I love Ivy League sports. I really do. Although I think the league gets less respect than it deserves, I know that they’ll never be the Big Ten—even if a powerhouse like Cornell (hey, I’m biased) continues to excel at the national level in sports like Hockey, Lacrosse, Wrestling, and even Basketball. I didn’t realize how big Big Ten sports were until I walked around Chicago on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. The Ohio State bar is packed with Ohio State fans, and the Michigan bar is packed with Michigan fans. Everyone is dressed in their school’s colors—and these are people hundreds of miles away from their schools and many years away from graduation. I guess that’s why there’s the Chicago based Big Ten Network, a television station devoted to everything Big Ten. While I’m watching grainy online streaming video of Cornell Hockey with my laptop hooked up to my tv, Big Ten fans can watch their favorite team—often in HD.
The Big Ten Network was launched just over 2 years ago as “a joint venture between subsidiaries of the Big Ten Conference and Fox Cable Networks,” and it’s allowed the Big Ten to gain significant control and leverage in terms of media distribution. Not only do they now have more control over their advertising revenue (they prohibit alcohol and gambling ads), but they also get to bring more attention to Women’s sports and sports other than basketball and football. As they put it:
Eleven schools, 252 varsity teams, one great network to cover it all. Welcome to the Big Ten Network, your ultimate source for Big Ten sports, featuring the games, passion and tradition of the nation’s foremost athletic conference.
Obviously the Big Ten is the first to make a move like this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see more and more athletic conferences take more control over the moneymaker that is televised college sports. If you’d like to get on board and be part of the Big Ten Network as an intern, you need to check out their Careers page—or you can just skip ahead to the Fox job search function where the Big Ten Network’s jobs and internships are listed. If you select Big Ten Network as the company, you’ll see all of the internship openings that they have available. Right now they have opportunities that include Communications Intern, On-Campus Intern, Production Intern, Marketing Intern, and Programming Intern. There’s no word on whether any of these positions are paid or not. You can apply online for any of these internships, and you should keep your eye out for more postings from the Big Ten Network in the future.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
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Tags: communications, football, Illinois, Internships, marketing, production, sports, television
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