MORGANTOWN West Virginia Universitys athletic department, one ofthe few in the country that still handles its multimedia rights onits own, will seek proposals for broadcasting of events not shownnationally or regionally. The so-called third-tier rights cover thebroadcast and marketing inventory that doesnt belong to the Big 12Conference when the Mountaineers join on July 1. The conferenceschools give their first- and second-tier rights to the Big 12,which means the conference owns the rights to all nationally andregionally televised football and basketball games. The schoolsretain their third-tier rights, which are the leftover events andcontent that the University of Texas has famously converted into theone-of-a-kind Longhorn Network. It will be out there on the street,and well go through the formal process and see what the response is,Luck said of the request for proposals. That will take severalmonths. Luck said WVU wasnt necessarily looking to make a change inits independent operation but was simply looking for information.The biggest parts of the third-tier rights are radio broadcastrights and the football and basketball games not claimed by thefirst two tiers. That would be smaller, non-conference games likeNorfolk State for football and Tennessee Tech for mens basketballthis past year. The third tier also includes the remainingtelevision inventory of the other WVU sports as well as signage andcommercial rights at sporting event sites. There arent as many third-tier television opportunities because so many football andbasketball games are claimed by the first- and second-tier, butthere could be competition for what remains, as well as for theuniversitys other sports, because of the interest generated by WVUsmove to the Big 12. The rights can be worth several million dollarsper year, and schools generally enter multi-year contracts. InMarch, North Carolina State agreed to a 10-year contract worth $49million with Learfield Sports and Capitol Broadcast Company. Thedeal created a group called Wolfpack Sports Properties that was putin charge of signage, marketing, radio play-by-play, television andradio coaches shows and website sponsorships. WVUs third-tier rightsare presently under the umbrella of the universitys MountaineerSports Network while West Virginia Radio Corp.s Metro News hasbroadcast football and basketball games for decades. Mike Parsons,deputy director of athletics, who has been in charge of MSN since1981, and Dale Miller, the president of West Virginia Radio Corp.,did not return messages Tuesday. Bray Cary, president of WestVirginia Media Holdings, which runs the shows featuring mensbasketball coach Bob Huggins and football coach Dana Holgorsen, saidhis company is interested in the request for proposal. Cary onceowned Creative Sports, which held the rights for the University ofKansas and throughout the Big 12. He later sold it to ESPN, whichrebranded it as ESPN Regional. Well look at it aggressively, saidCary. Any school the caliber of West Virginia will generate interestnationally, and I think with a lot of people in the state as well.There will be a lot of interest and it will be very competitive.Luck said the Mountaineers are not forcing ourselves to go withanybody. Were looking to see what the marketplace is saying aboutus. Luck became the athletic director in 2010. Under his leadership,WVU secured consulting services from Rockbridge Sports Group forhelp with that topic. Rockridge is a company headed by formeremployees at CBS Collegiate Sports Properties, which works withschools and manages their media rights. Virtually all other collegesthat play football, basketball or both have help from an outsidesource. The University of Southern California signed a deal in Aprilto have ESPN Radio broadcast nationally all of its home footballgames. Illinois is shopping its multimedia rights and is reportedlydown to IMG College and Learfield Sports. Those are the industryleaders, with IMG College working with 80 schools in some capacityand Learfield Sports working with 50 schools and the Big Ten,Western Athletic and Missouri Valley conferences. CBS College SportsProperties is a smaller group that works with a handful of schools.The combined NBC and Comcast group is expanding its reach. From theBig 12, Texas, Kansas, Baylor and TCU are IMG College clients andOklahoma, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Iowa Stateare Learfield Sports clients. WVU has limitless options, however,and could specify exactly what it wants with the request forproposal. It may seek to outsource merely the radio rights, theleftover television rights or both. It might want to outsource onlythe marketing rights. There are other possibilities that couldpreserve the current format, or let it continue in a similarfashion. Kansas State and Iowa State will both have school-specificwebsites beginning next fall to present their third-tier properties.Kansas State started theirs last season and actually showed itsseason-opening football game online. Iowa States will debut in thefall. Both are subscription services. Each charges $9.95 per monthor $79.95 per season.
