Some good news from yesterday's DirecTV brouhaha. The conference is moving forward with its digital plans unhindered. Here comes the iPad App!
Pac-12 Now is available on the Web at Pac-12.com and for iPad on the App Store. At present, millions of sub-scribers to Time Warner Cable, Cox, and Bright House can log in to view Pac-12 Networks broadcast channels. Pac-12 Networks is working with Comcast, Frontier, Suddenlink, BendBroadband, and other distributors to enable access for their subscribers later this fall.
Good news for members of the three main cable providers that signed up early for the Network. (Meanwhile, Comcast continues in its quest to be last and terrible.)
The iPad app appears to be the latest extension of TV Anywhere, where you'll be able to watch your favorite team on the go as long as you're a cable subscriber to the networks on your television packages. It's a good step forward for a conference that needs some positive news.
For the first year, the Pac-12 Network figures to act like a Watch ESPN-type service that allows you to watch your TV content online and on the go. All 850 events that the conference plans to televise will be available online, as will all the video highlights and various features that the Pac-12 Network decides to make ready for its customers.
However, the bigger long-term implications are that soon every sporting event in the conference could be available for online streaming. The Pac-12 Digital Vice President explains.
However, Aufhauser told me that the current iPad app — with its live video feeds, stats and all other kinds of bells and whistles — is very much a first step. Next up are plans to extend the content even further. Around 1,500 events from the Pac-12 Conference never make it to TV, and that’s where broadband and mobile video could fill an important gap.
Thanks to state-of-the-art leaps in technology and distribution (and the innovation of the people at Ooyala and Pac-12 Digital), you can start developing fans of every sport in the conference and keep everyone up-to-date with whatever sport they want to stay in touch with without having to stay glued to box scores. That could be the next big step forward for college sports--making the non-revenue sports popular enough that they may one day attract more fans on a regular basis.
That has to be the long-term thinking for a conference where possibilities appear to be endless.