Athletics: UL Pursuing New TV Deal With CST athleticnetwork.net/site.php?pageID=37&newsID=18132 Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, November 28, 2014 ________________________________ TROY, Ala. – UL has been engaged in talks with Cox Communications-owned Cox Sports Television regarding a possible deal to produce and broadcast games involving the Ragin’ Cajuns football team and other Cajun sports teams, UL athletic director Scott Farmer confirmed. Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson recently said UL “is discussing television opportunities with Cox, and we certainly would encourage that, and encourage them to do whatever they can from a local standpoint and from a university standpoint.” The Sun Belt earlier this year announced an expanded agreement with ESPN that has resulted in every home football game for all SBC members in 2014 being carried on either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS or – as has been the case for the majority – ESPN3. Additional Sun Belt-related content is getting picked up by one of the ESPN networks as well, including every men’s and women’s game from the 2015 SBC basketball tournaments in New Orleans. ESPN and its network have first choice of what it will televise from the Sun Belt, and ESPN3 (digital online programming) essentially has next dibs. The expanded deal was added to an existing multi-agreement between ESPN and the Sun Belt that runs through the 2019-20 school year. Discussing the expanded deal back in June, Benson said the new venture “didn’t come without some pain and angst.” The reason for that, according to the commissioner: It meant the end of a partnership between the Sun Belt and two regional sports networks, CST and now-shuttered CSS, that for five years had distributed games via the Sun Belt Network. The Sun Belt Network, in other words, ceased operations this year. From a UL perspective, it meant no Cajun football games aired this year by the Ragin’ Cajun TV Network. Moreover, ESPN-network and even ESPN3-produced programming is exclusive to the networks – and is not made available to other networks like, for instance, CST. ESPN3 pays for the Sun Belt event coverage it produces. Part of the Sun Belt’s deal with ESPN, however, does permit individual schools and affiliated networks to produce and broadcast their own content – with ESPN, including ESPN3, essentially having the right of first refusal for football games, and with the caveat that anything the schools and their network partners produce must be offered up for distribution by ESPN3. The schools and any contractually tied network can do their own production and programming of events not claimed first by ESPN, in other words, but they must pay for it and offer it up free-of-cost to ESPN3. “We do have an availability at times to pick a game up and put it over the air,” Farmer said. “If we do that, we also have to give to ESPN3.” Thus the talks between UL and New Orleans area-based CST, which previously carried Sun Belt Network programming. With not all Cajun home football games this year broadcast via traditional cable or satellite TV because of the Sun Belt agreement with ESPN involving ESPN3, Farmer evidently wants wider TV exposure for a program that enjoyed three straight 9-4 seasons and three straight New Orleans Bowls from 2011-13. According to its website, CST is a “24-hour local sports network that delivers exclusive programming, including both professional and collegiate sporting events” and that, since its launch in 2002, “has grown to nearly 5.5 million viewers.” By the end of this year, CST will be seen in 17 states outside of Louisiana. “We are in discussions with them,” Farmer said. “They lost the Sun Belt Network and they lost some other things, so we’ve been talking back and forth.” The discussions haven’t been just about football, though. It’s uncertain when, or even if, an agreement may be reached. “Right now we’re talking about a package that’s gonna have a lot of sports in it,” Farmer said. “It’s not defined by one or two or three. “We want it to include football. Nothing’s done yet. But, yes, we want football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball. Absolutely.” The Cajun football team is 7-4 heading into Saturday’s final regular-season game at Troy, where Farmer worked from 1999-2007 and served as senior associate athletic director before moving to UL. “I’ve done a lot of television since I’ve been here,” Farmer said. “We did not do it that much this year in football. “I want to do something. I hope we can get it done, and maybe do something after Christmas in basketbalI. If not, we’ll push to get baseball and softball.” The UL basketball team – the Sun Belt Tournament champ and an NCAA Tournament qualifier last season – has only one of its upcoming Sun Belt games scheduled to be carried online by ESPN2 (Jan. 24 at Georgia State), and two designated as possible ESPN2 cable TV pickups. Any deal reached, Farmer suggested, would be multi-year and would include football possibilities. “That’s a big part,” he said, “of how I think we should be promoting our program and our university.” __________ Contributing: Chad Washington
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 02:09:24 +0000
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