Here’s why ranked Big 12 teams K-State, OSU are on ESPN+ instead of traditional TV
Kansas State and Oklahoma State are both off to undefeated starts.
Each football team is also currently ranked in one of the national top 25 polls.
And one of the best defensive battles in recent Big 12 memory could be in store when they meet in their conference opener at 6 p.m. Saturday in OSU’s Boone Pickens Stadium.
There are many reasons why fans will want to watch. But it’s the only Big 12 game of the weekend that won’t be available on traditional TV. Anyone hoping to get a look at the Wildcats and the Cowboys will need an Internet connection and a $6.99 monthly subscription to the streaming sports network known as ESPN+.
It’s a frustrating development for fans on both sides of the matchup. K-State fans are particularly annoyed because it marks the third straight week that ESPN+ has exclusively streamed their team’s game.
“I would have preferred not to be on (ESPN+) again three times in a row,” K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said in an interview with the Eagle.
Still, he knew this was a possibility going into the year. Playing more games than usual on ESPN+ is a fact of life for most Big 12 teams this season. Call it a lingering side effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
Taylor said the Big 12 was unable to supply ESPN+ with enough games in men’s basketball and football last season to fulfill its contractual obligations when games across the country were canceled because of COVID. So the conference had to do something to make up for that this year.
It had two options, according to Taylor.
The conference could either choose to receive less money from ESPN or play more games on ESPN+.
“We said, ‘Let’s just add more,’” Taylor said. “Originally, football was one game per school. Most of us put our nonconference stuff on there. But as ESPN+ and Big 12 Now got bigger, ESPN saw an opportunity to draw more fans to it and went from one game to two. This year, some schools are getting three games on there, and you will probably see more basketball, too ... That’s what everybody agreed to.”
But not everyone was happy about that.
K-State defensive back Tee Denson said last week that he considered playing on ESPN+ “to be disrespectful.”
Taylor said he doesn’t expect K-State to play any more football games on ESPN+ this season. Upcoming games against Oklahoma and Texas will both be broadcast nationally on Fox.
This is the third straight year in which ESPN+ has streamed Big 12 games. It started out as a way for schools to gain exposure for their non-revenue sports and get the conference’s foot in the door with a streaming service for men’s basketball and football.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby envisioned it as the start of a conference network, even though it wouldn’t have access to home games that involved Oklahoma or Texas.
Few complain when ESPN+ carries the vast majority of its games, but the pitch forks come out when a pair of ranked football teams end up on the streaming network, especially for a conference clash.
So much so that some made jokes when the Big 12 announced its football championship game will be televised on ABC this season. Was ESPN+ not available?
Taylor doesn’t seem to mind playing the occasional game on a streaming network. It could be the future. More and more schools, including Notre Dame, are now playing games away from traditional TV and getting paid handsomely to do so. Taylor is open to considering streaming services like Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix as streaming partners after the Big 12’s current TV contract with ESPN and Fox expires in 2025.
“Fans are getting used to it,” Taylor said. “They’re learning how to get access to it, particularly younger fans. I absolutely think streaming is going to be very much a big part of live sports moving forward. No question.”
As long as the streaming network provides good production quality, Taylor has no complaints.
That would be his biggest criticism of ESPN+. The streaming network experienced technical difficulties when it showed K-State at Oklahoma State in football two years ago. It also had fewer cameras than usual on hand for K-State’s past two home games, which led to some annoyingly long officiating reviews.
He has previously said that K-State’s video team could do a superior job.
“Their production has not been as good as I thought it was last year,” Taylor said. “The truck they’re sending to games and the number of cameras they have at games seem smaller. I don’t know if they’re putting more games on and they’re spread more thinly in terms of staffing. We aren’t having bandwidth issues like we used to and they’ve expanded into public places so fans can watch ESPN+ in bars and at restaurants. That has all been good. But the production could be better.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 2:33 PM with the headline "Here’s why ranked Big 12 teams K-State, OSU are on ESPN+ instead of traditional TV."