Longhorn Network is still with us, alright

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby recently warned that if the conference didn’t make changes, its schools could end up with far less money than their Big Ten and SEC counterparts.

One potential money maker is a conference network, but due to Texas’ Longhorn Network, a conference-wide network doesn’t look like a possibility. So, Gundy has an idea: get rid of the Longhorn Network, which he calls “a failure.”

That’s a quote from former Ole Miss AD Pete Boone in August 2007, when the two-game Ole Miss-Texas series was officially announced, four years before the Longhorn Network would launch.

Texas won the first game, 66-31, at Ole Miss in 2012. ESPN aired the broadcast on its flagship network, available in more than 98 million households nationwide, with a Texas-centric feed simultaneously available on LHN. Even for a program coming off a 2-10 campaign with a brand new coach and a thin roster, Ole Miss got all it could ask from a 35-point loss in primetime: national exposure and a shot in the arm of enthusiasm from fans who sold out their stadium. A few months and a 7-6 season later, the Rebels would storm the ranks of elite programs on National Signing Day and no one cared much about a blowout loss from September.

Edit: There’s hope yet, Ole Miss fans:

The Big 12 has released the start times and TV schedule for the first three weeks of the season, and the matchup between Ole Miss and Texas on Sept. 14 has been scheduled for a 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. local) kickoff on the Longhorn Network.

Mack Brown is complaining about the Longhorn Network. Whether the SEC now accepts him as its 15th team or Texas fires him, this is one more sign that Mack Brown will soon have far less to do with the Longhorn Network.

He has legitimate private concerns. He has to devote at least six of his weekly hours to the network, in addition to his many other non-coaching duties, and opponents get a look at non-strategic portions of his practices.

Texas head coach Mack Brown went off about the Longhorn Network on Monday, which is a thing he apparently didn’t ask for. When the network was first unveiled last year, Brown and the Longhorn community welcomed it with open arms. But since then, it’s become a bit of distraction for the head coach, who says his 5-2 team is overexposed by the all-access network:

Brown spends six hours a week filming shows for the network, and the first 30 minutes of every Texas practice are televised.

The Longhorn Network will be available on AT&T U-verse, as the television provider has flipped the switch to offer the University of Texas-themed sports channel as of early Friday morning -- it’s now Channel 1609. Paul Wadlington of SB Nation’s own Barking Carnival broke the news Thursday night, with details following shortly after from our Burnt Orange Nation.

The news is great for Texas fans, who were put in a bind by the decision to air the team’s season opener against Wyoming on the ESPN-affiliated channel which many cable companies have balked at carrying. Before the deal, the Longhorn Network was only available to a very slim minority of viewers even in the Austin television market.

So far, the Longhorn Network might or might not have been the success ESPN was hoping for when it agreed to pay Texas $15 million a year. You likely still don’t know anybody who’s actually seen it, and its infrequent emergence into regular-folks television just gets everybody all mad.

But there’s apparently something there that at least one other enormous media company is interested in, specifically Time Warner. According to the Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls:

Rumblings of ESPN looking to get the 2012 game between Texas Tech and Texas State onto the Longhorn Network reportedly had the Red Raiders thinking about just up and canceling the whole thing and playing 11 games. That would’ve meant losing money and paying a buyout to Texas State, but it would’ve also meant not supporting the state overlord’s most overlordy project ever.

Now we might get to skip the latest bit of Big 12 drama:

Not sure why Texas Tech is running away from the juggernaut that is the Longhorn Network, but here we are. The Red Raiders are considering playing an 11-game schedule in 2012 in an effort to avoid having their matchup against Texas State televised on said network. It’s an odd decision, but shows you how much of a stir Texas’s new toy has created in a state full of football rivalry hate.

The report comes from Chris Level:

Talk about putting the “Long (wait for a ballyhood television channel to show up on my television)” in “Longhorn Network!”

Here’s aggrieved Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds on the continuation of the series once cooler heads prevail:

A&M has maintained throughout that, despite jumping to the SEC, it wants to maintain its rivalry with Texas. The Horns have turned up their noses and claimed they’re simply too busy for the time being.

The Dallas Morning News has shared with the world a raft of leaked documents from Texas A&M’s offices, including a brochure-speak application letter to the SEC and Ken Starr’s plea for the Aggies to not leave the Big 12, but the humdinger is athletic director Bill Byrne’s list of complaints about Texas, the Longhorn Network, and ESPN.

Here’s the Byrne email in its entirety:

ESPN wasted little time in using the biggest game of the college football season thus far to try and sell its Longhorn Network. Brent Musburger had to shill the Texaswide Leader, using a mere Texas-Kansas game as the carrot, while Kirk Herbstreit had to tell an entire nation -- including Oklahoma and Kansas fans -- to tune in Tuesdays for live coverage of Horns practice.

Texas’ Longhorn Network wasn’t going to air any high school football games after the NCAA barred them from doing so in August, but there were still questions on what coverage of high school athletics would be allowed. The NCAA had allowed a highlights show, but on Wednesday night it appears that the Longhorn Network won’t even air that. According to Orangebloods.com, Texas has decided to avoid any high school content (for six years) as a means to bring peace to the Big 12.

