Friday, May 6, 2005
The Kansas baseball team will be the newest benefactor of the NHL lockout this weekend. All three games of its series against No. 3 Texas will be televised on ESPN networks.
Friday and Saturday’s 6 p.m. games will be aired live on ESPNU, and Sunday’s noon match-up will be shown on tape delay on ESPN2. But the University of Kansas isn’t profiting from the national exposure in the way one might think.
While the Kansas football team brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars for each televised home game, and the men’s basketball team gets millions of dollars from ESPN every year, the University isn’t making a dime from this weekend’s games.
The University doesn’t require compensation from television networks for baseball games because national exposure is enough of a reward, said Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director of external affairs.
“At this point of our baseball program, we’re not at a point where we can demand a rights fee,” Marchiony said. “We’re just thrilled to be able to get this exposure and showcase the team to a national television audience.”
Senior pitcher Mike Zagurski agreed, because the Kansas baseball team has never played a home game on national television.
“This is a great opportunity for a program like ours that isn’t an elite team,” he said. “Playing one of the best teams in the country, on national TV, it just doesn’t get any better than that.”
ESPN normally televises only the College World Series and select regional playoff games. But with no NHL games to show due to the league’s lockout, the network has televised several college baseball and softball games during the past few weeks. The Big 12 Conference has been featured more than any other conference during that span.
Marchiony said one possible reason for the increased focus on the Big 12 was because the SEC, a baseball-rich conference, wanted rights fees for televised baseball games, while the Big 12 didn’t.
Coach Ritch Price said he didn’t mind playing on ESPN without receiving a rights fee and thought the Big 12 was using good strategy.
“The Big 12 has had games on the last four weekends,” Price said. “Every player in America looks forward to the day they can play on ESPN.”
He also said that the televised games would do wonders for the Kansas baseball program, and that he had sent e-mails to every high school recruit in his database informing them that Kansas would be playing on ESPN.
The television attention should also help attendance at Hoglund Ballpark.
“I expect to see over 2,000 fans for each game,” Price said. “If you watch ‘College Gameday’ before football and basketball games, you can tell college fans love that atmosphere and enjoy the games that much more.”
Edited by Azita Tafreshi
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