MWC may switch from TV to internet only broadcasts

[BelgradeBobcat]

http://footballscoop.com/news/mountain- ... line-only/

So the Big Sky Conference is really ahead of the times with their Big Sky tournament internet broadcasts. Not because they want to be, but because they have to be. It does seem to be the wave of the future.

We're all predisposed to sitting on the couch, grabbing the remote control and clicking around until we find a game. It's taken a little bit of a culture change to look for the games on the internet. Watching games on the internet used to be kind of clunky. You had to log in, make an account, remember your password, read a disclaimer, put up with buffering, etc. But with the Big Sky tournament the last two seasons, they made it so all you had to do was go to the website and the game was on. On youtube the game was on and you could watch the replays.

It's still far from perfect. The women's games I watched at the R bar had some buffering problems and the picture when put on a TV isn't quite as good. But it's a lot better than just radio.

It would suck to be a MAC football fan-who actually goes to the games. They play all their games in November-not on a Saturday. Who wants to go to a football game on a Tuesday night? TV has taken away the game from their fans who go to the games.

These are interesting times to say the least.

[GoldstoneCat]

I have a tangential question to this topic for you. Do you think there is enough of an appetite in the BSC for a "game-of-the-week" type of broadcast, specific to basketball and available by video stream, that people would pay some sort of a subscription fee to have access to it? The reason I ask specifically about a subscription, is perhaps if you had some more funds available, you could use them to create a better product all season long? Have the tv guys from the tourney (I thought Cravens on color commentary was really pretty good) do a weekly big sky rivalry game streaming broadcast or something, charge people say $30 or $50 for the season, and use some of that money to improve the streaming quality of the rest of the league games during the regular season. I know you follow basketball as much as anybody on here Belgrade, so I'm wondering I guess if you think something like that could work in our league? I'd love to see some improvements made in basketball accessibility and quality.

[BelgradeBobcat]

I think maybe Colter Nuanez might have more insight on this subject since he's challenging the traditional sports writer model-going all internet instead of print. And it's working. I get most of my news from internet sources as the stuff in the newspaper is old news. But capturing revenue is difficult. I think schools would be better charging a small surcharge to their game tickets, since the people who go to the games are probably the largest concentration of people who tune into the internet to watch the road games. I don't know if Big Sky basketball is popular enough to charge to watch their games. I think most people will just watch something else or listen on the radio.

[GoldstoneCat]

I think maybe Colter Nuanez might have more insight on this subject since he's challenging the traditional sports writer model-going all internet instead of print. And it's working. I get most of my news from internet sources as the stuff in the newspaper is old news. But capturing revenue is difficult. I think schools would be better charging a small surcharge to their game tickets, since the people who go to the games are probably the largest concentration of people who tune into the internet to watch the road games. I don't know if Big Sky basketball is popular enough to charge to watch their games. I think most people will just watch something else or listen on the radio.

Good to know, and I suspect you're correct. It's hard even in Montana, with our relatively large fan bases, most likely aren't up on the week to week happenings in the big sky. Of course some are but probably not that many. I'd still like to see something like I described above tried in some form. At least see if there's some level of ad revenue to be had, etc. Maybe it's already been studied and it can't work, I just think the product on the floor, and the talent of the league's top players, is improving and worth watching.

[Bobcat4Ever]

I have a tangential question to this topic for you. Do you think there is enough of an appetite in the BSC for a "game-of-the-week" type of broadcast, specific to basketball and available by video stream, that people would pay some sort of a subscription fee to have access to it? The reason I ask specifically about a subscription, is perhaps if you had some more funds available, you could use them to create a better product all season long? Have the tv guys from the tourney (I thought Cravens on color commentary was really pretty good) do a weekly big sky rivalry game streaming broadcast or something, charge people say $30 or $50 for the season, and use some of that money to improve the streaming quality of the rest of the league games during the regular season. I know you follow basketball as much as anybody on here Belgrade, so I'm wondering I guess if you think something like that could work in our league? I'd love to see some improvements made in basketball accessibility and quality.

Altitude used to broadcast a Big Sky Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons. Once in awhile it was a double header. Would be interesting to know what kind of numbers those games drew.

[John K]

I have a tangential question to this topic for you. Do you think there is enough of an appetite in the BSC for a "game-of-the-week" type of broadcast, specific to basketball and available by video stream, that people would pay some sort of a subscription fee to have access to it? The reason I ask specifically about a subscription, is perhaps if you had some more funds available, you could use them to create a better product all season long? Have the tv guys from the tourney (I thought Cravens on color commentary was really pretty good) do a weekly big sky rivalry game streaming broadcast or something, charge people say $30 or $50 for the season, and use some of that money to improve the streaming quality of the rest of the league games during the regular season. I know you follow basketball as much as anybody on here Belgrade, so I'm wondering I guess if you think something like that could work in our league? I'd love to see some improvements made in basketball accessibility and quality.

Altitude used to broadcast a Big Sky Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons. Once in awhile it was a double header. Would be interesting to know what kind of numbers those games drew.

I thought that when Root signed the contract to broadcast the BSC football games, that the deal originally included some basketball games too, and I do seem to remember that they carried a few games every season during the first year or two of the football contract. And I also remember that Altitude used to have some BSC basketball games too. Between Altitude, Root, and the two Cat-Griz games, there was a time just a few years ago. when maybe 4 or 5 MSU basketball games were televised every season. Now it's only the Cat-Griz games, and even those are hard to find on Charter.

[Cats15]

I thought it was great that they streamed the tournament games on Youtube. Our smart tv has a youtube app, so just typed in Big Sky Conference and was there. Watched it just like any other game on tv.

[GoldstoneCat]

I thought it was great that they streamed the tournament games on Youtube. Our smart tv has a youtube app, so just typed in Big Sky Conference and was there. Watched it just like any other game on tv.

I did not know that, that is pretty nice. I should have done more research, could have used my roku instead of hooking up the computer. Good tip for next year I guess.