Posts from the Ncaa Fb Media Watch Category at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

The Iowa-Iowa State rivalry may not be the sexiest intrastate rivalry in college football, but in Iowa, it's a sharp sword that slices the state in two. Even though the modern series is only 31 years old, the game is still one of the biggest events in Iowa year in and year out. Whether it's at Kinnick or Jack Trice, the stadium is always filled to the spilling point, and most of the rest of the state watches on TV.

Or at least they used to.

This year's Hawkeye-Cyclone game will be airing on the Big Ten Network, which still isn't available on many of Iowa's biggest cable systems. Comcast, the first major cable provider to sign with the BTN, barely has any subscribers in Iowa. A number of the state's smaller companies have signed on, but Mediacom, the state's largest provider, is still in negotiations with the network.

In its first year the games which aired on BTN provided plenty of memorable moments (like the notorious Appalachian State game) but relatively few of them were games with this degree of desirability. It's a brilliant move by the Big Ten Network to grab this game, which should put some pressure on Mediacom to get on board. I'm not sure how many Iowans would dump cable for satellite just for this game, but it's a good bet that you wouldn't want to be a Mediacom customer service rep if a deal doesn't get done before kickoff.

I no longer live in Iowa but I'm still in Big Ten country and I think it's past time for all sides to give a little and get a deal done. I can live without seeing my Hawkeyes take on Maine or Florida International (two other Iowa games that will air on BTN) but if I can't see Iowa-Iowa State? A pox on both their houses.

With Rich Rodriguez taking over the Michigan football program from Lloyd Carr there are going to be plenty of changes made in Ann Arbor. Obviously, the biggest change the team and Rich will have to make is implement ing an entire new offensive system with a bunch of players who weren't recruited for it. That's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do, but luckily the Wolverines early season schedule consists of cupcakes like Utah, Miami (OH), and Notre Dame. There isn't an Appalachian State in the bunch, so the Wolverines will have some time to adjust.

Another big change will come on Sunday mornings, as Rodriguez has no plans to appear on "Michigan Replay", a popular postgame show that's been running for 33 years.

The Michigan football coach's show, which reviewed the previous game and looked ahead, will no longer be on the air Sunday mornings.

Rodriguez has said he's not interested in hanging around after games to tape a show because he would rather use the time visiting with recruits and spending time with his family.

Not to fear, Michigan fans, just because "Michigan Replay" is going the way of the single wing formation doesn't mean there won't be a new show. Instead of having a weekly show taped after each game to review it and look forward to next week's game, the school is going to produce a weekly preview show.

What it's going to be called, or when and where it will be aired have not been announced yet.

I like Erin Andrews. She's blonde and pretty and as my colleague Brian Cook so eloquently put it, she's not terribly annoying. But to date I've managed to safely avoid the whole weird stalker thing if you don't count the whole "Why Did Herbstreit just call her Poopsie?" thing.

Others? Not so much.

If giving further oxygen to the "Erin Andrews + male admirers" phenomena is your bag, however, we've got great news: you can now own your very own Mr. Erin Andrews t-shirt.

How long before someone gets their mug wearing this shirt blasted all over SportsByBrooks, FanHouse, etc. doing something stupid in the presence of the poor Ms. Andrews? Or at least, Photoshopping themselves doing something stupid. My money's on: not long.

(Via: Hot Clicks)

The Big 12's gain is the loss for a lot of college sports fans.

"After 36 years, 23 Final Fours, all 10 Bowl Championship Series title games and a half-dozen laptops, I'm done," he writes.

"I will begin working as a writer/blogger for the Big 12 Conference web site (so I'll need laptop No. 7). The Big 12 wants its web site to convey information about its schools in both video and story form. I'll be somewhat involved with the former and heavily involved with the latter. It's a great opportunity that I'm lucky to have considering the death spiral of major newspapers."

Barnhouse had been the national college football and basketball writer/columnist for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Barnhouse's national reach, reputation and popularity grew as the internet allowed more readers access. His columns were considered required reading by many college sports fans. Barnhouse was also one of the few national college sports writers at a newspaper. Not at a national paper, magazine or TV/internet operation.

The Star-Telegram benefited from his reputation, but the actual value to the paper was low. The national following added little to their subscription base. This led the paper to decide to eliminate the national college beat. Offering Barnhouse the choice of a buyout or assuming role of Texas A&M beat writer. As Barnhouse wrote, "Nothing against the Aggies, but it was clearly time to bail out."

One sure sign the season is just around the corner is the launching of websites to promote players for the Heisman. While Pat White Plays Here doesn't say Heisman anywhere I've looked, White will be on everyone's list of potential candidates for the Heisman. There's an extensive collection of videos covering his career from high school to West Virginia. I wish the video screen was a little bigger, but outside that it's a sharp site full of information on White.

In 62 days or so we'll all be at a game or watching on TV. Between now and then, plenty of Heisman hype machines will get rolling. I'm skeptical as to how much these promotions really help an athlete when it comes to Heisman voting. For a player like White that has put together three solid years at West Virginia, I doubt any voters need to be reminded of him. He doesn't play for a big market team, but he does play in a big market conference. His performances in bowl games has been spectacular. But for White to have a shot at the Heisman, he's going to have to stay healthy and West Virginia can't have more than one loss. Something that hasn't happened either of the last two years.

