Waiting For Downloads

A moment for more thoughts on the future of the {YOUR MASCOT NAME HERE} Channel. The ability to project one's brand belongs to those who retain rights, and when yielding rights, does so in a way that maintain as much control as possible while trading that for A) filthy lucre; B) better distribution tools.

Case in point: ESPN360.

Look, I'm not the only person in the world who's 17-year-old son has an overwhelming desire to watch one out-of-market team whenever, however. And I'm not the only person who took the time to build a cheap (less than $350) but screaming fast, tuned for video lunchbox computer who's only purpose in its digital life is to drive a plasma screen HDTV.

Open weekend courtesy of Hurricane Ike allowed some quality tuning and tweaking time with the box, and by the end of Saturday night, the games we were watching were of no less quality than the old over-the-air analog signals I grew up with. To have the access was well worth the trade in quality. More important -- the price? Well, thank heaven I switched to a certain global monolith that provides internet access AND free ESPN360.

In the space of the last six months, the entire landscape in college sports broadcasting has changed. And no, it's not just because Will went over the wall from spin.

The Olympics have shown that IPTV is now a reality. That the consumer does want his MTV. And his syncro diving. And he wants it now; unless now is five hours from now when he gets off work and for him, time stands still.

CBS is streaming the SEC. NBC will stream the NFL. MLB and NBA will stream locally (which, when you think about it is absurd -- the people who want it are ex-patriots living in other markets -- perhaps it won't take 25 years before Sunday Ticket gets reinvented on-line).

Back to the school's channel. I've been surprised by the amount of ferocious shelling we've taken the past two weeks from folks who want Razorback football streamed. Other schools do it, why don't you? On the surface, a legit question. The main reason -- no offense to others -- but our games are monetized with contractual value. Even when NBC "gives away" NFL streaming, it's still commercially supported and while free to the consumer is not free by any means.

Thus, smaller schools and less popular sports can continue to give away video streaming because it has not gained the popularity yet to have serious commercial value. That is no slap to those others, in fact, it should be an encouragement.

NCAA men's basketball did not become anything important until ESPN, then CBS, took the flyer to run every game and create a sensation. Ask any aspiring band, you make the MP3s, you put them on the podsafe network and you hope that by building popularity someday you get paid.

The same is true for college sports. Women's basketball, softball, baseball and other emerging sports have a real future on-line, but only if schools are attentive to the hoovering contracts of the content providers. While picking up the fully-commercial properties of football and in some areas men's basketball, they seek to lock up other sports or entire schools and conferences. The goal is to create excess inventory to float against advertising sale, or simply to put content on the shelf as an exclusive.

Here's where schools must insist on the A & the B. If you want to take it all, you must pay a price that will counter-balance the recruiting blow that unavailable (or subscriber based) content inflicts. Think about it. This is a national recruiting market. If proud parents know they can remain virtually linked to the kids -- streaming video, a quality website, solid communications avenues -- they'll let them go anywhere. The schools where that isn't available are at a disadvantage. That's where the B comes in -- if they don't insist, don't give away any more rights than necessary.

Or one day, you discover you can't stream you own stuff outside your own state.