Texas has backed out of the proposed home-and-home series with Minnesota. Originally set for 2015/16, the series was dropped after lengthy negotiaions failed to resolve a breakdown over video rights.
The two athletic departments couldn't come to an agreement over how the schools could use the video from the respective away games. Texas officials claim that there was a problem getting use of the video from the Minnesota contest because of the Big Ten Network.
This is a problem/excuse that will probably spread as the Pac 10 (and eventually Texas) start their own networks. It does seem odd that third tier video rights are being used as the reason for the cancellation of this series. It presumes that the game would fall to the BTN or the proposed Longohrn Network for a live broadcast, which I find extremely unlikely.
It is also extremely unlikely that Tim Brewster will still be the Head Coach at Minnesota in 2015, but still he is not a happy camper over losing Texas on the schedule.
"I'm extremely disappointed that Texas has chosen not to play us," said Brewster. "This was very unexpected, considering we had an agreement in principal. Our fans and our team were excited to play Texas. Obviously, they weren't as excited about playing us. We plan to fill that slot in our upcoming schedule with a quality BCS opponent."