(03-11-2017 12:05 PM)CoastGuardHawk06 Wrote: (03-10-2017 08:33 PM)solohawks Wrote: Another sign we are heading down the ESPN road
Thankfully. The current deal was a catastrophe.
Well I don't think it was that bad overall. We got paid more from NBC than we would have ESPN and the Comcast Sports Networks have always done a very good job with our coverage. Look at other leagues of our stature and our TV presence historically has always been pretty solid in comparison. What sucked was giving up the 7 PM monday night slot on ESPN for our championship game, killing the ESPN Bracketbusters concept, and having our championship game this year end up on the black hole that is CBS Sports Network.
Moving foward IMO I think the league would be best served by having the majority men's basketball games and other major conference events on ESPN 3 with ESPN family of TV networks cherry picking a handful of our best games for national broadcast. ESPN 3 is the broadest platform we can realistically expect to be on on a regular basis. CAA.TV can stick around for the coverage ESPN does not want to put up on ESPN 3.
As we saw with the Clemson game, the schools produce much of the ESPN 3 coverage so I can understand the resistance from the CAA member schools to pay out of their pocket to upgrade equipment and other items to meet ESPN 3 standards when there is already CAA.TV that is doing the same thing.
The biggest negative from that move in my opinion is our presence on traditional TV would be virtually non existent. For me and people my age that is really not a big deal, but for many older people, like my Seahawk club member grandmother, they would miss those traditional TV games on Comcast Sports and ASN that were picked up here locally on WILM. Look back at this year's CAA tournament. For the typical Wilmington resident/casual fan it was easier to watch the QF's and SF's than the Finals. However with the death of ASN at the end of the month, those local pickups might have died anyways.
Realistically our options are:
To go all in with ESPN like the OVC, Horizon, and Big South have done. Big South Sports online is still around but most of the content people actually want to watch is on ESPN 3 unless it is one of the handful of games picked up by one of the ESPN tv networks, most likely ESPN U. We would likely get our Monday night 7 PM slot back on ESPN.
To find alternatives to ESPN like CUSA. NBC is not interested and neither is FOX. That leaves the black hole that is CBS Sports Network, which I think we all would say no too, BEIN Sports, an international sports channel trying to elbow its way into the US market, and online platforms like Campus Insider, which is really no different than CAA.TV although the quality would be much better. They would likely pay more than ESPN but when you are making pennies on the dollar from ESPN are the nickles from the alternatives worth it?
To find some mixture. Give ESPN the rights to our premium content for nothing or pennies on the dollar and let them put it where they see best while shopping a handful of games to outlets like Comcast Sports Networks and CBS Sports Network for some kind of traditional TV coverage and Campus Insiders or CAA.TV for online coverage.
Again my preference is to find some type of mixture. Ideally i would like to see 4 or 5 games on an ESPN TV network with the rest on ESPN 3 for guaranteed quality online streaming while local and regional networks like Comcast Sports having some TV only rights to get us on TV in our core areas. I don't know how likely that is, but something like the MVC has would be ideal.