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OU and Fox Sport have officially kicked off a multimedia partnership that will create Sooner Sports TV -- OU's very own network, sort of.
What is the deal worth financially to OU? Your guess is as good as mine. Nobody is talking.
The agreement calls for 1,000 Hours of Sooner Programming to be Distributed Annually on FOX Sports Networks in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The programming will be featured on FOX Sports Oklahoma, FOX Sports Southwest, and FOX College Sports and is available in approximately 9 million TV homes in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana
Outside the four-state area Fox will make "Sooner Sports TV" available either on FOX College Sports (FCS) via cable providers or on outer market regional sports packages offered by cable or satellite providers.
The agreement "marks the beginning of a terrific opportunity to engage our entire university community in athletic, academic and cultural events all across our campus," David Boren, the Norman, Oklahoma-based university's president, said in the statement. "By providing unprecedented access to many areas of our university, millions of people across our state and nation will be able to see all of the truly great developments happening at OU."
Fox will offer an online component an "All Access" feature that live stream archived games and other features. The TV portion will feature the usual suspects: coaches' shows, press conferences, feature material, as well as a few live men's basketball games as well as live broadcasting of Olympic Sports on campus.
There is no mention of any live football games, I assume because this really isn't a network unto itself but rather a partnership with Fox Sports and therefore complicated by existing media contracts.