Horns247 Board

That would be a DUMB idea.

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It would have been nice to have all of this in place before launching the channel...

Can't blame them. Texas wouldn't to play on the OU network. But if only 100 people in Texas can actually watch it, does it matter?

That's some petty BS by Tech. Weren't they all but begging to replace A&M as our annual T-Day opponent? So typical of all these schools who want to enjoy all the benefits of being affiliated with Texas, and don't want to give anything in return.

It was a general statement. But in this particular case, Texas Tech shouldn't have any say at all. Isn't it Texas State's home game? How is this hurting Tech financially? That they would even consider cancelling a game because it would somehow benefit Texas is, again, petty BS.

Again, it's TEXAS STATE's home game. Why would ESPN need to strong arm Tech? If TX St is okay with it, what's the big fuckin deal?

Because it drives the demand for the lhn. You don't think tech fans might have a slight interest in watching the game? And seeing how all but about 10 people in the entire state get the lhn, the only way that'll be made possible is if a bunch of tech fans call their cable providers kicking and screaming for them to pick up the lhn, which is exactly what ESPN wants. Tech is nothing more than a pawn in espns efforts to clean shit off their boot and that's not right.

Why would any network executive, on any network, decide to show Texas Tech @ Texas State? This game shouldn't be shown on Travis County All Access...much less any ESPN network or affiliate

You are grossly oversimplifying things. The ESPN/WAC contract does not allow ESPN to put WAC games on LHN, it allows ESPN to choose which ESPN network it wants to broadcast games on. But LHN is NOT ESPN Ocho, it is a network just for UT, so the very idea of acting like it's just another ESPN network is silly. Last year the WAC agreed to consider LHN an "ESPN" network for purposes of their contract to get the UTSA games televised last year. This is a very different deal. It's not a random UTSA game, it's a Big 12 team visiting TxSt. More importantly, ESPN announced last month that it was going to broadcast this game on one of its platforms. So we can't act like this game has no value at all and would go untelevised otherwise.

And let me tell you why I used the term "strong arming." It's strong arming because ESPN is showing a total lack of business ethics by manipulating what content falls to LHN. Now that ESPN is in the tier 3 business along with the tier 1/2 business, it has to deal with an internal conflict of interest. As a tier 3 provider, it is hoping the tier 1/2 provider screws up and doesn't pick up content. As a tier 1/2 provider, it should be picking up the best content, period. It's obvious that ESPN has not been acting in good faith in selecting tier 1/2 content. They have been purposely manipulating their tier 1/2 selections to push more content to LHN. Whether or not ESPN's actions violate their contracts with the conferences, those actions demonstrate a lack of business ethics.

Let me also point out it's also an incredibly poor and short sighted business move by ESPN. Before you had a bunch of Tech fans that were indifferent about LHN. Now you have a bunch of Tech fans who are actively against it. If ESPN thinks a single Tech fan would call up a provider and demand LHN because of this game, they are stupider than the graduates of the schools participating in this game.

In all honesty, the Tech fans would have a better chance of seeing the game if it was PPV.