I loved this article:
Cable channel may get wider play
By Jeff Carlton
Tribune Reporter
February 14, 2006
Watching the Lobos on TV might get a little easier and a little cheaper for fans in Albuquerque.
Comcast Cable, the dominant carrier in Albuquerque, is in talks with College Sports Television to put the cable channel on its basic digital package.
Beginning Sept. 1, CSTV will have the TV rights to all Mountain West Conference games, which is the league in which most University of New Mexico teams play.
"I'm all for anything that makes it easier for our fans to get a game (on TV)," UNM Athletics Director Rudy Davalos said.
Right now, Comcast's approximately 130,000 Albuquerque customers can get CSTV by subscribing to digital cable, plus ordering a sports tier that gives them 11 extra sports-related channels.
The cost of digital cable plus the sports tier is $59.30 before taxes, said Chris Dunkeson, vice president and general manager of Comcast in Albuquerque.
The cost of basic digital cable is $54.30 before taxes.
CSTV is also available in Albuquerque to anyone with DirecTV or Dish Network satellite service who orders the sports package.
Dunkeson said Comcast is in negotiations with CSTV to get the channel off the sports tier, saving customers $5 per month.
"We would like to find a way to bring CSTV to Albuquerque on (basic) digital," Dunkeson said. "We recognize the huge following of Lobos sports here and want to bring our customers everything we can."
The cost of basic nondigital cable is $43.35 per month before taxes. It is unlikely CSTV will ever be available on basic cable, Dunkeson said.
The only MWC market that has CSTV on basic cable is Laramie, Wyo.
The seven-year CSTV deal is worth about $82 million to the conference, with UNM getting about $1.1 million per year.
Although the money is good, the conference is gambling that the channel will be widely available by the time game coverage kicks in later this year. Some of UNM's league games will air on national CSTV, but many more will be on the regional Mountain West TV, which will require a subscription.
"We're banking on several million people subscribing to Mountain West TV," MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson said.
Also, most cable customers in San Diego, Las Vegas, Nev., and the Dallas-Fort Worth area still don't have CSTV. Thompson said CSTV officials are meeting with Cox, the primary cable provider in those three Mountain West markets.
"I think we're about right on track," Thompson said. "I think they are progressing well. Everything is incremental. Let's see in August where we are in terms of national CSTV and Mountain West CSTV."
UNM men's basketball coach Ritchie McKay, fresh off a road trip in which neither game was televised, said having more TV games helps sustain the fan base.
"Having more people in town to see us is huge," McKay said. "Having games on TV locally is real critical to our entire success.
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All the WAC teams who want to leave the WAC and ESPN for the mwc...
...you better contact your local Cable network to see if they can make it a little easier for your "home town" to watch your game. ;-)
Trust me. Nobody outside your city is going to go through this trouble just to see your team play.
Ah, who needs needs national exposure anyway...right? ;-) Welcome to the mwc...
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