Badger Football Games

[bschlafer]

On another thread, forum contributors have complained about the availability of NFL games of interest on local OTA channels.  As another viewer with no cable or sat services, I have a similar beef.

Why in the name of Elroy Hirsch aren't Badger football games available OTA in Milwaukee?  

You would think, that today's Minnesota-Wisconsin game would be worthy of an ESPN rebroadcast on WISN-12.  It's probably the biggest game for both schools in many years.  At the least, the game would have to get better ratings than the Hair Club For Men and cooking gizmo informericals scheduled.

And while I'm at it, who picks the games shown on WDJT-58-1 & 58-2?  Are they deliberatly scheduling the worst possible games available every week?  Todays lineup of Toledo at Ball State and Syracuse at South Florida (all in dazzeling standard-definition!) have little local interest with sports fans.  Why not carry the Michigan-Michigan State game?  Or the Iowa-Arkansas game?

Do the local OTA stations really want lousy ratings?  Do they secretly desire to drive their viewers to cable and sat networks?  What am I missing here?

Don't even get me started about the utter lack of coverage of Badger Hockey in Milwaukee.  The games are carried in Madison, why couldn't a Milwaukee channel pick up the feed?

Grrrrr!

*Bill in Milwaukee

[klwillis45]

Nothing secret going on here, of course they want you to pay for cable/sat.
Money talks.

[tencom]

Don't even get me started about the utter lack of coverage of Badger Hockey in Milwaukee.  The games are carried in Madison, why couldn't a Milwaukee channel pick up the feed?

Grrrrr!

*Bill in Milwaukee

Because no one would watch Badger Hockey!  If you won't pay for cable why do you think your owed free sports. In the old days before cable very few Badger football games were carried on  local  TV in fact some years no Badger football games, were available at all on local TV, except if the badgers were doing well and contending.

[bschlafer]

The UW is a publically funded institiution and my tax dollars help fund their sports programs.  That is why I should be able to see them play on OTA TV, at least occasionally.  Commerical advertising pays for the progamming anyway.  

College sports is NOT the sole domain or property of cable companies.

How would you know no one would watch Badger Hockey?  It's never seen the light of day on Milwaukee TV.  It's got to be better than some of the dreck that is passed off as entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights.  

Any number of Milwaukee stations could carry the game on one of their digital sub-channels anyway - like they do in Madison.

They used to put replays of hockey games on state PBS stations at 10:30pm, but they don't anymore.  This is a shame, because for many people around Wisconsin this was the only time they got to see the games.  A real loss to the UW, in my opinion, to promote the team and the school throughout the state.

Milwaukee TV station managers are idiots if they think viewers would prefer to watch infomericals on a Saturday morning instead of the Badgers.

By the way, the Badgers won today in a thrilling back and forth game... that no one in Milwaukee without cable had a chance to watch.  A pity.


*Bill

[mrschimpf]

Usually with WDJT/WMLW it depends on what ESPN+ is offering. Those stations usually carry games from the Big East (a side effect of Marquette being in that conference but not having a football program). That's why we got a lower-tier game on WMLW involving Syracuse, and that MAC game on WDJT. It's an all-or-nothing proposition; they want Marquette basketball from ESPN+, they have to carry football games Milwaukee doesn't care about.

As for the stations wanting to carry infomercials? I would think they'd love to carry anything but infomercials, but since the Big Ten has went to BTN and ESPN the only time those sports air on broadcast television is in those small windows on ABC. So it's either carry lower profile conferences, air crappy series from junk producers like Byron Allen nobody will ever watch (because nobody seems to be actually investing any quality into syndication anymore), or make the best out of a bad situation by making some profit off a bad timeslot by airing infomercials. It's all about the Big Ten willing to pass by the local stations for their own financial purposes.

[tencom]

The UW is a publically funded institiution and my tax dollars help fund their sports programs.  That is why I should be able to see them play on OTA TV, at least occasionally.  Commerical advertising pays for the progamming anyway.  

College sports is NOT the sole domain or property of cable companies.

How would you know no one would watch Badger Hockey?  It's never seen the light of day on Milwaukee TV.  It's got to be better than some of the dreck that is passed off as entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights.  

Any number of Milwaukee stations could carry the game on one of their digital sub-channels anyway - like they do in Madison.

They used to put replays of hockey games on state PBS stations at 10:30pm, but they don't anymore.  This is a shame, because for many people around Wisconsin this was the only time they got to see the games.  A real loss to the UW, in my opinion, to promote the team and the school throughout the state.

Milwaukee TV station managers are idiots if they think viewers would prefer to watch infomericals on a Saturday morning instead of the Badgers.

By the way, the Badgers won today in a thrilling back and forth game... that no one in Milwaukee without cable had a chance to watch.  A pity.


