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All-college network to be launched

Brian Bedol says "it's a whole new ballgame."

But for the president and chief executive officer of the new College Sports Television network, perhaps "whole new ballgames" would be more accurate.

Bedol, who helped form the 24-hour CSTV, said the network is going to go well beyond the usual football, basketball and baseball games sports fans have come to expect. With broadcasts of college sports like volleyball, lacrosse, soccer and softball, CSTV plans to give airtime to sports largely ignored by television coverage until now.

This isn't Bedol's first attempt at changing sports television. In 1995, he and CSTV's chairman and other founder, Stephen Greenberg, started Classic Sports Network, now known as ESPN Classic. But this, he says, is a slightly different concept.

"We always thought of that venture in terms of partnership with an existing network," Bedol said.

For Bedol, the idea made sense. College sports generate more than US$11 billion each year. he said. It just didn't make sense to him that they'd be a "second-class citizen to the pro leagues."

In addition to regular hockey, football and volleyball games of the week, CSTV has plans for at least eight original programs. Some of the ideas in production are "Coach," the stories of legendary coaches as told by former student-athletes; "Training Camp," which the network's vice president, Scott Novak, called "the ultimate instructional show, in which top college coaches explain their philosophies and techniques;" and "Prime Time Tailgate," a nightly half-hour show broadcast from CSTV's new studios at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.

Fans and alumni of Notre Dame, the university whose football team has traditionally had the greatest national following, can look to "Notre Dame Primetime" on Sunday evenings, which will feature live games as well as classics. Novak added that CSTV would take a different approach to televising games than its national counterparts.

"You got the atmosphere of the college town, you got to know the kind of food people were serving at their tailgate parties," he said. "That's what we want to get back to. Too often on TV these days they show the game and get out.

And CSTV's treatment of the major sports is only part of what Bedol wants the network to be about.

"There are a handful of sports that if given the right showcase can really blossom," he said, pointing to women's softball as one example.

CSTV first went on the air April 7 and is available on DirecTV and small cable systems in the South and Midwest.

Bedol says he would like to have deals with major cable systems by the fall, in time for what Bedol calls "The start of the college sports season."
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