Big news in college sports as the American Sports Network is ceasing operations out of their West Palm Beach studios at the end of March.

Sinclair will cease operations of the fledgling sports operation at the end of the month resulting in many questions around the national subchannel as well as their local sports coverage on Sinclair stations. Newsroom, production and master control teams will all be impacted.

Rumors are that remaining operations and outstanding obligations will be picked up by Campus Insiders, the sports news website based in Chicago.

Link: https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2017/3...t-sinclair

Sounds like this just affects the 24 hour venture but likely isn't going to affect the sydicated broadcasts.

So Campus Insiders takes over the existing contracts and has to convince someone to pick up the feed or it becomes all online only.

(03-10-2017 11:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  So Campus Insiders takes over the existing contracts and has to convince someone to pick up the feed or it becomes all online only.

Probably online only. CI has a channel on Sling, but not idea if that is on-demand or a live product like TV. But don't rule out that they'll find other TV stations to show games if that is the idea along with the OTT platform.

(03-10-2017 11:39 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Sounds like this just affects the 24 hour venture but likely isn't going to affect the sydicated broadcasts.

Could be that. Guess will find out.

(03-10-2017 11:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  So Campus Insiders takes over the existing contracts and has to convince someone to pick up the feed or it becomes all online only.

Wait, are you saying this affects the syndicated broadcasts or no? I read this as just dealing with the 24-hour sports channel venture.

(03-10-2017 12:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 11:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  So Campus Insiders takes over the existing contracts and has to convince someone to pick up the feed or it becomes all online only.

Wait, are you saying this affects the syndicated broadcasts or no? I read this as just dealing with the 24-hour sports channel venture.

Hard to make from the article but said contractual obligations would be taken over by CI

(03-10-2017 02:05 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 12:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 11:41 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  So Campus Insiders takes over the existing contracts and has to convince someone to pick up the feed or it becomes all online only.

Wait, are you saying this affects the syndicated broadcasts or no? I read this as just dealing with the 24-hour sports channel venture.

Hard to make from the article but said contractual obligations would be taken over by CI

That sounds like everything after re-reading that point.

Wonder if that would give CI a boost for the Sling channel. Anybody have seen this yet? I have no idea if its a linear(TV) type programming with the OTT platform or just on demand type content.

It seemed destined to failure from the start. They can probably survive as a syndication of games.

Looks like Matt Sarzniak has concluded ASN is shutting down everything.

http://mattsarzsports.blogspot.com/2017/...twork.html

And more speculation on the fall out from Underdog Dynasty.

http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2017/3/10...ein-sports

(03-10-2017 03:08 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  It seemed destined to failure from the start. They can probably survive as a syndication of games.

Yeah, it seems Sinclair didn't put a full effort to developing it whole heartily...especially with the stations that they owned. They didn't put many games on the .1 channel...although that would be impossible with the Major networks they affiliate with, The CW stations had a couple of games on the main channel.

I did think the AZ bowl was produced well and the quality of that game was good, but I do see that most of the TV stations was on SD and even though SD can be quite decent, it wasn't always at the best quality since they didn't allocate a bigger mhz with some stations have 5 sub-channels taking up a bit of space.

If I was Ion Media, I'd buy the ASN contracts and operations and make it into ION Sports Network. ION has pretty good coverage OTA and is on cable to and really could use a sports arm to boost their programming.

ASN didn't quite figure out what they wanted to be and some of the market assignments were absolutely nuts.
I know one Saturday I flipped over to antenna (Direct doesn't carry local subchannels) to see how UNT was doing and the Little Rock station was carrying a Division III game out of Iowa (coaches were taller than nearly all of the players). Another Saturday I see on twitter there is a barnburner game on ASN involving CUSA teams, switch over and Wagner is on.

I was actually interested when ASN was launched thinking it would regional stuff that was more niche than ESPN but instead was hyper-niche content most of the time.

They started going the cheap route this year as they picked up more games. Most of the CAA games they televised this year were done from either Kansas City or West Palm Beach. They hired some good announcers who did a lot of work at other syndicators (Dave Armstrong, Doug Bell, Mark Adams to name a couple), but most of the games had poor camera work and you could tell they were broadcasting it remotely.

Also, the packages were hard to find. Unless you had one of those pass-through RSNs (CSN California, Altitude, CSN Chicago) that carried games, it was hard to watch some of the games. The Big South basketball package, for example, only aired on a subchannel locally, even though there is a Big South team (Charleston Southern) in our market.

(03-10-2017 04:12 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  ASN didn't quite figure out what they wanted to be and some of the market assignments were absolutely nuts.
I know one Saturday I flipped over to antenna (Direct doesn't carry local subchannels) to see how UNT was doing and the Little Rock station was carrying a Division III game out of Iowa (coaches were taller than nearly all of the players). Another Saturday I see on twitter there is a barnburner game on ASN involving CUSA teams, switch over and Wagner is on.

I was actually interested when ASN was launched thinking it would regional stuff that was more niche than ESPN but instead was hyper-niche content most of the time.

I knew they were not a serious player when they never landed an affiliate in Houston.

(03-10-2017 05:14 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-10-2017 04:12 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  ASN didn't quite figure out what they wanted to be and some of the market assignments were absolutely nuts.
I know one Saturday I flipped over to antenna (Direct doesn't carry local subchannels) to see how UNT was doing and the Little Rock station was carrying a Division III game out of Iowa (coaches were taller than nearly all of the players). Another Saturday I see on twitter there is a barnburner game on ASN involving CUSA teams, switch over and Wagner is on.

I was actually interested when ASN was launched thinking it would regional stuff that was more niche than ESPN but instead was hyper-niche content most of the time.

I knew they were not a serious player when they never landed an affiliate in Houston.

I can recall tuning in to ASN maybe one time? I think this past bowl season, they had one bowl game, a low end out west game involving Air Force?

I had never even heard of ASN and had to search the nether reaches of my cable listings to find it, and to my surprise it was there.

That's it, so not surprised it's folding up.

They had the Arizona Bowl. In our area it aired OTA because we have a Sinclair station, but there were MANY markets that didn't. Charlotte never aired it on a major station, neither did Orlando or Miami.

It lives!!!

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/...39656.html

American Sports Network, Campus Insiders, 120 Sports and Silver Chalice (parent of Campus Insiders) will all merge together into a to be named conglomerate.

Good news for those that will be able to watch their teams again.