Guess who is not included....which is strange since they own the rights to EVERYTHING...


ESPN will launch 15 virtual "networks" in cooperation with college conferences to create their own dedicated channel with live events and on-demand replays to be streamed over internet-connected Apple TV and Roku devices.

While the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 -- three power conferences with their own digitial, cable and satellite agreements -- operate their own linear-programming networks and won't be available in the ESPN venture, the ACC, America East, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Big West, Horizon, Mid-American, Metro Atlantic Athletic, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Southern, Sun Belt and Southland will be available. A combined channel featuring coverage of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and conferences including the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Mid-Eastern Athletic and Central Intercollegiate Athletic conferences will also be available.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/espn-launch...ZJUDMwNF8x

Later this year, the channels on WatchESPN will include live college football, Olympic event and non-event (news, highlights, analysis and feature) programming plus on-demand video clips from ESPN.com. They will also be accessible on computers, smartphones, tablets and other connected devices via WatchESPN at a later date.


Read more at http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2014/...G0AfOPh.99

Sounds interesting. Hopefully we will be included.

(02-27-2014 07:20 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Guess who is not included....

They failed to mention us because we're in the "challenger conference" category. They probably have something special in mind for us.

This is ESPN to a T. One would think that they're doing this to provide content for conferences with little to no TV exposure. But then you see they included the ACC....hmmm. This doesn't surprise me. Nothing about ESPN's two-faced behavior surprises me anymore.

I think you guys aren't included because the conference created its own digital network. http://theamerican.org/watch/

Many of these conferences have either purchased basic webcasting production equipment that is compatible with ESPN or consulted with them on mobile units. ESPN has a preference in production equipment for streaming and some SEC schools are finding that out as the equipment they used on CBS hosted websites apparently isn't compatible and are being required to reinvest in production items.

(02-27-2014 08:24 PM)mattsarz Wrote:  I think you guys aren't included because the conference created its own digital network. http://theamerican.org/watch/

Many of these conferences have either purchased basic webcasting production equipment that is compatible with ESPN or consulted with them on mobile units. ESPN has a preference in production equipment for streaming and some SEC schools are finding that out as the equipment they used on CBS hosted websites apparently isn't compatible and are being required to reinvest in production items.

Thus far, I have not been too impressed with the level of coverage provided by the AAC Digital Network. They did a 30 women's basketball games (thought the quality was pretty good btw), which was nice---but the AAC Digital Network has no plans to cover a SINGLE baseball or softball game outside of the conference tourneys. Given there is ZERO ESPN coverage of AAC baseball and softball, one would think this is the place where the AAC Digital Network could step up and cover some games. Even CUSA has more television coverage for baseball and softball than the AAC. That's unacceptable.

I don't think the AAC has inventory to really be included... when nearly all your games are already scheduled for national broadcast, there is nothing to be included on a pay-per-view channel.

(02-28-2014 09:48 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  I don't think the AAC has inventory to really be included... when nearly all your games are already scheduled for national broadcast, there is nothing to be included on a pay-per-view channel.

These are not pay per view.

That said, I've dug around some of the other bulletin boards and read a few more articles, and it sounds like these are not what they seem. It appears more like these "networks" are more organizational than anything else. From what I can gather, its simply a way of organizing content that already existed on current ESPN platforms into single conference specific locations. In other words, it would function more like a change in the Watch ESPN menu than anything else. If it results in more conference specific talking head programs and more individual conference events being covered---then that would be a real difference---but its sounding like that's not the case (at least initially). At this point, it seems amount to little more than organizing existing content by conference.

(02-27-2014 07:44 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  This is ESPN to a T. One would think that they're doing this to provide content for conferences with little to no TV exposure. But then you see they included the ACC....hmmm. This doesn't surprise me. Nothing about ESPN's two-faced behavior surprises me anymore.

See, I thought the exact opposite. Shouldn't the ACC be *upset* to be lumped in with the leagues listed?

Could this be one of the things that AResco held back in the negotiations? I remember a talking point that the AAC-ESPN contract was undervalued because the league kept certain rights that ESPN or College Sports TV usually got in the TV contracts.

(03-02-2014 06:30 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Could this be one of the things that AResco held back in the negotiations? I remember a talking point that the AAC-ESPN contract was undervalued because the league kept certain rights that ESPN or College Sports TV usually got in the TV contracts.

He always mentioned "marketing rights" as being a specific item that was retained by the conference. I have not really heard specifically what that entails. There may have been other rights that were retained--but if there are, we are not doing anything with them. For instance, the AAC digital network is not broadcasting a single baseball or softball game beyond the end of year conference tournaments. Considering ESPN is also not televising a single regular season AAC baseball or softball game, one would think this is the perfect opportunity for the AAC Digital network to step up and fill the breach. Instead, crickets.