*Bill

Don't call local tv stations owners idiots because you can't have your way, and   those tape delay telecasts of Badger hockey, got very low ratings for channel 36, probably the reason for cancellation! Why don't you just subscribe to cable or satellite  and not complain about it.  UW has the constitunual right to assign the telecasting rights of Badger sports to the highest bidders since they derive a great income from television which helps to cover the costs of the UW system.

[murdoc]

Don't call local tv stations owners idiots because you can't have your way, and   those tape delay telecasts of Badger hockey, got very low ratings for channel 36, probably the reason for cancellation! Why don't you just subscribe to cable or satellite  and not complain about it.  UW has the constitunual right to assign the telecasting rights of Badger sports to the highest bidders since they derive a great income from television which helps to cover the costs of the UW system.

+1

If you don't currently have access to the programing, find a way to have access to it.  Call your cable/sat provider, go to a sports bar and watch the game, download it online.  If you REALLY cared enough, you would find a way to watch it.  The ONLY reason I'm paying for D* is so I can watch F1 on SpeedHD.  Everything else I watch is OTA or I can get it online a few hours after it airs on Hulu or via torrent.

[ArgMeMatey]

The UW is a publicly funded institution and my tax dollars help fund their sports programs.  That is why I should be able to see them play on OTA TV, at least occasionally.  Commercial advertising pays for the programming anyway.  

College sports is NOT the sole domain or property of cable companies.

Sounds like everyone might benefit if you could line up a few paying sponsors to televise events locally here.  

I am not so sure what anybody's tax dollars pay for in terms of college sports; what I usually hear is that revenues from men's football & sometimes basketball pay for everything else.  

When the Big 10 schools decided they could bring in more money with their own network than by selling it to OTA local stations or networks, that's what they did.  Advertisers get access to a group of sports fans who have already shown they are willing to open up their wallets just to have something to watch.  For them, that beats OTA freeloaders any day.  

If you live in Milwaukee or the 'burbs you should be able to get Time Warner BASIC, which unofficially includes the Big 10 Network in SD.  That would cost you about $15-20 a month depending on the municipality.  

But I agree that your cheapest option is to camp out in a bar and order a water with lemon, maybe a 7Up or something.

[bschlafer]

I stand by my statements.

It's mind boggling that channel 12 would prefer to run informericals instead of picking up the ESPN feed for the Badger game.  Does that really make sense?  Who clammors to watch informercials?  They already had the late game that day (Penn State - Illinois) and adding the Badger-Minnesota game would have made for a big ratings day for WISN.

I don't understand the freeloader comment.  How is watching OTA TV freeloading?  I choose not to pay Time Warner or Dish to watch the few shows they offer (that I care about) that is not on OTA.  I don't see that as freeloading.

Rebroadcasts of Badger Hockey (and football) were carried statewide on PBS stations for many years.  If they we're such ratings losers, why were they carried for so long?  As mentioned, they we're pulled becaue of the Big Ten Network deal.  A loss for everyone who enjoyed those broadcasts.  

Live coverage of Badger hockey on the local Madison CBS affiliate is very popular and heavily watched.  Seems like a no-brainer that someone here in Milwaukee would pick up the feed and capitalize on the large number of fans in this area.  Especially with the large number of digital sub-channels now available.

The business model being pushed for pro and college sports has only one direction to go in pricing.  Soon, you won't be able to watch a game on TV unless you are paying for cable or sat (and extra for digital, and HD, and tiered service, etc...) and on top of that, you'll pay an additional pay-per-view charge.  

At some point fans will be priced out.  In the business world, this is called killing the golden goose.

It's easy enough to drop +$100/month for cable/sat TV services.  Not a great value in my opinion.  I'll stick with my OTA, and my right to complain about the lack of common sense in the programming.

*Bill (OTA freeloader) in Milwaukee

[tencom]

I stand by my statements.

It's mind boggling that channel 12 would prefer to run informericals instead of picking up the ESPN feed for the Badger game.  Does that really make sense?  Who clammors to watch informercials?  They already had the late game that day (Penn State - Illinois) and adding the Badger-Minnesota game would have made for a big ratings day for WISN.
*Bill (OTA freeloader) in Milwaukee

Channel 12 does not hold the Broadcast rights to Badger football telecasts     ESPN/ABC does And ESPN charges the cable/satellite operators over 5 dollars a month per subscriber which is tacked on to the cable bill.
Maybe if channel 12   would offer a large enough sum of money they could outbid ESPN for broadcast rights to badger sports but Channel 12 would have a hard time with convincing  advertisers the high ad rates that would have to be charged. You can tell that you don't know much about the business end of television. You should become more knowledgable of the economics of television before expressing yourself.

