Blog: August 22, 2011

Lights, Camera ... Cash

By Patrick Bohn

The shifting college football landscape has affected more than conference alignments. A spate of new television deals for conferences as well as individual teams has introduced new revenue streams into the game and, in some cases, threatened to tip the balance of power between schools. In this blog, we take a look at some of the new deals.

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The saying "Everything's bigger in Texas" is appropriate when discussing the Longhorn Network, an ESPN-owned station devoted to coverage of the University of Texas's teams. The network is scheduled to debut on August 26, but the scope of the coverage has raised some questions in the NCAA.

The main concern is the airing of high school football games on the network. The Big 12 has already announced that high schools won't have their games televised on the network this upcoming season. The NCAA has a meeting on August 22 discussing, among other things, the presence of high school games on Texas's--and other--networks.

The Pac 12, which is entering the first season of a massive TV deal, has said that if other networks are allowed to carry high school games, its network will as well.

Kansas State is starting its own digital network, K-StateHD.TV, an online video streaming service that will show over 100 events, mainly non-televised home volleyball, baseball, and women's basketball games that were previously untelevised, as well as one football game.

"We have a very distinctive and unique partnership with our university community and as we began putting together the pieces of this project, it became very clear that we had something special in the works that would provide us with an international platform to showcase our brand to our fans," said Kansas State Athletics Director John Currie in a press release.

These moves aren't limited to schools however, as several conferences look to follow the Big Ten's and Pac 12's lead and carve out deals for themselves. For the Big East, a TV deal may not be quite as sweet. There's some speculation that a possible deal could cause some Big East teams to look to a new conference. It's also possible that the deal could lead to expansion, as the conference looks to add enough members to host a conference championship game in football.

Football's not the only sport getting in on the action. College hockey may soon have a deal of its own. Television network Versus, which is re-branding as the NBC Sports Network, has been negotiating with all five NCAA Division I conferences to air games this upcoming season. Versus already has a strong hockey presence, having aired NHL games since the lockout ended in 2005.

The Southern Conference is continuing its online presence, recently agreeing to a four-year extension with ESPN3.com. The deal includes at least 45 live regular season and conference championship games per year.

"This agreement marks a significant step for the Southern Conference," conference commissioner John Iamarino told The Chattanoogan. "We have never had as many events available to as wide an audience."

Patrick Bohn is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.