BTN to provide live coverage of Big Ten media days

CHICAGO - BTN and BTN2Go will provide more than five hours of live coverage of Big Ten Football Media Days, beginning at 10:30 a.m ET Monday. Coverage includes the press conferences of all 14 Big Ten head football coaches and remarks from BTN President Mark Silverman, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and College Football Playoff Chief Operating Officer Michael Kelly. The press conferences and remarks will re-air beginning at 7 p.m. ET that evening.

On Wednesday, July 30, BTN will air a Kickoff Luncheon Special at 7 p.m. ET followed by The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation at 9 p.m. ET. The show?s title comes from a new book written by BTN lead studio host Dave Revsine, who spent the majority of his free time over the last four years poring through microfilm and university archives and conducting original research on football?s early days to put the issues the sport faces today in context. Revsine will be joined in studio by Yahoo.com sportswriter Pat Forde, BTN analyst and former Ohio State quarterback Stanley Jackson, author John Bacon and college football historian Ron Smith to discuss how football became America?s most popular and controversial sport, the notion of amateurism, rules and how they relate to injuries, and media coverage.

Revsine?s book hits newsstands Tuesday.

About BTN: A joint venture between the Big Ten Conference and Fox Networks, BTN is the first internationally distributed network dedicated to covering one of the premier collegiate conferences in the country. With more than 800 events, all in HD, the 24/7 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. BTN2Go is the 24/7 simulcast of BTN that delivers live and on-demand programming via the internet, smartphones and tablets to customers of participating video providers. Events include football, men?s and women?s basketball games; dozens of Big Ten Olympic sports and championship events; studio shows; and classic games. Original programming highlights activities and accomplishments of some of the nation?s finest universities. The groundbreaking Student U initiative provides real-world experience for students interested in careers in sports television. The network is in more than 52 million homes across the United States and Canada, including carriage by all the major video distributors, such as DIRECTV, DISH, Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-Verse, Charter Communications, Comcast Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Mediacom, RCN, WOW!, Rogers Cable, Shaw and Shaw Direct (Canada) and approximately 300 additional video providers across North America. For additional information, go to www.BTN.com.