The 2024 Summer Olympics begin this week in Paris. USC is a giant in the history of the Summer Olympic Games, with a medal count which would place the Trojans in the all-time top 20 if the school was considered its own independent country. How can USC fans keep tabs on volleyball and other Olympic sports in the Big Ten? John Canzano, at his Substack (subscription required), talked to Francois McGillicuddy, the president of Big Ten Network, about following Olympic sports on the Big Ten’s primary streaming service, B1G Plus:
We’re projected to produce more than 600 linear television events this upcoming year, and somewhere between 50-60 percent of that inventory will feature Olympic sports. Last year, we set network all-time single-event viewership records in women’s volleyball, women’s soccer, and women’s gymnastics, so the prospect of adding the caliber of Olympic programs we see at these schools has tremendous appeal.
At the same time, this will be an area of change for fans. Because we offer a single linear network, with finite broadcast windows and 18 schools to cover, B1G+ acts as a complementary streaming platform and is home to a sizeable amount of Olympic sports coverage. On that note, we are planning to work with schools and their fan bases in this first year to sample the B1G+ product at either complimentary or deeply discounted rates.
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