The Pac-12 Networks will make its on-air debut Wednesday night with great anticipation and expectation from fans across the West Coast eager to see expanded coverage of all sports come to fruition in ways never seen from a major conference before.
“It’s going to give all fans (a chance) to view Oregon no matter where they are, and that’s the beauty of it,” said Craig Pintens, senior associate athletic director at the University of Oregon. “Every football game will be broadcast nationally, and every men’s basketball game.”
The network plans to broadcast 850 live events over the next year across its one national and six regional networks, something the President of Pac-12 Enterprises, Gary Stevenson, called “unprecedented” while pointing out that the Big 10 Network only carried 350 live events during its inaugural year of coverage. Additionally, the Pac-12 will roll out what they call TV Everywhere: The ability to watch the television coverage of your team on all devices.
“What we’re aiming to do is if you’re an authenticated subscriber, you’ll be able to watch our programming live just the same as if it’s on television on any device you have,” said Stevenson.
Added Pintens: “For example, if one of our volleyball matches is not being broadcast, we can stream it and is available for anyone with access.”
Each home television market of the Pac-12 schools will have access to the network on their respective “basic” cable packages — the network will be carried on Comcast, Wave Broadband, and Bend Broadband in Oregon among other providers — but satellite subscribers are still waiting for deals to be struck with DIRECTV and DISH Network as time winds down.
“We are in negotiations with both, and at the end of the day it’s about great content, and we have great content,” Stevenson said. “We have 850 live events, 35 football games and 135 men’s basketball games, so it’s about great content and that’s where we focus our conversations with DIRECTV and DISH.”
“If anyone has a question about (coverage), they can go to IwantPac12Networks.goducks.com and there’s a channel locator which will tell you if your provider gets it or not,” Pintens said.
Student involvement and access is another emphasis of the Pac-12 Network, with the plan being to eventually involve students in both the production of live and scripted content on the national and regional channels. Stevenson anticipates working with journalism schools around the conference to produce future content for the network.
“Certainly there are going to be so many opportunities over time for students to be involved,” Stevenson said. “With that many events on campus, we can have students participate as producers and on-field reporters, and they’ll have the opportunity to work with professionals who have been doing it for 20 or 30 years, so that’s an interesting educational opportunity.”
On the subject of content being available for students without cable television, Stevenson said that the network is working on two different avenues for student accessibility: enabling all television centers on Pac-12 campuses (such as the EMU) to be able to show network programming, and student authentication for web use, though the latter is not expected to be ready by Wednesday.
“As far as student authentication and how that works, it’s a little more complicated and we’re working through that,” Stevenson said.