Last Wednesday the Big Ten Conference announced two media agreements that will provide the conference with its greatest amount of media exposure ever.

Announced by Big Ten Commissioner James Delany, the conference signed a new 10-year contract with ABC and ESPN and also made a breakthrough deal with Fox Cable Networks to create the first ever Big Ten Channel.

“The combination of the new ABC/ESPN agreement and the formation of the Big Ten Channel now gives us the opportunity to nationally televise a greater number of football and men’s basketball games, as well as produce unprecedented coverage of our Olympic sports,” wrote Ron Guenther, Illinois athletic director, in a letter to Illini fans.

The new deal with ABC and ESPN includes a large increase in the amount of coverage of football, men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball.

The ABC and ESPN contract will take effect starting August 2007, and the Big Ten Channel is expected to launch at the same time.

Close to 41 Big Ten football games will be aired on ABC and the ESPN networks, and all regional afternoon football games that are televised on ABC will be televised by ESPN and ESPN2 in outer-markets to make the games nationally available.

In addition to the increase coverage of Big Ten football, approximately 60 men’s basketball games will be televised on ESPN’s family of networks. Games will be aired each Tuesday and Thursday of the nine-week conference season and up to eight Saturday games will be shown during conference play.

ESPN’s family of networks have agreed to show 100 women’s basketball and volleyball events, including the championship games of the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament.

“We are thrilled to continue our unmatched relationship with the conference for another decade,” George Bodenheimer, President of ESPN Inc. and ABC Sports, said in a press release. “This agreement, among the most expansive ever, reinforces our position as the number one college sports destination and serves the ever-evolving appetites of fans by providing premier Big Ten action.”

The new Big Ten Channel will be a national television network devoted to all Big Ten athletic and academic programs that will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

It will showcase a wide variety of sports as well as original programming produced by the conference’s 11 schools.

The Big Ten Channel will carry many of the same games and events previously available only through private channels.

The new channel plans to air 35-plus football games, at least 160 regular-season men’s and women’s basketball games, 170 Olympic sporting events such as swimming and diving, gymnastics, wrestling and tennis.

“The Big Ten Channel will provide our conference the ability to strengthen both its brand and its long term destiny as one of the leading academic and athletic conferences in the nation,” Delany said in the press release. “We anticipate this will create enormous opportunities for journalism, film and other academic programs and provide the ability to highlight academic achievement throughout the universities.”

The Big Ten Channel’s first affiliate, DIRECTV, will provide the Channel to its Total Choice Package subscribers and many events will be produced in high definition television.

“We encourage Illinois fans in the coming months to contact local cable providers to show your support of The Big Ten Channel,” Guenther said in his letter. “We know the formation of the Big Ten Channel will give fans more opportunities to watch Illinois sports and allow for extensive exposure of our highly successful athletic programs,” he said.