That’s right. Look for Notre Dame Fighting Irish action coming on a Notre Dame channel near you. In the vein of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners of recent the Fighting Irish are considering a premium sports network after its contract with NBC runs out in 2015.
This would mark the University’s 25th anniversary of making a deal with the network. Notre Dame took in reportedly 26 million dollars a year that was given out to students as financial aid.
Notre Dame Athletic director discussed this possibility in an interview on radio interview with radio station WSBT AM 960 via the Chicago Herald Tribune.
“There will be a Notre Dame Network, but people sort of envision that in traditional terms of something dramatic and new. You’ll sort of grow into it as you produce more and more digital programming and distribute it more broadly, and we’re committed to that.
What is central to our ability to really build out of a viable network is the increased delivery of broadband video to homes. Texas is a cable platform, because they have dense geography. Ours is the inverse of that. We have fans everywhere – not a huge concentration in one cable market. And so we’re going to be really well-positioned, as technology advances here, and we’re spending our time now building our digital programming.”
A successful model for Norte Dame to follow would be the Big Ten network. The league launched its network in 2007 and has a reach of over 40 million households. Each team in the conference looks to make over 28 million dollars.
Besides football the Notre Dame channel would showcase other successful sports programs such as women’s basketball, women’s soccer, men’s hockey, and men’s basketball.
The Fighting Irish could earn more than their current rate with NBC (26 million dollars) as it would not have to share any of its revenue. Plus the station would be popular with hardcore Fighting Irish fans across the nation resulting in millions of subscriptions.
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