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If George Orwell only knew what that year would mean to intercollegiate athletics.
I've talked at length before about the Oklahoma Board of Regents v. NCAA case that went to the supreme court in 1984, which found NCAA control of college football broadcasting to be in violation of Sherman anti-trust law, and which subsequently led to the complete destabilization of college athletics around the United States that we have now approx 20 years later after the existing media contracts at the time expired. The creation of the BCS, the gap in revenue between colleges around football, all of the movement we see now in college realignment - traces directly to that.
And...to something else, that we're personally dealing with right now.
ESPN was 5 years old, when the Cable Act of 1984 was passed, with the help of Public Access TV, Government TV and Educational TV advocates - of which Connecticut had a big role in the motions put in place in Washington, DC.
That cable act, deregulated the cable television industry, and led to the biggest national construction project of highways, that the entire country had seen, greater than the Eisenhower interstate project after world war II. Except they weren't highways that carried cars, it was digital communication signal highways that were constructed, and the rise of ESPN was directly tied to the ability of that little company in Bristol to physically transmit it's signal so far and wide.
Leased access and content of info being carried on this information highway that was constructed after that 1984 act, has been a matter of big business ever since. TIme Warner and the FCC went to battle in court in 1998 about it.
How does it all affect UConn? The University of Connecticut, physically, sits squarely on a battle front of competiting industries in the broadcasting world. Digital, Broadbrand wireless, over the air, old fashioned analog.....giant corporations battling it all out for territory right in our yard in CT, New England, New York and New Jersey. - which also happens to be the biggest media market in the entire world.
We need to do the best we can to navigate through changing intercollegiate landscape - that will only stabilize in one way - a college football postseason that is based on competition, and not popularity, and in the middle of battlegroudn of broadcast providers, such that our own sports programming, reaches our own audience in such a way as to grow our appeal, and to it at the best primetime viewing spots times for existing fans to be watching and new fans to be generated.
I've talked at length before about the Oklahoma Board of Regents v. NCAA case that went to the supreme court in 1984, which found NCAA control of college football broadcasting to be in violation of Sherman anti-trust law, and which subsequently led to the complete destabilization of college athletics around the United States that we have now approx 20 years later after the existing media contracts at the time expired. The creation of the BCS, the gap in revenue between colleges around football, all of the movement we see now in college realignment - traces directly to that.
And...to something else, that we're personally dealing with right now.
ESPN was 5 years old, when the Cable Act of 1984 was passed, with the help of Public Access TV, Government TV and Educational TV advocates - of which Connecticut had a big role in the motions put in place in Washington, DC.
That cable act, deregulated the cable television industry, and led to the biggest national construction project of highways, that the entire country had seen, greater than the Eisenhower interstate project after world war II. Except they weren't highways that carried cars, it was digital communication signal highways that were constructed, and the rise of ESPN was directly tied to the ability of that little company in Bristol to physically transmit it's signal so far and wide.
Leased access and content of info being carried on this information highway that was constructed after that 1984 act, has been a matter of big business ever since. TIme Warner and the FCC went to battle in court in 1998 about it.
How does it all affect UConn? The University of Connecticut, physically, sits squarely on a battle front of competiting industries in the broadcasting world. Digital, Broadbrand wireless, over the air, old fashioned analog.....giant corporations battling it all out for territory right in our yard in CT, New England, New York and New Jersey. - which also happens to be the biggest media market in the entire world.
We need to do the best we can to navigate through changing intercollegiate landscape - that will only stabilize in one way - a college football postseason that is based on competition, and not popularity, and in the middle of battlegroudn of broadcast providers, such that our own sports programming, reaches our own audience in such a way as to grow our appeal, and to it at the best primetime viewing spots times for existing fans to be watching and new fans to be generated.