Just over a week away from making television history, the Longhorn Network hosted an open house on Thursday to debut its facility and show off its flashy, yet temporary, studio for the media, University of Texas student-athletes, coaches, and administrators.<\/p>\n
The open house included a tour of the network\u2019s facilities \u2013 located just off the northeast outskirts of the UT campus \u2013 and featured key members of ESPN and University of Texas administration entertaining questions.<\/p>\n
The network, scheduled to launch Aug. 26 at 6 p.m. CT, is still pulling together final pieces in anticipation of going live. Even with just a week to go, ESPN is currently working to secure distribution rights with more television service providers to ensure UT fans across the state and the region will be able to view the network.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there will be a lot of activity between now and the Rice [University] game [on Sept. 3],\u201d said Burke Magnus, SVP of college sports programming for ESPN. \u201cIt’s not a great concern right now. I went through the launch of ESPNU a few years ago, so I am battle-scarred from the distribution wars. It comes with the territory.\u201d He added that talks of this nature typically \u201ccome down to the wire.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 200 live, exclusive UT events are projected to be broadcast each year, including the football team\u2019s season-opener against Rice on Sept. 3. The network boasts a full lineup of programming including original series, studio shows, and historical programming.<\/p>\n
While it will be primarily a sports outfit, Longhorn Network has also dedicated 10% of its on-air schedule to non-athletic programming, giving an opportunity for the campus, the city of Austin, and surrounding areas in the state a chance to be exposed to a broader audience. The concept is not different from the Big Ten Network\u2019s outline of offering approximately 60 hours per year to each member institution to air campus programming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been blueprints for [Longhorn Network],\u201d said Chris Plonsky, director of women\u2019s athletics at UT. \u201cWe did our homework long before we negotiated a deal about a university-branded network. Talking to our colleagues at the Big Ten, they said if you\u2019re really going to go in this direction, really get out in front of [the non-athletic programming] because, while athletics is very used to being televised, quite often the campus is not used to having a platform that\u2019s universal to move its events out to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was in December that ESPN, the University of Texas, and IMG College — the school\u2019s licensing\/brand manager — inked a 20-year deal to operate the 24-hour television network. Since that date, there has been a tremendous effort to make sure the channel is ready for its September launch. However, the network has also had to battle numerous controversies including airing a live broadcast of a Big 12 conference game. A preliminary plan to offer live coverage of major high school football games within the state was shelved after concerns of potential recruiting advantages surfaced.<\/p>\n
Athletic director DeLoss Dodds also said he isn\u2019t concerned with the idea that the network could, as one reporter suggested, \u201clead to the demise of the Big 12.\u201d Dodds sighted the recent announcement of the launch of Kansas State\u2019s online network as a positive example for other conference affiliates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see that happening all across the Big 12,\u201d said Dodds, who is in his 30th<\/sup> year as AD. \u201cWe\u2019re unique. We\u2019re not like the Big Ten, we\u2019re not like the Pac-12 when it comes to television. The opportunities are just huge for all of the academic institutions and I think as time goes by we\u2019ll all learn how to better use those opportunities. I think in 30 years, the Big 12 will look pretty smart for doing it [this way].\u201d<\/p>\n Magnus addressed some of the controversial topics during a one-on-one session with media saying confidently that there would be a second game broadcast on the network this year (he would not disclose which) and that there was interest in airing high school football highlights on Friday nights on Longhorn Extra<\/em>, the channel\u2019s nightly answer to SportsCenter<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI sleep well knowing that Texas has been very open and transparent about this effort from the get-go,\u201d said Magnus. \u201cThis did not sneak up on anybody and the opportunity that Texas is taking advantage of with us is something that other institutions in the conference can take advantage of as well.\u201d<\/p>\n While most of the attention has been focused on how the Longhorn Network may impact outside institutions, the staff also faces the challenge of granting viewers unprecedented access to the UT football team<\/p>\n \u201cWe shot this morning\u2019s practice as if it were for a live show and we\u2019re still not there yet,\u201d said Stephanie Druley, VP of production. \u201cWe are definitely taking their direction in terms of what we can show. We walk sort of a fine line by telling the stories and not giving anything away from practice in terms of strategy and game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Druley, a member of the ESPN staff since 1990, was up front about being a UT fan and that she\u2019s not in the business of giving away tactical secrets. She also added, that when it comes to offering balanced coverage across the university\u2019s 21 varsity sports, she wouldn\u2019t be pulling any punches.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the fall, I\u2019m not going to promise anybody that we\u2019re going to be balanced in terms of what sports we cover. Football drives the train; this is Texas,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the same time, a lot of these other sports have never had the access for their stories being told and they will have the chance to have the spotlight be put on them and we\u2019re going to be doing that on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n Longhorn Network will go live with a two-hour special from the South Mall of the UT campus on Friday, Aug. 26 at 6 p.m. Central. The network’s on-air team of Lowell Galindo, Samantha Steele and Kevin Dunn will be joined on the set by the College GameDay crew featuring Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Desmond Howard and Erin Andrews.<\/p>\n Following the debut special, Texas Volleyball opens its 2011 season against Pepperdine in the Burnt Orange Classic live at 8 p.m. on Longhorn Network.<\/p>\n Check back next week for more of Sports Video Group’s in-depth coverage of the Longhorn Network\u2019s upcoming launch!<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just over a week away from making television history, the Longhorn Network hosted an open house on Thursday to debut its facility and show off its flashy, yet temporary, studio […]\n More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2894,131,5080,2618],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}