• by Seth Fineberg , October 22, 2002

It won’t be on the air until at least Q1 2003, and at press time no carrier deals had been announced, but major advertisers are already lining up to support 24-hour college sports programming on the National College Sports Network (NCSN). One of the main reasons is the promise of reaching college-educated, above-average-income 18-to-34-year-old males. But that’s only scratching the surface.

According to co-founder and CEO Brian Bedol, the new network promises to have more women’s sports than any other network and sponsorship opportunities unseen in other college sports programming.

“If you define our audience as sports fans, it does skew male, but we believe the sports that we will showcase, as well as how it’s presented, will have a broader appeal than hard sports coverage does,” says Bedol. “College sports has an incredible history, drama, and raw emotion that is not as prevalent in professional sports. We think there is a great opportunity to have a broader reach than just hardcore sports fans.”

Bedol would not reveal which advertisers had signed on by press time; however, he did say that it is “fair to assume we have had discussions with several major advertisers very high on the college sports list.” He also stressed that the interested advertisers’ support of the programming “takes them deeper into the sports” and offers “literally millions of unique fans they can’t reach just through football and basketball.” “Because of our relationships with the [college sports] conferences and the lack of exposure many of these sports have gotten,” he continues, “we really have unique advertiser opportunities from the outset.”

Some of these opportunities may include online sponsorship and signage on the fields or at the event spaces, as well as other benefits that are normally difficult and expensive to achieve in college football and basketball alone. Bedol also mentioned that NCSN is talking with some sponsors about student athlete scholarships. NCSN was not selling ad spots at press time, but charter sponsorships were available.

NCSN plans to make formal announcements about its programming in a few months. However, Bedol revealed that the network will feature some football and basketball coverage “as long as it doesn’t go into bid against the major networks.” The network will also offer many live competitions such as lacrosse, crew, wrestling, track, and a variety of tournaments and championships. Bedol also adds that if there are 10 events on a given weekend, NCSN will show a few live and tape the others to run the following week. He feels that “for fans of other college sports, they don’t see it as a negative that it’s taped; they are happy to see things like wrestling or lacrosse at all. If presented the right way, it’s great TV sports.”

Since it will be a 24-hour network, NCSN will also feature original programming, classic college sports games and moments, interviews with players and coaches, and call-in shows. Bedol hopes NCSN will ultimately be a place “where college sports fans will hang out.”

Bedol also says understanding of the network’s concept is already strong among advertisers, even more than it was when he and NCSN chairman Steve Greenberg launched the now-ESPN-owned Classic Sports Network. He says the main problem initially with Classic Sports was that they had to convince advertisers that it was a category they should care about. He also says that “college sports already has huge advertisers,” one of which is Nike, where NCSN executive vice president and co-founder Chris Bevilacqua used to work.

Anyone interested in advertising opportunities can go to www.NCSN.com, where there should be a button for advertiser inquiries. The website itself will be more fully developed by 2003. as Bedol envisions “being a brand in multiple forms of media.”