🏀 KuBuckets Archive

My 73 year old mother emailed Kuathletics@ku.edu about the time warner deal and this is the reply she got from Jim Marchiony's email.

We want to acknowledge your email about the Jayhawk Television Network. First, thank you for being a KU fan; we appreciate you. Sorry it has taken so long for me to get back to you. You've done nothing wrong, and it's not that you're "unworthy"!

We understand and appreciate your concern, and want to take a minute to explain why we've done what we've done with the Network.

Time Warner Cable SportsChannel is indeed the exclusive local carrier in the K.C. area and the state of Kansas of six (two exhibitions, four non-conference) out of what we hope will be 40 or so KU men's basketball games. Fans can see all the other KU games as they always have. (The four regular-season games are against Northern Colorado, Loyola of Maryland, Holy Cross and Montana...Montana was the last game this season to be under this arrangement.)

Why the exclusivity for these few games? For its part, Time Warner Cable SportsChannel has committed to broadcast live some 50 other KU events in sports such as women's basketball, women's volleyball, women's soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, and swimming and diving. Time Warner has made arrangements to show the six basketball games and all of these other games on cable systems all across the state of Kansas. You can see a list of those systems at the following link:
http://kuathletics.com/sports/2013/6/21/GEN_0621130651.aspx#Channel. ↗

ESPN3 will archive each affected game, and fans will be able watch them on ESPN3 at their leisure, beginning about a half-hour after each game ends. Time Warner Cable SportsChannel will also show replays of every KU home men's basketball game, as well as any game that appears on CBS or an ESPN network.

Additionally, ESPN3 will broadcast all these events live nationally outside the Kansas City area and the state of Kansas. ESPN3 will also televise - to the entire nation with no blackouts - 20 additional KU contests; this adds up to about 75 appearances for KU on ESPN3. For most Kansas Athletics programs, all of this represents important, unprecedented statewide and national coverage.

Time Warner Cable SportsChannel will also annually carry some 300 hours of new, innovative, KU-themed shows across the state, and will also make that programming available nationally to millions of Time-Warner subscribers. That will bring great new national coverage of Kansas and highlight the KU brand in new ways - and not just the Athletics brand, the University's brand. Again - important, unprecedented national coverage for KU. This programming includes:

. Pre- and post-game shows for home and away Jayhawk football and men's basketball games
. Jayhawk Insider, a weekly magazine-style show
. Hawk Talk Radio Show simulcasts
. #RockChalkTV, a social media-centered show driven by fans
. Live press conferences
. A Jayhawk Legends series, and
. University of Kansas academic specials.

We give you this detail to emphasize that this decision is about local, statewide and national exposure for our 500+ student-athletes.

Yes, this agreement alters the local broadcasting arrangement of a small minority of KU games, something we did not take lightly. But we feel it is well worth the tremendously increased exposure KU will receive locally, statewide and nationally.

Thank you again for caring enough to send us your thoughts; we hope you can appreciate what this arrangement means for our coaches and student-athletes.

Go Jayhawks!

Jim Marchiony
Associate Athletics Director,
Public Affairs
University of Kansas
1651 Naismith Drive
Lawrence, KS. 66045
jmarch@ku.edu

@VailHawk bla bla bla, same thing my parents got and sister. Why does it have to be blacked out during game?

I live in AR and am subject to the blackout.

Dear Jim,

Why not just have Time Warner give KU all the benefits you describe, plus not black out the 6 games?

I don't follow. Run that by me again.

Why do you have to black out those six games to get the benefits?

Best regards,

jaybate 1.0
Director/janitor.
Basketball Intelligence Agency

@ShemanZinghole Why should KU basketball suffer in any way shape or form to cary other non-revenue producing sports? If there was enough demand to see these sports on tv they would be there without hindering KU basketball in any way. Supply would meet the demand.

The reason Time Warner/Cox blacks out those games, is because there are a ton of K.U. fans who will not miss watching, even 'one game', and they switched over to Time Warner/Cox! That is a lot of money, considering people don't just get the K.U. games, but they buy many of the large packages! I don't like it any more than anyone else, and it is wrong-but I already had Cox, so it did not affect me!

Say, Roy, does the echo of all this sound familiar? Kansas athletic directors bumbling with the sport which keeps KU Sports in the national spotlight.

@TRUBLUE a lot of KU fans don't have that option, western ks.

The Dodgers had an agreement that blacked out almost half of LA citizens from watching the Dodgers! We're not the only ones who suffer under such idiocy. Vin Scully's wife wouldn't be able to watch his own broadcasts in their home.

It doesn't personally impact me as I'm out of state and have no family in KS. But it still makes my blood boil that they would use what matters most to KU fans as a negotiation chip.

@REHawk : As I posted on another thread on another board, It's like Zenger put the FB coffin in the ground and laid on the last spadefuls of earth, and now he digs a little hole for KU BB, just a little hole, mind you, nothing that could kill the program or anything, and those who complained about people complaining about the deal are saying, Hey, it's just a little hole.

Yeah, the man really knows how to market this blue blood program.

Typical clueless, bureaucratic response from some one that has no clue. At this point they have no choice but to toe the line Zenger has drawn on the sand...regardless of how silly it is.

I wonder if he has ever considered that the audience that misses just one basketball game in the KC Metro Area alone is larger than the entire audience for all that other programming for an entire year he so proudly mentions. If he wants to promote other sports, why are the women's basketball and women's volleyball games also blacked out? and why only in the state of Kansas? Are we, residents of the state and tax payers not entitled to watch what out-of-staters can?