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SBD/Issue 14/Sports Media
Univ. Of Texas AD Says TV Network Will Be In Place Next Fall
Published September 30, 2010
|Texas AD Says Network Was
Only An Option In Big 12
Univ. of Texas AD DeLoss Dodds said there is "lots of interest" in the school creating its own TV network, according to Brad Townsend of the DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Dodds said, "It'll probably be in place, hard start, in the Fall of 2011. We're talking to two or three different entities. It's been very encouraging. It think it's the right thing for us to do. We can only do it in the Big 12. We couldn't have done it in the Pac-10." Dodds added, "If you look at it financially, it's going to be positive. If you look at it for recruiting, it'll be positive." When asked about distribution for the network, Dodds said, "We're going to get it out there. We're going to film all stuff and get it out on our network. You name the platform, we're going to put it on that platform. ... If you're in West Texas, you can get it. If you're in New York, you can get it on some platform. I'm not smart enough to know how this works, but I've got a good idea (what will happen). We get this network up and it's strong and healthy and doing all the things we think it's going to do." Dodds added, "Ten years from now, the conference TV package is up for football and we walk in the room with our own network, that's huge leverage. We could almost say, 'Well, we'll do our own games.' It's huge leverage in the future. And it's a platform we may need in the future. If we need it, we've got it. Who knows where TV is going, but we're going to have ours" (DALLASNEWS.com, 9/30).
LOCAL TIES OUTWEIGHED NETWORK FOR SEC: SEC Commissioner Mike Slive discussed the decision not to create a network for the league and said that conference officials examined the Big Ten Network because they "really believe down here we could do a channel and do it very successfully." Slive: "We looked at that, we looked at the NFL Network, we looked at The mtn. But we had a characteristic here that's different than those, and that is the local packages that our institutions have developed over the years. If you do a channel, you can't keep those local packages." Slive noted the SEC is the "most widely distributed conference in the country" with its current 15-year deals with CBS and ESPN, while the member schools also were "able to keep their local packages and provide the fans with what they want, and that is a very significant source of revenue" ("The Tony Barnhart Show," CBS College Sports, 9/28).