The Future of Kansas State Athletics

[KSU78]

Undoubtedly, we are seeing the last twilight fall on the Big XII.

Colorado is moving to the Pac-10. Some sports scribes are claiming the Pac-10 is on the verge of extending offers also to UT, TAMU, OU, and OSU. Nebraska has chosen to become a second-class school in the Big Ten++. All together, that leaves only BU, ku, KSU, ISU, MU, and TT as the remnants of the Big 12.

Without consideration to the remaining schools, the athletic department should become proactive in establishing an equitable alternative to the status quo and avoid the automatic jumping to a new conference.

Quite simply, today's internet technology makes it possible to say to hell with the lucrative fistful of TV dollars that the ABC's and the ESPN's have waved under the noses of athletic administrators and conference executives alike.

The biggest problem with the Big XII from the very beginning was in revenue sharing from TV receipts.

Today, I watch more on demand "television" over the Internet than I do on the ole, outdated TV. I have HD any place in the world on a laptop computer.

The school owns the rights to university athletics telecasts, thanks to the universities of Georgia and Oklahoma and the College Football Association.

Kansas State University should exert those rights and boldly go where no university has gone before: Live telecasts of football games over the Internet on a subscription basis with advertisement sponsorship, just like TV. The technology is there. It is proven. And there are a zillion companies out there for sponsorship through commercial advertisement from car manufacturers to brew masters.

[dccat]

thats some good forward thinking there.  kind of the way we do it with radio.  it'll be interesting to see how things turn out over the next 20 years with streaming tv on the internet.

[KSU78]

K-State must extend its fan base and the Internet is a means of accomplishing that objective.

It is unfortunate that the athletic department ventured into a fee-based broadcasting arrangement with Yahoo Sports a few years ago because it was seen as a revenue generating resource. In the long run, it is potentially damaging because it limits reaching prospective student athletes in recruiting hotbeds like Florida, Texas, and California.

From a marketing perspective, I think that the athletic department could find corporate sponsorship to provide free video streaming to the general public which would pay the guaranteed fee to the opponent and still make a profit for the athletic department without considering the gate receipts.

Throughout its history and particularly before ABC's monopoly on college football was broken, the networks limited a select number of schools to be telecast regularly. Of course, this limitation also increased those universities exposure to prospective athletes. The adage "be true to you school" has always been in effect by the alumni in the broadcasting companies.

K-State should look at the dissolution of the Big 12 as an emancipation from the past and embrace this opportunity to become a visionary in college athletics.