Spring Break
ND Athletics: Notre Dame, Comcast launch free on-demand channel
Cable official reiterates rift with Big Ten Network, which goes live today
Ken Fowler
Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: Sports
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It just got a little bit easier to follow Notre Dame athletics.
Cable company Comcast and the University last week announced the start of a new "on-demand" channel that will feature video of games, practices and interviews of all 26 Notre Dame varsity teams. The programming, which digital cable customers can view without charge through the "Get Local" portion of the on-demand feature, began last week for customers in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
More than half of Comcast's customers in the region have digital cable and thus free access to the content, said Rich Ruggiero, the Comcast vice president for communications and public affairs in the Chicago and South Bend markets.
Notre Dame did not charge Comcast a rights fee for the content. Boo Corrigan, the associate athletic director in charge of corporate relations and marketing, said the athletic department views the agreement as a way of expanding the visibility of Notre Dame's sports teams.
"It literally will cover, over the course of the year, all 26 varsity sports at Notre Dame," Ruggiero said. "Naturally, given the very strong interest in Fighting Irish football, there's a lot of football content."
Ruggiero said post-game and mid-week news conferences with Irish coach Charlie Weis will be a staple of the programming. Comcast already has added practice reports from the last few weeks and video from freshman media day, which was on Aug. 24.
Viewers can search the Notre Dame feature within the on-demand channels and then pick individual clips - whether it be a practice report from a certain day, a news conference after a particular game or player profile - to watch at any time.
Corrigan said the University is trying to provide video broadcasts of all Notre Dame home sports games, with the exception of those teams - like football and men's and women's basketball - that have third-party television agreements limiting what Notre Dame and Comcast can provide. As a general rule, Notre Dame cannot broadcast video of away contests in sports because the home team's conference controls the broadcast rights to those games.
Cable company Comcast and the University last week announced the start of a new "on-demand" channel that will feature video of games, practices and interviews of all 26 Notre Dame varsity teams. The programming, which digital cable customers can view without charge through the "Get Local" portion of the on-demand feature, began last week for customers in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
More than half of Comcast's customers in the region have digital cable and thus free access to the content, said Rich Ruggiero, the Comcast vice president for communications and public affairs in the Chicago and South Bend markets.
Notre Dame did not charge Comcast a rights fee for the content. Boo Corrigan, the associate athletic director in charge of corporate relations and marketing, said the athletic department views the agreement as a way of expanding the visibility of Notre Dame's sports teams.
"It literally will cover, over the course of the year, all 26 varsity sports at Notre Dame," Ruggiero said. "Naturally, given the very strong interest in Fighting Irish football, there's a lot of football content."
Ruggiero said post-game and mid-week news conferences with Irish coach Charlie Weis will be a staple of the programming. Comcast already has added practice reports from the last few weeks and video from freshman media day, which was on Aug. 24.
Viewers can search the Notre Dame feature within the on-demand channels and then pick individual clips - whether it be a practice report from a certain day, a news conference after a particular game or player profile - to watch at any time.
Corrigan said the University is trying to provide video broadcasts of all Notre Dame home sports games, with the exception of those teams - like football and men's and women's basketball - that have third-party television agreements limiting what Notre Dame and Comcast can provide. As a general rule, Notre Dame cannot broadcast video of away contests in sports because the home team's conference controls the broadcast rights to those games.