With the Big 12’s livelihood settled now that Oklahoma and Texas have decided to stay in the conference, the latter is attempting to make nice by making concessions. This is part of a broader television rights deal for the Big 12. Texas had to agree to the 13-year television rights deal that the conference already had in place last April.

The Longhorn Network found a second game to broadcast, and will reportedly air a Big 12 matchup on the newly-minted home of Texas athletics. After announcing plans to air Texas’ season-opening matchup with Rice, the Longhorn Network made it clear a second game was the goal. Now, it appears Kansas has stepped up to the plate.

John Ourand reported the news, including a statement from ESPN.

ESPN and the University of Texas’ walking conflict of interest marches on, trying to only grow bigger and conflict-of-interest-ier as they reportedly aim to add a live broadcast of a second Longhorns game on Longhorn Network, and high school football highlights.

Longhorn Network is, if you don’t know, a partnership between UT and ESPN to start their own TV network focusing on the Longhorns and Longhorn-related issues. As if the idea of a supposed journalistic entity partnering with an individual school doesn’t scream potential disaster — what if Texas’ has its own Nevin Shapiro hiding in the wings?— the network has expressed interest in broadcasting high school football games.

Late Thursday afternoon, a bombshell was dropped on the Big 12. According to AggieYell.com, disgruntled conference old-timer Texas A&M officially jumped ship, hitching their wagon to the SEC.

However, at this point the announcement appears wildly premature, as multiple beat writers have made clear. Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News reports “with 100 percent certainty” that no terms have been reached. SB Nation’s Team Speed Kills agreed, explaining that there are still “a few finishing touches to be done,” while the Houston Chronicle’s Brent Zwerneman extrapolated:

The NCAA suddenly declaring the Longhorn Network can’t show high school football games is like your dad whirling around in the driver’s seat and demanding you and your siblings knock it off back there after you’ve already worked together to produce three black eyes, a sprained ankle, a cracked window and somehow a misdemeanor arrest. Dads are like that sometimes -- pretty much all they do is drum on the steering wheel.

How did it take the NCAA so long to finally catch wind of this? More importantly, how are we reacting to this news?

Texas Governor Rick Perry offered indications that someone in some fashion involved with Texas A&M is considering leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News reports. This is one percent more substantial than a tweet from a stranger would be, as Perry is famous.

“I’ll be real honest with you. I just read about it the same time as y’all did...As far as I know, conversations are being had,” said Perry. “That’s frankly all I know. I just refer you to the university and the decision-makers over there.”

Well, this ought to take care of those pesky programming issues:

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The Longhorn Network contract between Texas and ESPN has made its way into the public eye. The Midnight Yell obtained a copy of the contract, with Outkick The Coverage providing quick legal analysis of the deal, which gives Texas huge sway over the new venture. Similarly, many of the clauses in it show that Texas is not interested in helping out the Big 12.

Outkick The Coverage points out several major issues with this contract. Should Texas ever become an Independent in any sport, this would allow ESPN an exclusive 60-day window to negotiate for the entirety of Texas sports broadcast rights. Similarly, Texas is contractually obligated to stay away from participation in other sports networks, which may also mean that they would be unable to be affiliated with a Big 12 Network, if that ever came to fruition.

Okay, to be fair to the Longhorn Network and ESPN, the Longhorn Network doesn’t launch until August 26th, and there’s probably lots of machinery spinning behind the scenes. Studio space is being rented. Sponsors are being wooed. ESPN employees are moving to Austin, a place they will never leave once they compare to icy, forlorn Bristol, Connecticut.

On that note, that big glowing thing in the sky, displaced ESPNers now living in Austin? It’s the sun. Those odd holes in the buildings with people coming in and out? Those are bars and restaurants, and they are filled with attractive young people. You have those now because you live in Austin. Enjoy the queso, and come to terms with never leaving the city again. We are here to help.

The Longhorn Network’s decision to air high school football games has been a key source of controversy in the Big 12 over the past couple of weeks, but that decision appears to be on hold.

The Longhorn Network is an ESPN-sponsored network. The controversy really got going when it came out that the network would air high school games, both in Texas and outside it, and that Texas would have discretion to determine which games it would pick.

So much for hitting the pause button. Just days after Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe announced that plans for Texas’ new television venture -- the Longhorn Network -- would be put on hold, reports have revealed that the university has already signed a contract to air a Brenham High School football game.

Initially weary after numerous calls from fellow members of the Big 12 claiming that broadcasting high school games gave Texas a distinct unmatchable advantage, Beebe released a statement last Thursday avowing that “no high school content will be televised on a branded member’s network” until the conference could further explore the matter. Yet once again it seems like the Longhorns run the show, as reports surfaced Tuesday afternoon explaining that they had already signed a contract sometime the previous week to broadcast Brenham High School’s game against Lamar Consolidated on September 1st.

At the rate we’re going, every Big 12 school will have spoken out about Texas’ new behemoth, the Longhorn Network, by the middle of next week. Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe already made it clear that the pause button was being hit on plans to televise high school games, with an emphasis on those involving Texas football recruits, as the conference figured out how to handle the situation without imploding out of jealousy and anger. That hasn’t stopped other schools from continuing the torrent of negativity, though.

Oklahoma president David Boren doesn’t just want the Longhorn Network to refrain from showing high school games, he wants any kind of conference network to do the same.