Breaking News: Big Ten Network/Comcast Strike Deal

This afternoon following months of bickering, The Big Ten Network and Comcast announced the cable giant would carry the year-old sports channel. From the Big Ten Network'spress release:

"Under the terms of the agreement, Comcast will initially launch the network as part of its expanded basic level of service to promote it to the majority of its customers residing in states with Big Ten universities (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, with the exception of the Philadelphia region which will launch on a broadly distributed digital level of service) starting August 15th. (Comcast does not have systems in Iowa, the eighth Big Ten state.) In Spring 2009, Comcahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifst may elect to move the network to a broadly distributed digital level of service in most of its systems in these states. Comcast's digital customers in the Big Ten states will also have immediate access to live Big Ten games and events in high definition, Big Ten programming via Comcast's video-on-demand platform, and a wide array of conference-related content through Comcast.net."

Later I'll let you know what I think about this.