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News Junkie
Back from vacation with no plans to rehash all the developments from football media days last week in Hollywood.
The event 1) was covered comprehensively by numerous outlets (espn.com’s Ted Miller, always spot-on, provided this big-picture assessment) and 2) lacked major news impacting the on-field product.
(It’s the dead of summer, after all.)
And no, I did not interrupt vacation to monitor which coaches, if any, got red carpet airtime during the ESPYs.
But one piece of off-field news is worthy of rehash, even four days late:
Cox has agreed to place the Pac-12 Networks’ National feed on its Southern California and Arizona systems (on the expanded basic tier).
This is a major development … an essential victory for the Pac12Nets, for president Lydia Murphy-Stephans and for commissioner Larry Scott.
It means Cox subscribers in Los Angeles and Arizona will have access to all the football (and men’s basketball) games televised by the Pac12Nets.
You might have thought that was a given. Cox is a founding partner, after all.
But no.
No, no, no.
Previously, subscribers to those Cox systems had only access to the respective regional feeds (i.e., Pac-12 Los Angeles and Pac-12 Arizona).
That was an issue during basketball season, because of the Pac12Nets shift to local programming on the regional feeds, and it would have been a problem when football begins:
The National feed will carry all the games; the regional feeds only show the local teams.
Had the situation not been resolved … had the National feed not been made available on those Cox systems … then fans living in Los Angeles could only have watched Pac12Nets games involving the L.A. schools, and fans in Arizona could only have watched games involving the Arizona schools.
Imagine how that would have played out during the fall:
USC fans living in Phoenix unable to watch the Trojans vs. Colorado, for example.
Or Washington fans in Southern California unable to watch the Huskies against Oregon State.
It would have been a unmitigated failure for the Pac12Nets … far worse, in my estimation, than the DirecTV situation because Pac12Nets subscribers inside the footprint — actual, paying subscribers — would have lacked access to all the games.
But Scott and Murphy-Stephans were able to convince Cox to make the National feed available to subs in Arizona and SoCal. Now, Pac-12 fans in those markets will have access to every game, not merely those involving the local teams.
This might not seem like a momentous development, because it impacts a relatively small percentage of the Pac12Nets subscribers.
But cast against the promises made five years ago — that every game would be available nationally — the lack of access to football games inside the footprint for paying customers would have been a serious blemish … an abject failure, in fact.
With that issue resolved, we wait for developments on the DirecTV front.
(Check back in late August, when negotiations get serious.)
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The post Pac-12 Networks: Major breakthrough with Cox appeared first on College Hotline.
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by Jon Wilner
