82SiouxGuy

I don't think it's going to take years for people to adopt this technology. We are in the middle of a transition period. The problem is we don't know for sure where it's going because there are so many options. Think about the transition period from LP records to 8 tracks and cassette tapes. Or the start up of beta and VHS video tape. Things are happening quickly. You can already stream things straight to your TV from a variety of sources as is mentioned above. The quality can be just as good as cable TV and it can be just as convenient. The difference may be the exposure. But if you are limiting yourself to just the sports package, you have a problem also. Streaming could potentially be available to more people. You just have to get them pointed in the right direction. Obviously you haven't watched good quality streaming. Very little of what is streamed for college sports is very good quality right now, ESPN3 may be the best of what I've seen but it is hit and miss. It probably depends on the capabilities of where they are broadcasting from. If you have a decent internet connection, try streaming regular TV or a movie. All of the television companies have streaming, like www.cbs.com, or www.nbc.com. Or try www.hulu.com. You will see that it can be pretty good quality. I'm not exactly a poster child for the new tech age. I'm 51 years old. I'm just not afraid of trying some new things. I actually dropped cable TV a few years ago. I was working all the time and thought it was a waste of money for what I got out of it. I have broadcast TV capability, but actually watch most things by streaming because I can watch them when I want. Also, most of them have fewer commercials. The only bad thing is that I miss a lot of sports. There are sites that broadcast some sports, but the quality isn't that great yet. Obviously, if it can be good for regular TV, it can be for sports also. I think that this is part of the future. But regular TV will also be around for quite a while, it's just a matter of how long. I would be willing to bet that all of the major conferences that signed TV deals have also addressed the issue of streaming in some way, probably in those TV contracts. I believe you will see major changes coming in 1 or 2 or 3 years.

One of the quotes said that they are going to explore adding exposure in the Twin Cities to the current regional TV exposure. I don't know what that will look like, UND may not know yet. But if you add the current UNDSN on Midcontinent and other cable companies, the OTA option, plus adding a Twin Cities outlet, plus adding a high quality streaming option and you could make the games available to more people across the United States than using the current setup.

Another thought about streaming. Did anyone watch Sunday Night Football on nbc.com this year? They streamed the games in HD quality. My DSL is slow, but the picture was still pretty good most of the time. The cool thing was that they gave you several different camera options. Most of the time I would watch the regular feed, the same as the one that was broadcast on television. But they had at least 5 different options so you could watch a sideline camera or a behind the quarterback camera or an endzone camera. That is something not available on broadcast TV. Maybe it could be some time in the future for more sports web casts.

I hope so. Classes start on August 20th and last day to add a class is August 29th. If they aren't back on campus by the 30th they probably aren't coming.

And as a follow up to my comment and Scott's, wouldn't it be great if all of those games were available to be seen any time you want. So we could sit at home on a hot July day and watch UND beat up on the Gophers in a hockey game from that previous season.

Streaming has changed tremendously over the past couple of years. Most of the sports webcasts that are available right now are still using old technology. You can stream movies in HD right now to a computer, and hook that computer to a TV with a single cable. Or you can stream through a gaming system. And other options are out there now or will be soon. I agree with you, I would rather pay UND for using the stream rather than pay a cable company. And maybe they can keep expanding the offerings. As long as they have the system, maybe they could stream all home football, volleyball, men's and women's basketball, and men's and women's hockey plus some away games in each.

As I said in the other thread discussing this issue, they now have boxes that directly stream the internet to your television. The brand I have seen advertised is Roku. It is basically a cable box for internet streaming television. Not all content works on it now, but you can use it for Netflix, Hulu and many other streaming options. The box costs from $50-100 as a one time cost. Some of the services cost money, a lot do not. The picture quality can be up to full 1080 HD with a good quality internet connection. Maybe UND sports could use a service like that. You could potentially make the games available to anyone with an internet connection, not just people that have cable or satellite TV with the sports packages.

The question was asked, "who is going to be the new recruiting coordinator?" and the answer was, "We have not named that position yet. There will be a number of different staff responsibilities that will change here in the future. Hopefully, this can reenergize some guys and give them different areas to recruit." That doesn't mean they are cutting things. It means that they are going to move some people around. It sounds like some of the coaches may need a little change of scenery so they are going to shake things up a little bit.

There are boxes that you can purchase to stream straight to a television. I believe that one brand name is Roku. I haven't tried one yet, but they sound very interesting. They stream Netflix, Hulu and many other services, up to HD quality if you have fast enough internet service. They recommend 5 MB download speed for sports. Prices for the boxes start at about $50 and go up to about $100 as a 1 time charge. Some of the services like Netflix have a charge, some don't. Why couldn't they develop a service like that for UND sports? Then anyone with a quality internet service could watch without having to pay for an extra cable service (and maybe have HD quality available). I too am going to wait and see what develops before I get too upset about this TV situation.

