| Show E Unveil New ChaRn Chann e Devoted let Exclusively to Colle College ege e sports ports or i l Larry Stewart Los Angeles Times used the occasion of its anniversary Tuesday to announce the creation of a new channel devoted strictly to college sports The new channel will make its debut in March An spokesman said it will be up to the individual individual individual indi indi- vidual cable companies to decide whether the new network will be placed on a a digital pay tier will carry approximately live events in its first year including Division I football and mens men's and women's basketball plus other college sports such as wrestling volleyball and hockey This will give the college fans more of what they want said John senior vice president of programming said Tuesdays Tuesday's news was greeted enthusiastically enthusiastically enthusiastically by the conferences that does business business business busi busi- ness with The new network which will not take programming programming programming program program- ming away from or will offer a place for excessive inventory Games televised on essentially will be those that couldn't fit on its big sister networks Earlier this summer the US U.S. Justice Departments Department's antitrust division began an tion into how locks up deals with conferences and doesn't allow those conferences to make other separate deals This new channel industry sources believe could be a way of appeasing the Justice Department by allowing more games from each conference to be televised on networks declined to comment on the Justice Department investigation One source said has been in the works for some time and an announcement was expected a afew afew afew few months ago officials call a multimedia college college col col- college col- col lege initiative because it will also have a presence on Radio Interactive Broadband and in the Magazine The new channel will become a competitor of College Sports TV which was launched last year President and chief executive Brian Bedol said College Sports TV has created a successful blueprint for total coverage of college sports from the network to the Internet with to College Sports Radio our new partnership with Sirius Satellite Radio so successful that is celebrating its anniversary anniversary anniversary sary by following it to the letter also will compete in a more minor way with Fox College Sports which began operation last weekend |
