Today, the Big Ten Network celebrates its 10th anniversary. In this week's podcast, 'Tatelines: Unedited,' Dave Revsine tells of the moment when Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany gave the project the green light.
Delany, getting nowhere in negotiations with ESPN president Mark Shapiro, said he was going to start his own network instead.
"Mark Shapiro very famously said to him, 'Well that would be a roll of the dice,' " Revsine said. "And Commissioner Delany responsed, 'Consider them rolled.' "
Revsine, an Urbana native whose late father was an accounting prof at the UI, was BTN's first on-air hire and remains the face of the popular network.