UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State women’s volleyball team will have at least eight televised matches during the 2012 season. The Nittany Lions will be featured on the Big Ten Network seven times and also have one match broadcast on ESPN2.
The Big Ten Network’s fall lineup will feature a match each Wednesday and Friday evening through early November. In addition, the BTN has built in two wildcard dates in November allowing the network to select specific matches as teams battle for the Big Ten Championship.
The Nittany Lions open the 2012 home slate hosting the Nike Big Four Volleyball Classic on Aug. 31-Sept. 1 at Rec Hall. Joining the Lions at Rec Hall are Stanford, Florida and Texas. Texas takes on Florida at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 31 before Penn State plays its home opener against Stanford at 8 p.m. The Nittany Lions’ match will air live on BTN.
The women’s volleyball team opens its Big Ten schedule on Wednesday, Sept. 19 when it hosts Nebraska at Rec Hall. The match will air live on the BTN. Penn State’s next match scheduled to appear live on the BTN will be on Friday, Oct. 12 when Purdue visits Rec Hall. Penn State’s match at Ohio State on Oct. 17 and its match at Iowa on Oct. 24 will also be broadcast live on the BTN. The Nittany Lions’ final two matches to air on the BTN include their match at Nebraska on Sunday, Oct. 28 and Minnesota’s trip to Rec Hall on Friday, Nov. 2.
Penn State’s Nov. 4 match with Wisconsin will be aired live on ESPN2 at 2 p.m. It is one of three Big Ten women’s volleyball contests set to be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.
Last season the Nittany Lions had seven matches broadcast on the BTN during the regular season, as well as one match on the ESPN family of networks.
The Big Ten Network is available to more than 80 million homes through agreements with more than 300 cable, satellite and telco providers in all 50 states and Canada. Armstrong, Blue Ridge and Adams Cable, though, do not carry BTN in Pennsylvania and the Medina and Youngstown, Ohio areas. More than 35,000 Penn State alumni live in the communities served by the three cable providers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, in addition to thousands more fans and current Penn State students. Armstrong, Blue Ridge and Adams Cable customers missed more than 110 Penn State events on BTN during the 2011-12 academic year, in addition to coverage from 15 conference championships.
About BTN: A joint venture between the Big Ten Conference and Fox Networks, BTN is the first internationally distributed network dedicated to covering one of the premier collegiate conferences in the country. With more than 800 events, all in HD, the 24/7 network is the ultimate destination for Big Ten fans and alumni across the country, allowing them to see their favorite teams, regardless of where they live. Events include football, men’s and women’s basketball games; dozens of Big Ten Championship events; studio shows; coaches’ shows; and classic games. The network televises and streams more Olympic sporting events and women’s sports than has ever been aired on any other network. Original programming highlights activities and accomplishments of some of the nation’s finest universities. The groundbreaking Student U initiative provides real-world experience for students interested in careers in sports television. The network is available to more than 80 million homes across the United States and Canada, and currently has agreements with more than 300 affiliates, including AT&T U-Verse, Atlantic Broadband, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, DISH Network, Insight, Mediacom, Rogers Cable (Canada), Shaw Cable and Shaw Direct (Canada), Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS. For additional information, go to www.BTN.com.