1984

[Carl Spackler]

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.

 

[junglehusky]

Now can we get 14 paragraphs on the significance of David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen after 1984, only to rejoin this past year? And how this affects UConn...?

 

[The Funster]

If it was hoops that drove the bus, we'd be in the catbird's seat and the BE would be amongst the power conferences. Unfortunately, football drives the bus and here in the northeast/NY market college football has never drawn well. For whatever reason, Pitt was picked over UConn and we're paying the price for that. IMO, UConn is out on an island and through success on the field/court and market demographics we have to force someone to take us. UConn simply has to become a big enough force that multiple conferences desire us.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Sooner or later I'll get around to writing a book, and it will make the grapes of wrath look like a leaflet.

 

[Carl Spackler]

If it was hoops that drove the bus, we'd be in the catbird's seat and the BE would be amongst the power conferences. Unfortunately, football drives the bus and here in the northeast/NY market college football has never drawn well. For whatever reason, Pitt was picked over UConn and we're paying the price for that. IMO, UConn is out on an island and through success on the field/court and market demographics we have to force someone to take us. UConn simply has to become a big enough force that multiple conferences desire us.

I agree with everything except the word "never" in the statement about college football drawing well in the northeast/NY market. The kickoff classic played in Giants stadium had paid attendance approx 70,000 annually in Giants stadium and was broadcast nationally on TV in september for two decades until the BCS contracts were renewed in the early 2000s.

What New York City has lacked in college football, since the Ivy league discontinued participation in the practice of awarding scholarships and compeition in post season play by 1960, is a football CONFERENCE to rally aroudn. A conference that contains the membership we've got moving forward in 2012 is going to be a hell of a lot harder to sell, than a confernece the big east could have been pushing in football for so many years.......but you have to realize, that UConn, is still on the same level of our long time athletic rivals in New England, if not for the Big East conference - so you have to take the good with the bad.

The concept that at single college can deliver the new york city market is insane. The yankees don't deliver the entire new york city market. Rutgers and UConn is nice start to getting market penetration, but an entire conference needs to be sold to the region, to gain entry - and the big east is the name brand of new york city in college athletics.

We need to be able to continue to broadcast in CT and New ENgland, and penetrate into the NYC market as much as we can to get a slice, and I've talked about this before.

A small slice of the NYC region, is a bigger market, than entire states elsewhere in the country.