nodak651

I feel like I read somewhere, when the game was cancelled, that the WAC was going to work out an agreement to with Dixie and UND to find a replacement team, in exchange for no buyout, and the replacement team would takeover the Dixie contract? ****I may be wrong about that****

On the reaching the Summit pod, he has consistently been complementary to Sather. He was really high on the future of the program between season end and before Bruns transferred.

Is Sather able to recruit D1 guys in the transfer portal? There are 600. Is he strategically targeting JuCo players as a strategy, thinking they may be overlooked due to the huge number of players in the portal? If he has an old school way of thinking, in that he doesn't want to recuit a D1 transfer or something, I think that would be a problem. Does the basketball program have good enough facilities to attract D1 transfers? How do our locker rooms and lounges compare to other mid/low majors in the region? Perhaps investment in this area could help to attract and retain talent.

St. Thomas discussed potential arena plans at the Ford/Bridge site with Ryan Construction and the Highland Park District Council in February. They seem to be pretty serious about this especially now that the golf course fell through. The site would have hockey, softball, and a hockey-only arena. Didn't see capacity mentioned anywhere though. This meeting was in Feb, but I guess they mad their first presentation in January. Nothing official - they are just evaluating the feasibility at this point. Arena seems kinda small, like cc or smaller, just based on that pic. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nzvgx8_aU16gOOzimZa4gbPPmkJchN3K/edit

Hopefully UNLV doesn't join (not really though) because that would be a perfect regional location every year. Seriously. Super easy and cheap for anyone in the country to fly in to vegas, and with all the flights, getting one on short notice would be easier than other locations. With the new format, people can check out Vegas on the off day, and if their team loses, they still get to be in Vegas. I think it would be well attended every year. Could see the the type of person that goes to Vegas every year make it an annual trip. That rink is sick. I assume UNLV is staying at their current rink for the time being? They haven't announced a move have they?

Bucci said official announcement is tomorrow.

Thanks. We should have plans worked out by then. I'll pm you if we decide to head over there.

Thanks for setting that up. Some buddies and I are in the Woodbury area and may be interested. Does BWW guarantee anything for TV's or Audio for official watch parties? Just curious if there's any risk that March Madness fans take over our hockey TV.

I looked at an old usage agreement, and it's pretty incredible how much it has changed over the years. Posted below is a comparison between the same segment of the usage agreement between 2004 and the current agreement. Old agreement (black line is a page break): Current usage agreement:

So the purpose of her interview wasn't to create negotiating leverage? That interview and the subsequent news headlines put a lot of pressure on Kennedy to capitulate, no?

You will like this if you haven't seen it. He seems to be everything that this program needs right now off the court. Need to build that culture..

Yeah, I mean, I hate to be knit picky about this stuff all the time, but it's a super easy fix and it's been like that for literally over a year. I emailed them recently to get Fox Sports North stuff off of their "watch" drop down menu. It's been Bally for a long time now.. you would think they would want it to be easy for fans to watch games and donate, but what do I know.

Fightinghawks.com>inside athletics>und alumni association Can't remember whether or not the Donate button was an issue, but about a year or so ago, I emailed und a list of a bunch of issues when I complained about it here, and some of it was fixed.

I think the learfield deal expires at the end of the year as well, unless it is renewed. Pretty sure the current contract with learfield doesn't include the Midco rights, but it does include 3rd tier TV rights, which I guess would be something like the games Bally picks up.

UND also built a website that makes finding current proposal requests super easy: https://bids.sciquest.com/apps/Router/PublicEvent?CustomerOrg=UND This is the official state website, which is also very good. You can sort proposal requests by organization and date, and this one includes more archived and expired proposal requests, and it is also easier to find the associated documents/descriptions. https://apps.nd.gov/csd/spo/services/bidder/searchSolicitation.htm I wouldn't be surprised to see it show up here, as UND seems to do a good job of actually posting this stuff publicly. This is how I found the non finalized plans for phase two of the HPC. Proposal requests for things like football championship rings, athletics charter flights, and uniforms suppliers have also been posted there.

There's no issue between NCHC and Midco, because Midco doesn't stream the hockey games on their MidcoSN streaming service. NCHC has streaming rights only, while Midco has the TV rights. I don't recall any issues between FSN/Bally and NCHC.tv either, back when those channels were found on most of the streaming TV platforms, such as Sling, Fubo, Youtube TV, etc. So NCHC games can technically be streamed if the TV channel the games are aired on are packaged with other channels and marketed as some type of streaming television package -I'd guess there may be some type of industry standard that defines this. Companies like Midco and Bally that have or will have streaming services for their own networks wouldn't be allowed to stream the games (MidcoSN's streaming app for example). CBSSN must have some type of tier 1 deal that supersedes Midco and NCHC.tv's rights, as I believe they can select to broadcast whatever games that they want, and those games aren't included with NCHC.tv. Edit: I pretty much agree with Langster, in that there will be no change with NCHC.tv. Without any changes with the NCHC.tv contracts, Bally wouldn't be able to stream hockey on their new stand alone streaming service, but hockey could be streamed on an online TV streaming service if Bally was in the channel lineup. Bally would however be allowed to stream other sports, such as basketball and football (both are on Midco's app AND espn's app). In regard to a uniformed production accross the Summit league, Fenton has said in interviews that this is important, but he also said there could be hangups or delays if they tried to do something like the NCHC.tv app, because they would have to deal with each schools existing broadcasting and streaming contracts. He also also mentioned Midco as well, and how well they did the NCHC pod. My prediction is that Fenton works out an agreement with Midco for a league-wide streaming deal, because Midco would pay for it and ESPN would pay much less, if anything.

