ESPN not on 2003 campus cable roster

Tufts students searching for College Football Gameday or Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN this past weekend were greeted with a rude surprise - the cable sports channel is not among the 59 stations available on campus this year.

Tufts changed the provider of campus cable services this summer and under the new arrangement, it would have cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to add ESPN to the channel lineup.



Due to a new method of buying channels and the cost of ESPN, inflexibility on the part of ESPN, and the Tufts Computing and Communications Services (TCCS) budget constraints and emphasis on educational, news, and foreign language channels, Tufts students will not have access to the 24 hour-a-day sports station. On the plus side, students now get basic cable at no additional cost, a change from the former policy.



After last year's contract with Paetec ended as the outsource for television and phone deals, the university wanted "to look more creatively at how we offer services to students," Executive Administrative Dean Wayne Bouchard said. "We thought a local cable company would jump at the opportunity to cash in here."

The hitch came when Tufts was unable to strike a reasonable deal with such companies as Comcast and RCN. Since broadcast TV is not a viable option due to the lack of antennae on campus, the school faced two possibilities: go the satellite route or subject students to a year without any television. Tufts hired Falls Earth Station Inc., which offers satellite service to campuses across the country, to negotiate with individual channels to create what TCCS hoped would be an enticing cable menu. Funding came from the Department of Arts & Sciences through tuition fees.

At first glance, some of the selections raise some eyebrows - Lifetime, the Cartoon Network, and the Family Channel do not seem like priorities for college students.

However, channels came in package deals in which one channel often could not be bought without another.

"For instance, we knew we definitely wanted CNN, even though that meant taking a cartoon channel that came with it," TCCS Manager of Networks and Special Projects Marj Minnigh said.

Most packages came extremely cheaply (in one instance, Tufts purchased a multichannel deal for the entire school for $25 a month). However, ESPN's four channel package of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, and ESPN News would have cost between $50,000 and $100,000, more than every other channel purchased by the school combined. In the end, the university could not justify spending that much tuition money for entertainment channels.

"We weren't cheaping out, but we weren't going the Cadillac route either," Bouchard said. "We feel we've offered a fairly reasonable selection considering we're using Arts & Sciences funds, and we decided if we're using tuition dollars, we really needed to focus on educational content as much as possible. I would have a harder time justifying stuff like ESPN, HBO and movie channels with that money."

Indeed, channels like HBO, Bravo, and Showtime are available to students as part of optional premium packages. But the worldwide leader in sports would not make itself available in such a way.

"That's not TCCS' fault," sophomore Nimit Barochia said. "If you blame anyone, you have to blame ESPN for being so rigid. But either way you look at it, it sucks for the students who are fans."

No ESPN is not all bad news for sports diehards, however, especially Boston fans. The new deal includes Fox Sports Net and NESN, which, respectively, show every Celtics and Red Sox game not nationally televised. "Last year, NESN was incredibly grainy and we didn't even get FSN," sophomore Leigh Simons said. "Now I can watch every single game this year."

Additionally, when TCCS realized ESPN was not going to work out, they tried to compensate by adding College Sports TV, which broadcasts collegiate sporting events ranging from NAIA football to Division I soccer.

Although most Jumbos were upset with the lack of ESPN, they were happy that cable came at no additional cost and understood TCCS' reasoning in not purchasing the sports channel's package.

"There go the early rounds of the baseball playoffs [which are televised on ESPN]," sophomore Erik Johanson said. "But I can definitely understand why the school couldn't commit all that money to sports."

"I'd rather have free cable and no ESPN than have to pay a ridiculous amount extra for cable," sophomore Mike DeBartolo said.

"We knew students would want it, we know it's popular, and we knew they would be upset," Minnigh said. "We wish we could have made it work, and hopefully we will next year."

Bouchard was also upbeat. "For the first time ever, students are coming back to campus with phone, TV, and data services at no additional cost," he said. "We feel very good about that."