Now that the Big Ten Network and Comcast cable have finally come to an agreement that will actually allow the majority of Big Ten fans to see the network, it's time to figure out what exactly they're going to be showing to fill all that dead air between Iowa/Indiana lacrosse matches and Minnesota/Penn State tennis.

Last season the BTN did a series called "The Journey" in which they followed Tubby Smith and the Minnesota basketball team around during the season and chronicled the changes taking place under Smith. The series was a success, and the network will be doing it again this season, with the focus of the show being on Ron Zook and Illinois' football program.

BTN officials plan to announce Thursday the Illini will be featured in Season 2. Minnesota and its first-year basketball coach, Tubby Smith, were the series' guinea pigs.

"I talked with Tubby and he was impressed with their professionalism," Zook said. "He had the same fears in the beginning as I do."

Chief among those fears?

"This will be like having someone in your bedroom," Zook said.

If you just came across this post because you did a Google search on "porn", you need to head down to Florida and fess up. If you did a Google search for "porn + Tim Tebow", you might be pictured at right giving Tim Tebow a high five. In a federal obscenity trial, the defense tried to argue that their clients website should not be considered obscene by showing porn searches are more popular than searches for Tim Tebow.

In a federal obscenity case heard this month, Mr. Douglas defended another Florida pornographer. In the trial, Mr. Douglas set up a computer in the courtroom and did Internet searches for sexually explicit terms to show the jury that there were millions of Web pages discussing such material. He then searched for other topics, like the University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, to demonstrate that there were not nearly as many related Web sites.

Outside the box thinking for sure, but it didn't work. His client was convicted on all counts. Mr. Douglas isn't giving up, though. In his current case, Douglas is employing Google Trends to show porn searches are at least as popular as apple pie.

"We tried to come up with comparison search terms that would embody typical American values," Mr. Walters said. "What is more American than apple pie?" But according to the search service, he said, "people are at least as interested in group sex and orgies as they are in apple pie." The Google service does, however, show the relative strength of many mainstream queries in Pensacola: "Nascar," "surfing" and "Nintendo" all beat "orgy."

So does that mean that Nascar, surfing, and Nintendo are more popular than Tim Tebow? Or is it just that people in coastal areas have enough sex that they don't need to go looking for it on the internet? I'm confused. Anyway, if you run a porn site I would suggest you steer clear of Douglas until he gets this defense strategy perfected.

hat tip: Blutarsky

Like most other fans of video games and sports, I was irritated when the deal between EA Sports and the various professional sports leagues was announced. The deal with the NFL was signed and promoted just after the competing NFL 2K5 came out with a handful of really great new features, and it seemed like common sense this must be EA trying to squeeze their competition out of the market. As it turns out, though, EA claims that it was the NFL's idea.

Whoever came up with it, EA is the one who is going to be defending it. Ars Technica is reporting that two gamers are suing EA Sports for antitrust violations, which is a bold move. Their argument is, basically, that nobody really wants to buy a football game that doesn't have real teams or players in it.

Despite sagging ratings, the departure of many beloved characters, and a marked downward trend in its plotlines over the last few seasons, NBC announced today that they are renewing the Notre Dame Show through 2015. I'm not going to sit here and defend the worthiness of last year's 3-9 Notre Dame team over television behemoths like "My Dad is Better than Your Dad", "Clash of the Choirs", and "Quarterlife" that didn't make it off the NBC chopping block, but hey, that's business for you.

A disturbing sidenote for Irish fans is that the contract stipulates that between 2011 and 2015, NBC will carry eight Irish home games a year. As a result, the Irish will have to play 7 games in Notre Dame stadium plus one more quote-unquote "neutral site game" a year against a body bag team willing to take a payout to play what financially works out to be a Notre Dame home game. Any hope that this cheeseball scheduling would disappear with the launching of Athletic Director Kevin White has been dashed, as it is now a contractual necessity.

At the end of the deal, Notre Dame will have been on NBC for 25 years, longer than "Seinfeld" and "Cheers" combined.

The announcement that Comcast and the Big Ten Network were a week or so away from announcing a carriage deal seemed like a major, major win for the network given the way the Chicago Tribune -- the first source in this third round of "there's gonna be a deal!" stories -- pitched it:

The deal will nearly double the number of homes that can access the BTN, from 30 million to 55 million. In the eight-state Big Ten footprint, the number will surge from 6.5 million to about 13 million.

This implies national distribution on Comcast and is the best-case, pie-in-the-sky fairy scenario.

But... not so fast, my friend. David Jones spoils the party a bit:

Whatever, while the cable carrier's people confirm a deal is close, the agreement as it stands now would place the BTN on expanded basic for only eight months -- the upcoming football and basketball season -- on a trial basis and only within the Big Ten's eight-state footprint. Comcast, they say, would then have the option of pulling the BTN off expanded basic and sticking it on the more expensive digital tier, possibly in a sports-channel package.

While Moving the Big Ten network to the digital tier would not be a huge blow, -- Jones notes that 80% of cable subscribers in the Big Ten footprint already have digital -- the specter of the sports tier solution that Comcast was pushing earlier looms large.