Is the MWC going to learn the Howard Stern lesson?
Come this fall, if you want to watch a Mountain West Conference sporting event on TV you better get digital cable. That’s right, no more ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPN-plus games. For all y’all in Utah there will be no more games on local TV either. 100% of in-conference games will either be on newly launching CSTV or its specialty MWC-only offshoot “The mtn.†As Scott D. Pierce of the Deseret Morning News said today:
Assuming you have access to CSTV and The mtn., this could be the greatest thing that’s happened to you if you’re a Cougar or Ute fan. Virtually all of your team’s football and basketball games will be available on television.
The downside could be that by requiring many/most fans to pay cable companies an extra $10-30 per month just to see their favorite teams the Mountain West could quickly discover that fans aren’t nearly as loyal as they had hoped. This appears to be exactly what has happened to Howard Stern in his move to Sirius Satellite Radio. An AP story earlier this month reported:
In January, Stern moved his popular and bawdy morning show to the subscription satellite radio provider.
“I was just at my psychiatrist and I said, ‘I just got great news: We hit the 4 million mark. And I’m angry. It should be 20 million,’” Stern says in the magazine, on newsstands Monday.
“It’s insulting to me that everyone hasn’t come with me. I take it personally,” he says.
“I want to say to my audience … ‘You haven’t come with me yet? How dare you? We’re up to wild, crazy stuff, the show has never sounded better. You cheap bastard!’”
Hmmm… If 80% of Stern fans are too cheap to pay $12/month to get his show, what do you think will happen when all those frugal Mormon BYU fans discover that subscribing to CSTV and The mtn. will cost an extra $20 per month?
If you have a Dish it is on channel 152. And if you have DirectTV 610. It looks like Dish carries it standard.
Comment by Clark Goble — April 21, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
All things being equal, there will be more BYU fans who will be new subscribers to the service, than other MWC fans. That said, they won’t get as many as they hope for.
As for this BYU alum, I get my minor league football fix by watching UT and TCU now (the local schools). I’ll pick up the annual BYU-TCU game on local TV.
Comment by queuno — April 21, 2006 @ 8:59 pm
What?? Are all the zoobies still going to be able to get their football fix in the wardhouse on the church network?
Comment by a random John — April 21, 2006 @ 10:29 pm
I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think there will be anymore church network games arJ.
I suspect the switch will be good for me here in Arizona. I already have digital cable and with all the Mormons here in the East Phoenix Valley area odds seem high that both channels will show up in the 200s for me.
Overall I think the move is a worthwhile gamble. In Utah I think the difficulty seeing games on TV will lead to more sell-outs for home games. The MWC will probably make as much or more in this deal than they did with ESPN too. The games will be on Saturdays again and in the afternoon (no more 10 PM Thursday starts to please the ESPN goons). Plus lots of us BYU fans outside of Utah will have the opportunity to be fanatics and watch every game.
The downside, other than the fact that overall viewership will drop as viewing prices increase, is that MWC teams will get more ignored than ever by the national media. That will negatively impact national rankings and chances for individual awards for MWC star players.
Still I like the move overall. I am looking forward to seeing more Cougar football than ever in 2006. (And on top of that, I’ll be at the opener vs Arizona in Tucson).
Comment by Geoff J — April 21, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
I’m not sure yet if I like it. I still don’t understand how CSTV is going to be making money off of it. It seems to me that they’re banking on the standard cable providers picking it their channel. Otherwise, they won’t get nearly enough viewers, and thus revenue, as the regular stations would.
An additional problem is getting the market of the opposing teams. For example, folks in Boise are worried about being able to watch BSU’s games at Utah and Wyoming, because the home team as the TV rights. There must be something I’m missing, because I just don’t see how CSTV is going to make their money back if even a team’s own city can’t get access to the games.
Comment by Eric Russell — April 22, 2006 @ 2:30 am
Since I refuse to support BYU sports until they bring back Men’s Wrestling, this affects me not at all.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — April 22, 2006 @ 8:12 am
Eric,
As I understand it, the cable networks charge each cable provider a fee for access. The DesNews writer I linked to in the post was wondering if CSTV would charge a lot to make a good profit up front or charge very little to grab up market share. I hope it is closer to the latter and that things go so well that they can charge more in years to come (thus ensuring financial viability in the long run).
Also, I think this CSTV /The mtn. thing is only applicable to conference games so out of conference games like with Boise State will have different TV rules.
Comment by Geoff J — April 22, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One, CSTV isn’t all that available around the country. A MWC deal would seem to make them a lot more attractive to local providers.
Second, there is a real question about what sort of conference the MWC is going to be. Right now, it’s really a tweener type conference: obviously better than, say, the Big West or the MAC, but a lot below the BCS conferences. It may be that this is a critical time in their evolution as a conference. Hopefully, it will work out.
Comment by D-Train — April 22, 2006 @ 8:32 pm
I recognized that Howard Stern quote from Entertainment Weekly two weeks ago, but it didn’t say what you quoted. I think the AP has it totally out of context. He said all that stuff jokingly, and was actually very happy with the listeners (3.5 million I believe) that had paid for satellite.
I agree that people with cable will probably be to cheap to pay for it though, I’d advise them all to buy a satellite.
Comment by jjohnsen — April 22, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
D-Train – Well I think it is probably a good gamble for the MWC. The conference is clearly locked out of the obnoxious cartel that is the BCS so I like the idea of taking a chance and doing their own thing with a new cable network. I also like that the MWC rejected the crappy deal ESPN offered and walked (I imagine that chapped the hides of the ESPN folks). Maybe it will be worth it. At least this way MWC schools don’t have to grovel for BCS crumbs and settle for being treated like second class citizens by ESPN.
jjohnsen – Interesting. I wonder if there was any backlash against the AP for that.
Comment by Geoff J — April 22, 2006 @ 11:43 pm
Geoff- My cousin is a huge Howard Stern fan, he went as far as to buy Sirius before Howard Stern was even there, just so he could be ready for the first day. He sends me audio clips when Stern interviews members of the church, which is why I remembered the article. He says Stern has been going on about it all week, reading the article word for word and asking EW to release the audio for the interview to prove the AP wrong. I imagine most people have been quoted incorrectly at one time or another in the AP, he just chooses to be one of the few that complains about it.
Comment by jjohnsen — April 23, 2006 @ 6:04 pm