It is now offical, North Dakota sporting events will be produced by MidCo for FOX College sports network with NO FTA satellite feeds.
This is from Jayson Hajdu, UND fourm:
Happy Friday, everyone. Please bear with me on this lengthy post. Hopefully it will address the various questions regarding broadcast viewing.
Please note that the football game against Montana will be broadcast by Root Sports, not MidcoSN.
MidcoSN does not yet have a deal in place with DirecTV.
All home and conference road games for football, volleyball and men's and women's basketball can be viewed for free on Big Sky TV at BigSkyConf.com. Men's and women's hockey can be viewed live or on-demand on UND Insider at UNDSports.com. UND Insider is also your ticket to live video and audio streams of exclusive events such as women's soccer, baseball and softball not available anywhere else.
At this point, Fox College Sports is only picking up men's hockey. All home men's hockey games will be broadcast on Fox College Sports for 2012-13 only. Once UND joins the National Collegiate Hockey Conference in 2013-14, CBS Sports Network holds national broadcast rights to all NCHC games. Thus, UND cannot broadcast nationally on another network, even if CBS Sports Network is not showing that particular game.
Midco will not be making programming available via FTA, as is their right. I believe Midco addressed this via Twitter earlier this week.
Is this ideal for UND as an individual institution? Of course not. In college athletics, there is a cost to doing business. Sometimes concessions have to be made for the best interests of the league(s). Now, this doesn't preclude us from attempting to regain that national footprint in the future. We are well aware of how many loyal fans we have nationwide and we will make every effort to make sure we reach as many as possible, in as many ways as possible.
In the meantime, fans outside of the MidcoSN viewing area will still have the opportunity to view home men's hockey games via UNDInsider webcasts. We like to think we already offer high-quality webcasts – we pull the feed directly from the television broadcast – but we are still making significant upgrades for the upcoming season.
Specifically, we are upgrading in terms of quality (to near-HD), video player (better streaming for your connection speed) and accessibility (iPad, etc.). Once MidcoSN makes the conversion to HD in 2014-15, our webcasts will also be available in full HD.
With the upgrade to near-HD – and eventually full HD – you'll still be able to enjoy UND men's hockey games on your television screen by connecting your computer. It will essentially be the same quality you previously enjoyed, albeit with an extra step involved.
Our goal is to provide our programming to as many fans possible through as many platforms as possible. We've come an awful long ways since the days of one or two games per year being broadcast on local network television. In 2012-13, every home game will be available to watch on television, webcasts and mobile devices.
The recent exposure we've had with the Fox College Sports deal is quite an anomaly in today's world of college athletics. An increasing number of conferences are now dictating the terms of national television rights. As I mentioned earlier, that is a cost of doing business when seeking affiliation with elite-level conferences. But, as I also mentioned, we'll continue to attempt to regain at least some of that national footprint going forward. When that will happen, I don't yet know, but these things are fluid. The situation as it stands today could be quite different down the road.
But in the meantime, I urge you to utilize our other platforms for viewing our events. The world of technology is ever-evolving, and we're doing our best to keep up while still trying to balance the needs of those who view through traditional platforms like television. That's the positive in a technology-driven world – you are no longer restricted to viewing solely through your television. I've mentioned this before in Twitter discussions on the same topic: in 2012, if there is a game you want to watch, chances are you'll be able to find it. You just may have to do so through non-traditional means.
Hopefully this answered your many questions. If I missed anything, please feel free to ask.
I don't know if this is coincidence, but I said a couple of years ago when FOX got their greedy little paws in the pie and FSSN was going to be broadcast on FOX College Sports that it would be the begining of the end for FSSN as we know it. Well low and behold look what has happened. You know FOX's motto, "don't give anybody anything for free." This is my opinion only, but I am willing to bet if the Sioux games were being porduced for MidCo only there would be FTA. Any time FOX get in on something you can kiss it good bye.
:rant:.
