Kansas State to Launch K-STATE HDTV! Take THAT Longhorns!

In the current context, not only would I not pay for a TXPN add on, I’d cancel service if it were added on for free. In the abstract, I don’t have a problem with a school branded network, but the way TXPN is actively trying to exploit other schools, there’s just absolutely no way I could watch it. University athletic departments push the bounds of the institutional mission enough as it is. I would argue with anyone who thinks that athletics doesn’t serve an important and healthy role for universities and their alumni, but TXPN is beyond the pale. TXPN is leveraging Texas’ considerable endowment to fleece other schools who have less to begin with. It’s a university – supposedly an institution of scholarly pursuit – predating on other universities – and thus actively inhibiting scholarly pursuit. It’s objectively repulsive, or at least it should be to anyone who thinks that a university is something of value. It’s like a vampire or cannibal school. If TXPN isn’t viable on the merits of Texas alone, then let it fail. Reviving it by fleecing lesser-endowed schools isn’t just counter to conference affiliation, it’s counter to the collective pursuit of knowledge and network of mutual support that all universities are a part of.

First, there’s no demand for Texas’ network without putting other conference teams like K-State on it. The stupid thing is supposed to launch in just over a week, and to my knowledge not a single distributer has agreed to carry it. Second, that no one’s third tier rights are worth $0 is exactly his point. The truth of this is obvious, but that’s exactly what Disney and Texas are asserting in their efforts to persuade other schools to submit to TXPN broadcasts. Despite the fact that no one is buying the thing, their telling you that the network is providing all the value, and your ought to bow down and kiss their feet for letting you have the opportunity to put your worthless third tier rights on it. (Not that putting on more than one school, might broaden the appeal of the cannel or anything…) Lastly, if K-State is putting itself on TXPN, they are not being justly compensated, they’re being fleeced.

Look, if TXPN succeeds on the value of Texas alone, then so be it. That would only be fair. But the network is failing, and rather than let it go down, Disney and Texas are trying to revive it by strong arming other conference schools into going on the network. There simply isn’t sufficient demand for a television channel that only shows Texas vs. Rice. They have to play someone worth watching, and while you seem to think that it doesn’t mean much that K-State fits that bill, clearly Rice and teams of that aren’t sufficient. Texas needs K-State to make its network profitable, but rather than actually bring you in on the deal they’re offering you their left overs and saying “you’re never going to do better than that for your worthless rights.” But, it’s not true. If K-State were playing any other high-profile team besides Texas the game would be on basic cable if not network television. And, if K-State were in any other BCS league it would be able to make a deal with a regional channel to show the other games that TXPN is offering to carry. The reason they want to move the K-State game from basic cable to TXPN, is precisely because it’s valuable in a way that Texas-Rice is not, and the reason that K-State can’t get a better deal for their third tier rights at the moment is that Disney is trying to starve them out. Disney is basically refusing to make any deal with K-State, even if it were independently profitable, unless K-State helps it and Texas profit on their network that you aren’t a part of. In the long run K-State and the other conference schools can get more by refusing to play on TXPN, but they have to hold out until the network fails.

So what you have is Texas, a school with more money than it can spend, teaming up with the Disney corporation to muscle money away from schools like K-State. If it they were making an honest offer, that would be one thing, but this is the two strongest players colluding to fleece all of the weaker players. It’s the sort of thing that’s sometimes considered illegal when done between for profit businesses. Universities aren’t for profit businesses, but they’re supposed to be restrained by their primary mission to discover and disseminate knowledge. Such restraint seems particularly appropriate of schools founded by state governments to serve the needs of the state. If you really want to get technical about it, a branch of the government of the state of Texas has made a deal with a media giant where they’ve agreed to do everything they can to bleed off as much money as possible from universities that serve other states.

There’s nothing wrong with a university-branded network in and of itself. But, the deal between Texas and Disney is calculated to prevent other members of the conference from being able to conduct any business without paying rent to them. This has nothing to do with jealousy. And if the network starts to fail and ESPN and Disney come to Oklahoma to try get them in on the deal to make it work, I’ll personally write to the administration with the very same objections I’m writing here. I’d be genuinely embarrassed if the school participated in a network organized the way this one is. And after watching the way Disney and Texas have behaved in this, I would be very skeptical of any claim they might make to deal with other schools fairly in the future.

Unless I was given good reason to think the new deal would be different, I’d hope Oklahoma would refuse to participate unless all the schools were allowed to participate. They don’t all have the same value, and so they shouldn’t all receive the same exposure or payment, but the network should at least be operated in such a way that it doesn’t enable any school to profit at the expense of another. That’s what TXPN is offering Kansas State. It’s a fool’s bargain, and if K-State makes it then they’ll be completely dependent on Texas until the day they’re finally bled to death. Texas might not literally own them, but K-State would effectively be a subsidiary of Texas. An at will employee at best. Ignoring for the moment the fact that these teams are associated with universities, it would be one team in complete control over the financing necessary for the viability of its supposed competitor. One team essentially paying another to form so that there will be someone to play. You know who that is? That’s the Washington Generals. That’s the deal they’re offering. They want K-State to be the Washington Generals of TXPN.

You should be upset by this.