SJSU and PSU are simple to explain. UND can pretty easily schedule away games at lower level FBS schools, especially several years in advance. Paying for PSU was easy because of the buyout that UND got. It's expensive to bring in FCS schools for a single game, and FCS schools don't seem to like coming to this part of the country for home and homes. Even NDSU has had some problems filling home schedules. It would be nice to get rid of SD Mines, but I would guess that the number of schools that want to come to Grand Forks for a modest fee would be pretty small. Remember, if you pay a school $125,000 plus buy out SD Mines you need to sell 10,000 tickets at $15 per ticket just to pay those costs. Then you still have to pay all of the other game day costs. And the goal is usually to make money on home games, not lose money.

It probably isn't time to panic about this right now. There is plenty of time to work out something different, and the people that made the Fox deal are the ones still there, so they have a pretty good idea about how this TV thing works. Minimum of 18 games, with 2 teams playing in each game, and 8 teams in the league, means an average of 4.5 appearances per year per team if they give equal coverage. A better bet would be teams like UND getting more games so you can probably expect at least 6 games. Also, it sounds like the UNDSN will still be broadcasting games in the region, so that means most of the Dakotas and part of Minnesota will have some coverage. Also, the whole television game seems to be changing. Midco's sports network has only been around for a year or 2. Perhaps they are working on making that a bigger presence and getting on satellite. Maybe they have been in talks with FSN. New ways to stream television through the internet to actually show on television have been developed and are still being developed. Making that possible and making it good quality could open up UND sports to even more people that don't want to pay extra money on cable or satellite for the sports packages. That could be better for UND, and cheaper for everyone. Basically, it might be better to step off the ledge and get the whole story for something that isn't even happening for 18 months.

BE has a 2.38 Goals Against and a .919 save percentage this year. Both of those are better than Dell at 2.81 and .892 this year. He was also very good his Freshman and Sophomore years. I don't have any problem with Hak using BE on a regular basis the rest of this year, probably trading off with Dell. Nothing wrong with having 2 good goalies sharing time.

Obviously you need to read more carefully. I didn't say anything about the NCAA stopping UND from attaining DI status, and I definitely didn't say anything about the NCAA using the nickname and logo to do it. It's almost like you wanted to throw out a red herring to change the subject. UND is currently classified as a DIvision II school transitioning to Division I by the NCAA. Exhibit 1, http://web1.ncaa.org/onlineDir/exec/divisionListing. UND is scheduled to finish transition in July of this year. It is probably a pretty safe assumption that they will finish the transition, but at this point it is just an assumption. Big Sky bylaws define a conference member, in part, as meeting NCAA Division I membership criteria. Exhibit 2, see Article V Section 2, http://bigskyconf.com/custompages/CODE10-11/Constitution.pdf. Therefore, UND does not meet the criteria of the bylaws to be a current member of the Big Sky Conference. Further evidence is that UND is not yet a full voting member of the conference. If you are not allowed to vote on conference matters, either you are probably not a full member of the conference or you are on some kind of probation. Later in the bylaws it discusses how to remove a school from the conference, how to change rules and how to put a school on probation. The one thing I did not see is if there is a different procedure to expell a school that has not attained full conference membership as of yet. They may or may not have a different procedure in a different document. I also didn't say that UND would not be an asset to the Big Sky as a member. Obviously UND ranks higher than most of the conference in education, UND probably will have one of the largest and most loyal fanbases in the conference, and UND has a great athletic tradition. None of that means the Big Sky would crumble without UND, or even be damaged if UND were not a member of the conference. They have survived just fine without UND for many years. And don't forget, several other schools are joining the conference. The 2 California schools that are going to be football only members certainly help with the educational ranking reputation of the conference, as well as doing pretty well at the gate and on the field. Further, UND also brings issues as a conference member outside of whether you believe the nickname would be an issue. The biggest issue is travel. Having UND in the conference will increase spending on travel by member schools. UND is a long way from all other members of the conference. In most cases, additional miles add additional cost to travel. The schools will have to hope that enough UND fans show up in their venues to help overcome that additional travel expense. Also, the conference is currently at a very awkward number of members. Starting July 1, 2012 the conference will have 11 full members and 13 football schools. Neither is a good number. 10 and 12 or 12 and 14 would be better. So either losing UND or finding another full member would be much easier for the conference. Again, the Big Sky would be fine without UND, it is probably better with UND.