Interesting take. Not in a bad way. I would think the likely outcome is that UND remains with Midco, but I have a TON of questions running through my head, but first off, UND badly needs to improve it's radio network. There's zero UND sports talk and I'm sick as hell of having to sit through Dom Izzo's BS. PLEASE somebody start a new panel-style show that is roughly 50-50 UND/NDSU centric, that also discusses regional sports, as well as local/regional non sports topics... something like Dan Cole level of sports content. It's impossible to find anything that discusses UND to listen to, though, so even like a daily 30 UND focused show would be amazing. 1440 TheFan in Grand Forks doesn't stream any of it's locally produced shows - I think Hennessy still has a morning show and the coaches shows are all there is? I've been wanting to listen to Tim's show, but TheFan in Grand Forks can't be streamed, as any of the stream now links that I can find just air TheFan's broadcast out of the Twin Cities, and there's no podcast format for shows shows either. Hopefully UND can work to get something, anything, on the radio, and at a radio network that can be listened to out of just Grand Forks. If I have to listen to any more of Chaves podcast or Dom Izzo I'm gonna lose it... For the record, this isn't me bitching, this is me being hopelessly optimistic about new radio programming. I've heard that Bally is starting a stand alone streaming service like ESPN+. If that's the case, UND could potentially stand a chance at getting a decent offer from them if they think UND could help them with subscribership with their new platform. In the unlikely event that they are seriously interested in UND's rights, the biggest issue would probably be that they don't have the ability to air all of UND's games like Midco can, given that Bally also airs professional sports and they don't have enough TV channels. Perhaps they would potentially be interested in something like Football only, if UND is willing to split up the TV rights like NDSU did. Is UND willing to split up TV rights between sports? Would the NCHC allow games to be streamed on a Bally streaming service? Does the NCHC allow games to be streamed to Streaming TV Services that carry Bally, but not to a dedicated Bally streaming service? MidCo's streaming platform is not allowed to stream MidCo's UND hockey games, for example, but if MidCo Sports channel was on something like sling, that would be ok, correct? If Bally bought the rights, with their new streaming platform in mind, what would happen if the Summit Leage and Fenton decided to start up a stand alone streaming platform like NCHC.tv? Fenton has stated that this possibility with the Summit league interests him. If Bally offered a substantial offer to UND for something like football and 1/2 of hockey games, would Midco be willing to pay anything to produce the other half? With Augi hockey coming online, and in an important market for Midco, how much does that affect MidCo's desire to pay for and air all UND hockey games. Is MidCo interested in airing Augi hockey, and if so, how many games? Does the added supply of college hockey games to MidCo reduce UND's negotiating leverage? Will the presence of a new D1 hockey program in Sioux Falls bring more awareness and interest to college hockey and help to increase UND's hockey's TV ratings on MidCo? What are Midco's TV ratings for UND hockey and football? How does UND's ratings compare to USD and SDSU?

UND hosted a regional in the exact same arena the Summit Tournament is in, and we nearly sold it out before we even knew for sure UND would make the tournament and play there! UND fans have no room to complain about this... as a fan base, we have shown the ability to show up in huge numbers at venue's much further away than this, so complaining about other schools actually attending games while we hardly support our team IN Grand Forks is just sour grapes. It's our fault, not theirs, and we benefit as members of the Summit League, which pulls in hundreds of thousands in revenue from this tournament.

Complaining about the Summit Tourney location is a stupid crybaby argument, especially with the ticket policies changing. People literally want to move the tournament to a different location because it is too successful. This is also one of the main sources of revenue for the conference and the attendance here is impressive - it's something that can set the Summit apart from other conferences as the league hopefully continues to grow and improve. Were people complaining about the Red Barron Final Five in hockey because it was in the Gophers back yard? NO! The tournament was embraced and people were happy to travel there, and the tournament built upon itself until it became iconic. Pretty much any other potential would either be a further drive for most schools or be closer to a different campus. Would people be OK with a the Target Center being the venue if St. Thomas didn't show up like the Dakota schools and the attendance sucks? Because I'm not sure something like that is better, and I don't see how it would help with league wide recruiting or the general fan experience, either. If the Frozen Faceoff was in Sioux Falls, UND would sell the place out, so there's no reason for us to complain about a supposedly unfair location when we all know that UND has the ability to make our presence felt there. Moving forward, with the ticket policy change, if there is a lack of support for UND or NDSU or Omaha there, that's on our fan bases... it won't be the Dakota schools fault if we don't show up.. it will be our own. Most of the schools in our conference should be happy that the SD schools prop up our conf tournament, because most of the schools have a tough time drawing a thousand fans to home games! About the bands, and if I was commissioner, I'd require every school to bring it's band, ads a ton to the atmosphere of the games, and if schools don't bring one, they should pay a fine, IMO, and they sure as hell shouldn't complain about the tournament feeling like an away game if they can't at least invest enough in the tournament to do that, and the ticket sales SD fans generate more than covers that expense.

https://www.inforum.com/sports/mcfeely-blog-und-opening-its-athletic-tv-rights-to-bids-expects-competition-for-them The University of North Dakota will open its athletics television rights to bids, meaning there is potential for Fighting Hawks hockey, football and basketball to be carried by someone other than Midco Sports for the first time in a decade. "We expect competition," UND associate athletic director for external operations Kyle Doperalski said. "We are expecting that there will be multiple responses."

They were reportedly really close to announcing before covid.. I think it happens.

I don't follow..

At the Betty or Ralph?

I don't necessarily buy that. You have a valid point, but there's a reason Kris McGarry went to the press to complain about Kennedy while the negotiations for the lease agreement were taking place. Public sentiment means a lot in this day and age.

Also, is that contribution more or less than they demand the Ralph annually takes from football ticket sales.