ESPN Don't Care 'Bout "U"

[MightyMouse]

Sounds like ESPN created ESPNU more to get the government off their backs than to promote college sports:

From a February article in USA Today:
www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-biz/2005-02-24-hiestand_x.htm

"ESPNU will rely on showing sports from conferences where ESPN owns all the TV rights but airs a small percentage of the league's games, which critics call "warehousing." The U.S. Justice Department recently investigated ESPN for warehousing. Not coincidentally, ESPNU's birth should make such concerns disappear."

If that's true, they really don't care how many people can actually watch it. At less than $10M/year to run, it's a small price to pay to avoid a monopoly investigation.

P.S. A few of us Dawg fans are thinking of going to a sports bar in Seattle to watch the final on Saturday. I'll put details up as soon as I confirm that somewhere (maybe the RAM) will carry the game (and that the Huskies will be playing!).

[cyberVBmidwest]

mightymouse said:

At less than $10M/year to run, it's a small price to pay to avoid a monopoly investigation.

If it only costs $10 million dollars a year to run, you would think we could get a Volleyball Channel running. Between subscribers and commercials, you think you would be able to get something over $10 million dollars annually (resulting in a profit).

How much would you pay (monthly) to have a volleyball channel?

[ugopher]

Unless it is a sport watched by a majority of US males, ESPN could care less about the sport/event.

[Gorf]

Somehow I think it may be more related to sports they "understand".

Women's soccer matches are shown a fair amount - though I'm not sure how many are shown live.

Women's basketball games get shown a lot, many shown live.

[FloridaPerson]

Thing is, you'd have to get cable/satellite providers to pick it up. As it is, my cable provider has refused to pick up Sportschannel Florida/Fox Sports Florida/FSN florida for over a decade and a half. And certainly no out of region sports networks, CSTV or ESPNU. Heck, there's not even ESPN Classic available to buy, a more established channel. But of course there's an entire channel devoted to Jewelry Shopping on the basic cable package.

Although verizon's new Fios TV service may be an option. I know i'm switching to that as soon as it's offered here.

$2.95/mo tops a la carte.