82SiouxGuy

They are trying to play games under standardized conditions as much as possible. The field is 100 yards long. The crossbar on the goalpost is 10 feet off the ground. Not all stadiums are capable of replay, so they don't use replay. It really isn't that complicated. Until they can get equipment in all stadiums, they aren't going to use it. It is that simple.

Buses go back and forth from the Chester Fritz Auditorium to the Alerus all day on game days. That is much less than a mile from any point on campus. Besides, the Alerus Center wasn't built just for UND football. There are usually 6 home football games and more than 400 other events held at the Alerus Center each year. The building is in a fine location. Students don't have any problems getting to the games if they want to go, and they get in for free. Your argument is a cop out.

Every building in Division I college hockey has to be able to show overhead goal replays. That is the only thing they can replay, goals. They have only done that for a limited number of years, waiting until they could put it in all buildings.

You can't have replays at one game and not at all games for that level of play. It has to be equal. It wouldn't be fair to teams playing in places without replay capability.

Most FCS teams don't televise all of their home games. The NCAA isn't going to force schools to set up the equipment for replays if it isn't in the stadium already for a broadcast.

I sit about the 22 yard line on that end and I thought that his reach went further than the spot he was given. It's always tough to tell for sure at an angle, but I thought that he had gotten past the marker.

UND and Midco have worked hard to get as much coverage as possible for the games. Like I said, Midco offered to give the football games to Fox, and Fox decided they didn't want them. What else can UND and Midco do to get Fox to broadcast the games? The only other thing that UND or Midco could do would be to pay Fox to broadcast the games, and that isn't happening. There are things that aren't within UND's control. Forcing Fox College Sports to broadcast football games is one of them. Your beef should be with Fox, not UND or Midco.

My guess is that Root wants more money than Midco is willing to spend. That's what is normally the reason cable companies don't add specific channels. If Midco customers want Root they should start asking for it. If enough people ask maybe they will add it in time for next year's football season or before.

Midco did not broadcast this game at all because it was on Root. Root does not want to give its games to cable companies, or sell them a single game, they are trying to get their product on systems on a full time basis. There is no way that anyone was going to be able to carry this game unless they agreed to add Root as a regular channel. Root has an agreement to carry one exclusive game each week, this week it was UND-Montana. As far as the rest of the games, Midco offered Fox College Sports the same deal on UND games as they had in the past. Fox College Sports decided that they only wanted to show UND hockey games this year, they didn't want the football games or any other UND games. Blame Midco all you want, but that decision is actually on FCS. If you don't like the decision, tell Fox College Sports. Midco offered to give the games to FCS at no cost, FCS never paid for any of those games, and FCS wouldn't even take the free feeds. What do you want UND and Midco to do, pay FCS to show the games?

No.

Since it's only a couple of hours by car you probably wouldn't get a lot of people using airline service.

Idaho to return to Big Sky for all sports except football in 2014, http://www.bigskyconf.com/news/2012/10/19/GEN_1019120821.aspx. That will give the Big Sky 12 teams for all sports except football.

If the BCS schools broke away they would also sign a big TV contract for basketball. The difference is that they don't have to share it with the rest of the conferences. The NCAA basketball tournament pays for most of the NCAA expenses for everything, plus gives money back to schools. I don't know if they will ever go in that direction, but there would be more than enough money available to make it possible. The BCS schools would come out ahead by going their own way. The other question is what would happen to the NCAA basketball TV contract. Would CBS be able to get out of the contract if the big conferences leave the NCAA? They certainly wouldn't have the name schools available that they depend on. And they wouldn't want to go head-to-head with a big name school tournament.

And only if it involved sex, violence or alcohol.

It's on Roots TV, so it won't start right at 2:30.

If you're talking about the BCS schools, yes, we realize that. They already have a start in place with the BCS structure. The big difference is that they wouldn't have all of the small schools dragging them down. In reality, the smaller schools have control of the NCAA for most things right now because there are more of them. Even within Division I, there are more schools not in the BCS than there are in the BCS. A lot of the NCAA rules are created by, and/or passed by, a vote of the membership. But the BCS conferences are the ones that attract the TV money for both football and basketball. The BCS schools could take back total control of their programs and fates if they start their own organization.

Not on Big Sky TV, at least not on Saturday afternoon. Video also not on UND Insider on Saturday. Probably only on radio, or audio on UND Insider, because of the Roots TV contract.