You need to learn not to believe everything you read in a blog. Much of what is written there has been refuted in other places on this forum. Just a few real simple facts as example. UND is not a full member of the Big Sky right now. According to the Big Sky bylaws a member has to be a full member of the NCAA Division I. UND is still a Division II member that is transitioning to Division I. Obviousy, UND does not meet the bylaw requirement for a member at this time. UND should become a full member in July as long as they complete the transition. UND has been attending Big Sky meetings the past year but are not able to vote on any issues because they are not a full member. The Big Sky has not lost top teams in recent years. The last school to leave was Cal State Northridge in 2001 when they gave up football. Northern Colorado basically took their place. Before that Boise State and Idaho left in 1996. I don't think you can qualify 11 and 16 years ago as recent. The Big Sky has been a very stable conference. They added several other schools about the same time as UND and currently have an odd number of teams, so losing UND wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Montana and Montana State are the lynchpins of the Big Sky. UND is not a lynchpin for a conference they haven't even started with yet. Yes, it would take 100% of the Presidents to vote UND out of the Big Sky when they are a full member. It may be unlikely, but it isn't impossible (that seems to be the assumption of some people). It hasn't been established if that would also be required before they became full members. Even if that is true, they can impose other sanctions with only a 2/3 vote. For example, the NCAA has sanctioned the state of South Carolina because of a Confederate flag flying on the state capital grounds. The schools are not allowed to host NCAA post season events. The SEC and ACC have expanded on this and have rarely allowed league tournaments in South Carolina since this started more than a decade ago. Potentially, the Big Sky could implement a similar ban on UND. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. I wouldn't take the information from your link as absolute fact if I were you.

That is correct. UND will be moving tennis to the new Choice Wellness Center. The new facility even has a much better viewing area so that people can watch the matches.

The other problem is that they are looking at 2 more BRAC rounds. Either one of them could just kill the GFAFB. That would change everything.

Yes and no. According to the reports I've read they are dropping the Global Hawk Block 30 program. That was supposed to replace the U2 spy planes. The Grand Forks Air Force Base has two Block 20's (they were supposed to get 2 more but I don't know if the latest development will affect that) and is supposed to get a total of at least ten Block 40's. They received either the second or third Block 40 in December. The Block 40 program is still a go as of this afternoon. Homeland Security also has 2 Predators stationed at GFAFB.

Dane Jackson was on the radio this morning. He didn't say who would be in or out, but hinted that it was probably the same line-up as last week. Also hinted that some of the guys playing weren't 100%.

That was his point. He is suggesting that one of the reasons for having SD Mines on the schedule might be the tight timeline and the potential for the installation not being done. Things sometimes go wrong on construction projects and they sometimes get delayed no matter what you do. For instance, what if the turf itself isn't delivered on time. It would be less of a problem to move the SD Mines game to Memorial than if they were expecting a huge crowd for a big name FCS team. That being said, I still would expect a decent crowd for the opening game even if it is SD Mines.

From the NCAA web site, http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Issues/Commercialism/NCAA+tax+exempt+status.

According to the 2009 NCAA membership report, http://catalog.proem...6d#/0affe96d/28, on page 26-27 it gives a quick breakdown on revenue and expenses. Television and marketing fees make up 86% of revenue, championships (which seems to be gate and not television) is 9%, investments 3%, sales and service 1%, contributions 0%, and misc. including the NIT 1%. Total revenue in 2009 was approximately $750,000,000. Doesn't look like much taxpayer money going to support the organization. Also remember that this doesn't include BCS football television money, the NCAA doesn't participate in that. Expenses are listed as distributions to Division I members at 61%, Division I championships 9%, Division II championships 4%, Division III championships 3%, Association wide 16%, management and general 4%, NIT and LLC 1%, eligibility 1%, and officiating 1%. The association wide programs seem to be programs that are available for all programs, not just a specific Division as well as other giving to non-profits. Total expenses of more than $707,000,000. Very little money going from schools to the NCAA. A lot of money going from NCAA to schools (especially Division I schools) to help support scholarships, coaches salaries and all of the other expenses of running an athletic department. This is part of the reason schools put up with the NCAA and why schools are moving up to Division I.

I just trust Jim to have it right here at SiouxSports.com. The Pairwise rankings are at http://siouxsports.com/hockey/rankings/pwr.

UND just played a home game in Canada. I'm pretty sure playing them across the river in a different state isn't going to be a problem.

Those have been around a few years. I believe that they are condos/townhomes and I think that most of them are occupied. I know that the first wave went right away but I don't remember hearing much after that. IIRC they were aimed at the alumni or staff populations that wanted a retirement place near the campus.

Reports also say that apartment occupancy is in the high 90% range even though hundreds of apartments have been added in the past few years. It sounds like this will be another good year for housing being built in town.