[ArgMeMatey]

I don't understand the freeloader comment.  How is watching OTA TV freeloading?  I choose not to pay Time Warner or Dish to watch the few shows they offer (that I care about) that is not on OTA.  I don't see that as freeloading.

No offense intended.  Sorry about that.  Without quotation marks, I was trying to express the presumed viewpoint of an advertiser, that it's better to reach an audience that shows its commitment to the program by paying, rather than those who just happen to be watching whatever is available.

I am sure everyone around here gets tired of me repeating my mantra from the (presumed) viewpoint of the TV station owner who invests money:

Advertiser = customer:  This is who's paying the bills.
Program = overhead: Need this to "sell" the product
TV viewer = product:  What we are selling the advertiser

From the OTA viewer's perspective, an investment of TIME:
Advertisements = overhead:  Have to watch some of these to get the product we want.
Programs = product we are spending our time for.

From the advertiser's perspective, an investment of MONEY:
Program = gimmick the station uses to draw potential customers
TV station owner = lead generator, works on commission, more or less
TV viewer = potential customer

If you can step into the shoes of the other parties, I think you'll see what I am talking about.  You can complain, but your complaint is only weighted by the extent to which your absent eyes reduce revenue.  

If they are pulling in more on infomercials that they think they can clear from advertisers after paying for the sports programs, they will run infomercials.  

I agree ratings are an issue but we have to assume that either this is the best deal for them, or at some level they know they are shooting themselves in the foot.  Or feet.  Hopefully you are no longer standing in their shoes when that occurs.  

[bschlafer]

>>Channel 12 does not hold the Broadcast rights to Badger football telecasts ESPN/ABC does...

I don't know, nor do I care to know, much about broadcasting economics.  

However, WISN-12 is an ABC affiliate.  In fact, they are carrying the Packer-Viking ESPN Monday Night football game - which is likely due to that NFL local carry rule for non-blackout games (Milwaukee somehow being part of the Green Bay local market).  

I'm sure the agrangements are vastly different between the NFL and the NCAA.  But it doesn't seem like a big leap for WISN to carry an earlier game when they already have an ESPN/ABC game on at 2:00PM.  I doubt it would have affected the bar sales at 11:00AM on a Saturday.  But, then again, this is Milwaukee...

It just would have been nice to watch the Badger game on my own TV, for a change.


*Bill (still) in Milwaukee

[troyriley]

Don't even get me started about the utter lack of coverage of Badger Hockey in Milwaukee.  The games are carried in Madison, why couldn't a Milwaukee channel pick up the feed?

Grrrrr!

*Bill in Milwaukee

What we should really be mad about is the lack of coverage of our own professional team here in Milwaukee... the Admirals. Sure, it would be nice if the Badgers were on TV too, but I think first we need to focus our frustrations on the Admirals not having much of a TV contract with a local station. The week-old games TWC show just aren't cutting it.

[bschlafer]

What we should really be mad about is the lack of coverage of our own professional team here in Milwaukee... the Admirals.


Agreed!  

I would imagine there would be some concern about carrying home games live affecting attendance at the BC, but coverage of the away games would certainly be welcome.  

Another option is viewing games online via this website: http://www.hockeywebcasts.com/ahl.php

You can at least get Admirals games on the radio.  Sadly, no Badger Hockey coverage locally on the radio dial.


*Bill

[tencom]

>>Channel 12 does not hold the Broadcast rights to Badger football telecasts ESPN/ABC does...

I don't know, nor do I care to know, much about broadcasting economics.  

However, WISN-12 is an ABC affiliate.  In fact, they are carrying the Packer-Viking ESPN Monday Night football game - which is likely due to that NFL local carry rule for non-blackout games (Milwaukee somehow being part of the Green Bay local market).  

I'm sure the agrangements are vastly different between the NFL and the NCAA.  But it doesn't seem like a big leap for WISN to carry an earlier game when they already have an ESPN/ABC game on at 2:00PM.  I doubt it would have affected the bar sales at 11:00AM on a Saturday.  But, then again, this is Milwaukee...

It just would have been nice to watch the Badger game on my own TV, for a change.


*Bill (still) in Milwaukee

ESPN owns only the cable rights to  BIG TEN FOOTBALL they cannot offer BIG-TEN sports or any sports to OTA. And ABC has the OTA broadcast rights to   BIG-TEN  Foorball and determines what games are to be carried over the Network. Channel 12, could only offer input to ABC on what games should be carried . With the NFL ESPN tv contract the League requires ESPN to offer the OTA rights to the teams home cities that are particapating in Moday Night Football. Non cable viewers are getting a free ride because  ESPN  pays about 1.2 billion dollars per year for their NFL contract almost totally covered by subscribtion fees payed by subscribers. You should be happy tonight you get to see the PACKERS without charge, where your cable neighbors are paying through the nose for access to cable programming. So enjoy the game it's on the house.