Hey this is Brad Snook. I know it's not my week, but I saw this article and I thought it was appropriate. The University of Texas is flirting with the idea of launching their own TV channel to broadcast solely Longhorn sports. This would be very controversial to cable and satellite companies. The Big Ten Conference recently launched it's own TV channel, and after a year long battle, most of the major cable companies just recently started delivering the Big Ten Network as part of the cable package. Having its own TV channel is a way of colleges to make massive amounts of money by controlling the broadcast rights to all its athletic events. However, this could also mean higher cable bills for the consumers. Also this brings into question ethics. Should one certain school, or of the trend continues a handful of the laargest schools, have their own sports channels while the smallers schools get priced out of the market? It will be interesting to see where this goes.
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/59883
Longhorn TV: Will it hook ’em?
By MICHAEL SMITH & JOHN OURAND
Print This StoryStaff writers
One of cable’s worst nightmares could become a reality in the Lone Star State, where the University of Texas is exploring the viability of a statewide TV channel devoted to Longhorn sports.
Texas and its multimedia rights partner, IMG College, have been in discussions with prospective partners, while also trying to determine how much content it could produce and how widely it might be distributed.
“We’re not just researching it, we’re diligently exploring this opportunity,” said Chris Plonsky, Texas’ women’s athletic director and the athletic department’s marketing chief. “This is not a file sitting around gathering dust. Could it be a linear channel, should we increase the online TV offerings for our Web site? We’re looking across all platforms.”
This comes on the heels of the Big Ten Network finalizing deals with the top cable operators in its market just last week.
During carriage battles with conference networks, like BTN, cable executives often complained about a slippery slope that could see individual colleges launch networks. Cable operators say they don’t have the space or the money to account for those kinds of channels.
“Inevitably, the more networks that are created, the higher the cost to consumers,” said David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, in an interview earlier this summer about sports channels in general.
But Texas is considering becoming the first school to launch its own network as soon as next August. It would exclusively carry Texas sports, coaches shows, highlights, interviews, magazine feature shows, replays and an archive of old games.
If they move forward with a channel, IMG officials will push to be part of a digital basic tier, though they would not say how many homes they would want to be in.
“[It’s] a moving target, depending on subscription rates [that] partners are willing to pay us,” said Tom Stultz, senior vice president and managing director of IMG College. “We’re not going to come out if we’re going to have limited distribution.”
base would help its chances for success.
Texas has had talks with AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Fox Cable Networks, as well as a variety of private equity firms, about partnering on the channel.
For the channel to succeed, it’s critical to get Time Warner Cable on board, since it reaches 1.8 million subscribers, about a quarter of the homes in Texas, and it covers Austin, home of the Longhorns. Time Warner Cable was one of the longest to hold out against carriage of the Big Ten Network, before it finally signed on last week.
Still, some TV network executives predicted that a Texas channel would be a tough sell in today’s climate.
“The school’s best product is already spoken for,” said one media industry source who asked not to be identified since he has negotiated with the University of Texas in the past. “They’re talking about starting a channel with filler, and distributors are not going to go for it.”
Texas could be one of the few schools that could pull off its own channel because of its immense appeal across the state and its huge base of students and alumni. The Longhorns have ranked first in licensed merchandise sales among clients of the Collegiate Licensing Co. for three straight years, which speaks to its popularity.
About 50,000 students attend the school and it counts another 420,000 as living alumni. The Longhorns tout that they have 5 million fans in the state, and 48.4 percent of them have an annual household income of more than $75,000.
“This isn’t something that works for every school,” Stultz said, “but Texas is such a huge brand and there are so many households in the state that we need to see if there is a distribution model that works.”
IMG and Texas have identified between 2,000 and 3,000 hours of potential programming. They also are exploring Texas’ right to run replays of games that are broadcast on Big 12 Conference partners ABC/ESPN and Fox Cable.
But a media industry source openly wondered whether that content was compelling enough to launch a channel.
“After ESPN and Fox make their basketball and football selections, the pickings are slim,” he said. “The leftovers are more suited for video-on-demand, not a linear TV network.”
Texas already has a VOD channel up and running, having launched BEVO-D with Time Warner Cable in 2004. Time Warner carries the channel in four Texas markets, charging $3.95 per month, and offers classic games, highlights and exclusive interviews, as well as a Longhorn Sports Center show.
Texas is also part of a growing trend of broadcasting Olympic sports and other content on its athletic Web site, Texassports.com, so many of its athletic events are already being produced for some medium.
If the channel materializes, a studio likely would be built on campus close to the football stadium and an estimated 40 to 60 employees would produce and edit content from there. Revenue would be shared among the entities involved, but the university would be protected from the risk of any financial losses, Stultz said, because IMG College and a channel partner would take on any risk.
“Production is the easy part, it’s always the distribution,” Plonsky said. “But could this be the right next step, given where our brand is? It’s a very important discussion for us right now.”
2 comments:
I find this article very interesting, but not surprising coming on the heels of the Big Ten Network deals being finalized. I think that some people saw the opportunities arise with the long, but successful campaign of the Big Ten Network. The next question, though, is one that will determine what happens in the future with Longhorn TV. Can it sell? I don't know, but I do know that it is much harder to convince network executives to buy into ONE school as opposed to an array of schools. Not to mention the fact that many of the biggest, most widely-viewed Texas games will be picked up by ESPN, Fox, CBS, or some other network. I guess the network would be more valuable for the other sports besides football and basketball, that aren't aired as often on network television. But in terms of fans who want to see the most important games, they won't need the network. However, the article argues that the tremendous fan base in Texas and with their alums throughout the country could provide all that they need in terms of viewership. While I don't know if this is true, I do know that Texas would be a school that could potentially pull that off. They are national contenders in nearly every sport, every single year. Yet, I still don't know if they can pull off the deals that the Big Ten Network made.
I agree, Texas is one of the largest, if not the largest school in the nation and like you said they are national contenders in nearly every sport and have a huge fanbase. The University of Texas at Austin is also one of the best media production schools in the country as well, ranking up there with UCLA, USC, and NYU. I would say that if any one individual school could pull this off, this would be the school to do it.
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