There are 2 more being built right now.

Plenty of tickets in the very end sections. Some single seats between the 20s, otherwise it is pretty much full except for near the top of a couple sections. Hotel rooms are tough to come by almost every weekend in Grand Forks, but I'm guessing that a lot of Montana fans will be in town.

USD wasn't ready financially. It is the smallest of the 4 Dakota schools. UND was in the middle of a lot of issues. The flood of 1997 caused a lot of problems that they were trying to get through. If you look back you can see that enrollment took a significant drop right after the flood and took a while to recover. The flood also caused questions about what kind of finances would be available for UND to pay for the move. Most people in Grand Forks were affected financially by the flood and it took a few years to find out what kind of resources might be available. Plus the athletic department was in the middle of opening both the Ralph and the Alerus Center. There wasn't a clear home conference for the sports. And there was a lot of doubts about the viability of all 4 schools moving up at the same time. Would there be enough athletes, especially in the region, to fill up rosters? Would there be enough fans and money to support the move? NDSU and SDSU were in a better position and they took the leap of faith. UND and USD took a little more time to get their ducks in a row.

Do you work without getting paid? Do you attend games without paying for tickets, even for high school games? I've paid to attend middle school basketball games. Do networks pay for broadcast rights to NCAA Division I football and basketball games? Why shouldn't UND expect to get paid for broadcast rights to games for their top sport? And why should they give it away when someone will pay for it?

Don't forget that the first 2 hockey games were EXHIBITIONS. They don't count. They were glorified practices. The season hasn't actually started yet. The building was half empty for both games, so obviously a lot of people weren't too concerned with watching the games even if they paid for tickets. That's when you experiment with things, when the games don't count. If this were the WCHA playoffs, or the Frozen 4 I could see being upset. But not for exhibition games in early October.

There are problems this year because of a totally new crew running the operation. And they are doing things differently because different companies do things differently. There were problems in past years, but everyone seems to forget that since they are so upset this year. There were technical problems, games starting late, etc. Don't forget all of the complaints about a lack of power play clock, complaints about being in SD, etc. Midco has plans to fix all of those complaints, too. Actually, you are looking at 2 different issues and mixing them in your rant. First are the technical problems they have had with the 2 hockey games. Technical problems happen with every company. Having a new production team with new people seems to be adding to the problem. Technical problems will be fixed, it is hard to fix them before they know that they are going to have a problem. The other problem that is stuck in your craw is that this will be the end of the contract with Fox. Two things to remember, one is that the national part of the contract is because of the new hockey league. They have a national TV contract for the new hockey league. My guess is that the new national TV contract is actually going to pay the NCHC for the programming. UND never got paid for providing programming content to Fox. Exposure is nice, but it don't pay the bills. That money will probably help pay for administration of the new league. On top of that, Midco is paying $200,000 per year on a 5 year contract to UND to broadcast UND sports. Again, UND didn't make any money off the previous broadcasting contracts. Running a Division I athletic program costs a lot of bucks and actually making money from the broadcasting rights is important to the program. Do you have a way for UND to make up that $1,000,000? If you're worried about the technical issues, be patient and they will be fixed.

When I say Midco broadcasts I mean those shown on Midco systems. I have said a couple of times that the problem seems to be when they are transmitting to other systems, like DirecTV or non Midco systems. But choyt3 says that the broadcast on Arvig looked good, so it isn't all non Midco systems. This problem will get fixed. But as tSic noted above, I hope everyone complaining about this problem was 100% perfect when they started every new job, because that is what they are expecting here. The outrage shown here is almost comical.

You didn't read my post at all. I said that where Midco is distributing the games, the result has been as good or better than last year. The problem has been when transmitting the games to other companies, like Fox College Sports. The FCS feed has had problems. They are working to fix the problems. Mr. Hajdu has posted on this site several times saying that they are working on the problem now that they know it exists. I never said accept mediocrity, I said be patient. As far as FTA goes, how many people were actually using that to watch the games? Yes, it sucks for you if you were and now can't. But that number was probably in double digits, or low triple digits. There weren't thousands and thousands of people buying FTA rigs to watch UND hockey. UND has to look at the big picture, not the edges of the picture. Midco decided not to use that set up for whatever the reason. They are paying UND $200,000 per year for the broadcast rights. UND got paid nothing for the rights before. Midco gets some say in the process.