[Husker] TV weirdness

[Mike Nolan]

> Most of the country couldn't care less about Pelini's debut.  I am 
> not saying I feel this way,  I am just saying I can certainly see why TV 
> chose to go the direction they did.

I think there are quite a few people who are hoping that Bo fails miserably.  
They have reveled in Nebraska's recent problems much as other people (some
of them may be the same people) have reveled over similar down periods 
over the years at Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, UCLA, etc.  

However, they're probably not a large enough group to be attractive to
the TV scheduling folks or their advertisers.  

The Texas schools, including Baylor, have always held the whip hand in 
the Big 12 Conference, because of the size of the media markets they 
brought to the table.  That isn't likely to change.  Even if Nebraska
returns to top-25 (or better yet top-10) caliber football in the next
year or two, a lot of our 'Nowhere State' games aren't going to be 
televised unless the Big 12 changes its media package to allow that.  

And if anything, I suspect the Big 12 will move in a different direction,
towards allowing more PPV games or even emulating the Big 10 and starting 
their own network, because the networks are sending not-so-subtle signals
that the TV dollars are not unlimited and may even decrease somewhat,
or at least slow down a lot.  

ESPN GamePlan had fewer games in 2007 than in 2006 or 2005 (and there
were very few Northwestern games on GamePlan or ESPN/2/U), which is one 
of the reasons I chose not to get GamePlan in 2007 and will make the same
decision in 2008.  (I am considering getting a satellite dish next
month, though, in part because the cable company has become SO inept here, 
but also because I want access to the Big 10 Network games.)
-
Mike Nolan