Texas Reaches 20-Year Deal With ESPN
Dave Curtis - SportingNews.com
Jan 19, 2011
Texas administrators' announcement Wednesday of a still-to-be-named university television network shifts focus to whether any other schools will, or can, follow suit.
ESPN senior vice president Burke Mangus, whose network will own and operate the UT network, said Wednesday he doesn't expect many peer projects.
"I don't think it could be replicated at any other schools very easily, based on their size and scope," he said at a press conference in Austin, Texas.
But company in the single-university network realm could come from a rival. Oklahoma senior associate athletic director Kenny Mossman told Sporting News on Wednesday that the school remains interested in starting its own network down the road.
"We are working on the development of a channel," he said in an e-mail. "We're not yet to the point of an announcement, but we continue to work through the process and are encouraged about our direction."
News of an OU-centric network first went public last June, when athletic director Joe Castiglione told reporters the school's leadership was investigating such a project.
Besides Texas, Oklahoma might be the likeliest school to chase the network option. The combination of dollars, athletic prominence and fan base, both local and national, makes the network conceivable.
Other schools of that profile have elected to go a different route. Ohio State has folded its television possibilities into the Big Ten Network; Florida has tied its multimedia rights into a lucrative deal with IMG.
Texas' deal, which lasts 20 years and is worth up to $300 million, will bring Longhorn athletics unprecedented exposure. The network will exclusively broadcast at least one college football game and eight men's college basketball games each year. Programming also will include pre- and post-game shows before every football and basketball game, as well as every other UT live sporting event, in every sport, not otherwise televised.
In addition, the network plans to broadcast Texas high school football games, perhaps the most popular scholastic sport in the nation. Archived UT games will provide more content, Mangus said.
"Content and programming is what we do," he said. "We think there is more than enough to fill up a 24-7 schedule."
The network will also include broadband and mobile companions to enable greater viewer access.
All together, the network should solidify the UT brand as the strongest in college sports. Now the time comes to see if any school will join it with a network of its own.
"Only at this place, with the people that back this institution, can these type of things happen," UT director of women's athletics Chris Plonsky said at the press conference.
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