More conference TV developments

The major papers in the Big 12 North region have finally caught on to this conference TV package problem this morning, with stories about it in the Kansas City Star, Omaha World-Herald and Topeka Capital-Journal. That only took two or three days, but what can you expect, these people are competing with 24-hour cable news channels and trying to get the latest American Idol information, they have more important things to worry about.

Anyway, it seems that while TBS created a football coverage problem, the conference office vastly improved the basketball coverage issues. We now have three guaranteed game slots on ESPN for basketball games this year, which is more than any other conference. That will be huge for national exposure. Think about how many good games there were in the conference last season, and a lot of them weren't shown at all or only regionally. So congrats, Kevin Weiberg, I will give you credit for working out a pretty good basketball deal for us.

Now, on to the football issue. The World-Herald mentions ESPN and the NFL Network as possible replacements for the five or six Saturday night games TBS would have shown. I can't believe ESPN is much of an option. They already show a ton of games from other conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big East, etc.). The World-Herald mentions ESPN might have openings for Saturday night games, but I'll believe that when I see it.

As for the NFL Network...not no, but hell no. At this point, only being able to get the NFL Network would be a disaster for this conference. It has next-to-zero presence on cable carriers across the nation, including very little in Big 12 country. I don't know of a single place in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, or Texas that gets it on regular cable. Now, if there was some indication that NFLN was going to start broadcasting a lot of NFL and NCAA games, as well as get some decent programming the rest of the time and get itself on cable carriers across the nation (not asking much, am I?) then I could be convinced the Big 12 was getting in on the ground floor of something worthwhile.

One thing that's being mentioned everywhere, and simultaneously written off, is playing games on Thursday nights. Thursday night games are popular on ESPN, and I love watching them. It's always good to have a little college football during the week. But I'm torn on whether or not to have Thursday night games in the Big 12.

First of all, and this is purely my conjecture with no empirical backup, the Thursday night games seem to be more popular among schools located in larger metropolitan areas, or at least within easy reach of a nearby metropolitan area. There always seems to be a Big East game on Thursday night football, which makes sense considering the Big East has a lot of schools in or near major metro areas (Louisville, Rutgers, Pitt, Cincinnati, and WVU is close to Pittsburgh). This means the schools can draw good crowds from a relatively small area.

Contrast that with most of the Big 12. The only schools in the Big 12 located within large urban areas are Texas (Austin) and Oklahoma (Norman/OKC). Sure there are other schools within an hour or so of fairly large cities, including KU (KC), Nebraska (Omaha), Colorado (Denver), Iowa State (Des Moines), and Oklahoma State (OKC 65 miles, Tulsa 70 miles). These schools would probably be able to attract decent crowds to Thursday night game because of their nearby population base.

However, it would have a devastating effect on attendance at more rural Big 12 schools. At K-State, we've seen the difference in attendance between Wednesday and Saturday basketball games. The entire town of Manhattan wouldn't fill Snyder Stadium, and a lot of our fans drive in from KC and Wichita (among other, rural areas). It would be undesirable for the fans from KC and Wichita to rush from work to Manhattan, watch the game, and then get home late and have to be at work the next day. Plus, it destroys the gameday atmosphere, with tailgating beforehand and Aggieville afterwards. I can imagine the effect would be similar for colleges like Missouri, located in medium-sized towns and a couples hours from large metro areas.

All that, and then there's the issue of logistics, as mentioned by Nebraska chancellor Harvey Pearlman in the OWH article. At K-State, the parking wouldn't be too big of a deal because the football stadium is far enough away from campus and has (more or less) sufficient parking nearby not to burden campus too much. But at more landlocked (city) campuses like Nebraska and UT, I can imagine it would be a disaster.

Given all these factors, I'm hoping we can find a TV deal that is not the NFLN and will not require us to play games on Thursday to get exposure.

***



That's about it for that issue. It appears the football schedule for 2008 is set, so I'm sure I'll be taking a look at that sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, the Bat Cats travel to Lincoln, Neb., this weekend to take on the Huskers in a pivotal conference series. Nebraska has been playing a lot better lately despite its lost series last weekend to Texas, while our Cats have been unable to take two games when they've been in a position to do so.

At this point, the Wildcats stand only a game behind Texas Tech for seventh place, and 1.5 games behind Nebraska for sixth. On the other hand, they also are only 1.5 games ahead of Baylor for the eighth spot. Tech travels to Missouri this weekend, then finishes up with the two Oklahoma schools, certainly not an easy road. If we could take this series off Nebraska (a BIG if), we would almost certainly stand sixth in the conference after the weekend, and in great position to make the conference tournament and even a regional.

It looks like the pitching matchups will be as follows (thanks to huskers.com):

Game 1: Hutt (KSU), Watson (NU). Hutt better be on his game, Watson tossed a complete game, two-hit shutout last Friday to beat Texas. Yikes.
Game 2: TBA (KSU), Dorn (NU)
Game 3: Bayuk (KSU), Wertz

Of course all of this may be moot, as AJ has pronounced the Husker baseball team dead.



(Cow and Penis of the Plains images courtesy wikipedia)