.
The Big Ten Network televised more than 500 athletic events in 2009-10, including more than 100 events featuring Penn State. The network is available to approximately 75 million homes through agreements with more than 300 cable, satellite and telco providers in all 50 states and Canada.
The Big Ten Network, though, is not carried by Adams, Blue Ridge and MetroCast cable in Pennsylvania. The network also is not available to Armstrong Cable customers in western Pennsylvania and suburban Youngstown, Ohio. A combined total of more than 35,000 Penn State alumni live in communities served by the four cable providers, in addition to thousands more fans and current Penn State students.
The Nittany Lions' football season opener with Youngstown State (Sept. 4) will air exclusively on the network and will be the first of the more than 100 Penn State events that will air on the Big Ten Network in 2010-11. Additional football games will air exclusively on the network this fall, in addition to the women's volleyball, soccer and field hockey events announced in July.
The first Big Ten football preview show will air at 8:00 p.m. ET on Aug. 16 from Indiana University. All 11 preview shows will debut at 8:00 p.m., with the final program on Aug. 30. Additional football preview content will be available at BigTenNetwork.com.
"As the calendar turns to August, the excitement for football season is at a fever pitch and the Big Ten Football Preview Tour is a great way to give fans an early glimpse of their favorite teams and rivals," Big Ten Network Mark Silverman said.
Preview shows will include interviews with head coaches, coordinators and selected returning players to measure each team's progress for the quickly approaching 2010 regular season.
Revsine, DiNardo, Griffith and the Big Ten Network production crew will travel across the conference's eight states in a customized, chartered bus. The bus will be branded with logos and air times for the network's new show Big Ten Icons, hosted by Keith Jackson. Big Ten Icons will debut on Saturday, Sept. 18, and air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
The television schedule for the Big Ten Football Preview Tour is listed below:
| Aug. 16, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Indiana Hoosiers |
| Aug. 17, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Ohio State Buckeyes |
| Aug. 18, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Penn State Nittany Lions |
| Aug. 19, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Michigan Wolverines |
| Aug. 20, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Michigan State Spartans |
| Aug. 23, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Illinois Fighting Illini |
| Aug. 24, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Purdue Boilermakers |
| Aug. 25, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Northwestern Wildcats |
| Aug. 26, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Iowa Hawkeyes |
| Aug. 27, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Minnesota Golden Gophers |
| Aug. 30, 8 PM ET | Big Ten Football Preview: Wisconsin Badgers |
About the Big Ten Network: The Big Ten Network is the first internationally distributed network dedicated to covering one of the premier collegiate conferences in the country. With approximately 400 live events, and nearly all of them in HD, the network is the ultimate destination for Big Ten fans and alumni across the country, allowing them to see their favorite teams, regardless of where they live. The network operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, showcasing a wide array of classic-to-current sports and televising more Olympic sporting events and women's sports than has ever been aired on any other network. Original programming highlights activities and accomplishments of some of the nation's finest universities. Each year, the network offers between 35 and 40 football games, 105 regular season men's basketball games; 55 women's basketball games; dozens of Big Ten Championship events; studio shows; coaches' shows; and classic games.
Available to all cable and satellite providers nationwide and in Canada, the network currently has agreements with more than 300 affiliates, including DIRECTV, DISH Network, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, Atlantic Broadband, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, CATV Service, Inc., Charter, Comcast, Cox Communications (Cleveland, Omaha, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Las Vegas), Insight, Mediacom, Midcontinent, Nittany Media, RCN, Rogers Cable, Canada), Service Electric, Shaw Cable and Shaw Direct (Canada), Time Warner Cable, Western Broadband, Windstream and WOW.