re: SEC Network, the thread

quote:

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I don't honestly think ESPN ever thought LHN was a winner. It was a means to an end and any comparison to the SECN is not very apt. It was simply the price of keeping a full scale bid war at bay a few more years.

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For once I disagree with that analysis 100% tmc.

I DO think that the original LHN was thought to be a winner. In its original form, the form where the network could host high-school games and the state championship game, would have had greater appeal.

I also think ESPN was sold a line from sips that lower programs like Tech (and hell maybe even us one day) would eventually fall in line and agree to play on the network.

The LHN was an ambitious plan to make a "Texas" (as in the state) network. It only failed because the ESPN executives missed two things:

1. The fact that having high-school games on the network would be ok. Again I am sure sip leaders assured them it would be ok, only for us to take it to the NCAA and strike it down year 1.

2. The fact that programs like Tech have more pride than they thought. They were right they could get some level of teams playing on there (ala Texas St. and UTSA), but it is obvious they assumed the level of Tech, Baylor, TCU would play ball as well. When Tech showed some backbone it became apparent that Texas didn't rule the state like they told their buddies at ESPN.

I think the reason it continues to exist is due to the fact that without it there would be major conference realignment where ESPN might lost important properties to the Fox controlled B1G or the split-controlled PAC.

But I don't think the grand plan was for it to be a stop-gap from the beginning. The grand plan was that they could turn the LHN into something any football fan in Texas would want to watch.

And maybe they could have had that if we would have gone along with it.