Could Individual Team TV Networks Be the Future of Big 12 Coverage?

The televised coverage of Big 12 football has been a major news item this off-season. Tim Griffin of the San Antonio Express News now wonders if the future might see team-specific television channels dedicated to the games of a particular university. In other words, could the concept of the Big Ten Network be narrowed down even further to include coverage of the games of one particular athletic department?

Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds believes the idea has merit.

"I don't think it's such a good idea just for a conference," Dodds said. "But Texas people want to see their own school rather than conference sports. The same goes for A&M people or Nebraska people or anybody else. I think that's where the future may really be."

I've always felt this would be a viable option for teams with hardcore fan-bases that are spread out across geographic locales. This would include several teams in the Big 12 including Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M. If these fans inundate message boards, and pack spring games, why wouldn't they watch round-the-clock coverage of their favorite school?

The one major difficulty I see at this point would be getting cable or satellite networks to pick up the individual channels on a nation-wide basis. It seems that athletic directors could have a difficult time convincing broadcasters that the market exists when the school is located hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. At least one network official seems to agree with this assessment.

If you look in the future, distribution will grow," Fox Sports Southwest chairman Jon Heidtke said. "You have to determine whether people will watch those things, but television habits certainly will change. The question is whether that niche audience is big enough to support the appropriate economics to make something like a school-specific network work."