Utes, Cougs, Aggies now playing on Web

CSTV is launching more than 100 broadband channels today — including channels for the University of Utah, BYU and Utah State.

Essentially, each of the more than 100 schools involved and a handful of conferences will have their own channel on the Internet. Combined, they'll offer more than 10,000 live events (games, press conferences, etc.) as well as "archive film, ticketing, merchandise and subscriber features into one, single platform," said CSTV president Brian Bedol. "It is the ultimate intersection of content, tools and technology."

All nine members of the Mountain West Conference, as well as the conference itself, will have channels on the platform. Among Western Athletic Conference members, only Utah State and Fresno State are launching today.

And there are big names involved in this launch — names like Notre Dame, USC, Auburn, Florida State, Iowa, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Penn State, Pitt, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas A&M, UCLA, Washington, West Virginia and the Big East Conference.

The broadband channels will be available both through individual school sites (like byucougars.com, utahutes.com and utahstateaggies.com) and through CSTV's overall broadband network — CSTVXXL.com. The cost for individual school broadband channels will range from $4.95 to $9.95 a month; the cost for CSTVXXL.com (which provides access to all the individual channels) is $14.95 a month.

"Think of these as being the school's own channels, and the schools are all affiliated with this network," Bedol said.

The goal is to make each channel a 24-hour entity with both live and archived content. Each university will deal with its television rights as they now stand — some games will not be available on the Internet because of TV deals.

"Keep in mind that every year there are over 100,000 games and events that take place across the college-sports landscape, and maybe 1,000 (to) 1,500 make it onto television," Bedol said. "So this is a platform that is not designed as a substitute for television.

"And we don't anticipate that very many people who could watch a live game in high-def on a 60-inch screen are going to prefer to watch it this way. This is really either for the fan that doesn't have access to a game on TV or the sports of the teams that they follow don't get on TV."

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