Klein, Steve wrote:
> College hockey may have an intense audience, but it doesn't have a
> major revenue attracting audience,
And my first reaction to this was "Bah! Does the World's Strongest
Man Contest from the '70s have a revenue attracting audience? Does
the world snooker championship have a revenue attracting audience?
There MUST be a larger audience for collegiate hockey than these two."
But then a more rational Mike took over. Could it be that the two
previously mentioned sports were (virtually) FREE to ESPN. College
hockey clearly is not. So they don't mind putting shows on that don't
generate revenue - as long as it doesn't cost them a dime. This, of
course, makes some sense. I'm sure ESPN's decision making process as to
what they should air somewhat resembles the following list (in this
order):
1) Free to ESPN, makes lots of money
2) Costly to ESPN, makes lots of money
3) Free to ESPN, makes no money
4) Costly to ESPN, makes no money
5) Nothing
Numbers 4 and 5 may be out of order. Also, feel free to substitute
one of the major networks for ESPN.
So what does this mean? Well, as has already been pointed out, the
internet is a great resource. Why is that? Are there any other sports
that have the same sort of internet-based following? Are college
hockey fans geeks? Whatever the reason, there is a lot out there:
US College Hockey Online, USA Today Online College Hockey, HOCKEY-L.
Most schools have decent web pages devoted to their hockey teams. Until
someone comes up with a way for television (cable, network, or
otherwise) to make money on college hockey, we won't see it. In the
meantime, enjoy what we've got. Imagine what it was like for college
hockey fans only ten years ago.
-Mike
--
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Mike Kahn - Clarkson '91 Let's Go Tech!
Cascade Communications Corp.
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