DIRECTV Sports Networks announced that the company’s three regional sports networks – FSN Rocky Mountain (with sub-region FSN Utah), FSN Pittsburgh and FSN Northwest – will introduce a new brand identity to become ROOT Sports™ in Spring 2011. FSN-Rocky Mountain televises University of Denver hockey games.
The new ROOT Sports brand has been in research and development for more than a year.
“This rebrand effort is an incredible opportunity for our company to establish a clear, consistent and exciting brand identity for our key stakeholders and viewers,” said Mark Shuken, President and CEO of DIRECTV Sports Networks.
FSN Rocky Mountain has telecast rights to the Colorado Rockies, Utah Jazz, University of Colorado, University of Denver, as well as Big 12 football and women’s basketball, Pac-10 football and basketball and ACC basketball. The network’s serves more than 2.6 million cable and satellite homes in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and South Dakota.
FSN Rocky Mountain is based in Denver and is a subsidiary of DIRECTV Sports Networks. The three networks combined reach more than 8.3 million viewers across 18 states. FSN Rocky Mountain will introduce a new brand identity to become ROOT Sports in Spring 2011.
The new ROOT Sports brand has been in research and development for more than a year.
“This rebrand effort is an incredible opportunity for our company to establish a clear, consistent and exciting brand identity for our key stakeholders and viewers,” said Mark Shuken, President and CEO of DIRECTV Sports Networks.
FSN Rocky Mountain has telecast rights to the Colorado Rockies, Utah Jazz, University of Colorado, University of Denver, as well as Big 12 football and women’s basketball, Pac-10 football and basketball and ACC basketball. The network’s serves more than 2.6 million cable and satellite homes in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and South Dakota.
FSN Rocky Mountain is based in Denver and is a subsidiary of DIRECTV Sports Networks. The three networks combined reach more than 8.3 million viewers across 18 states. FSN Rocky Mountain will introduce a new brand identity to become ROOT Sports in Spring 2011.
14 comments:
Obviously the execs over at Root Sports haven't been to England or Australia. ROOT TV would be a good name for a porn channel.
Not wild about the name, as it goes from an internationally respected parent brand with its roots in the movie industry (Fox) to something that sounds less credible. But I can see why they are changing it, as they are not owned by Fox Sports, and I am sure Fox wanted to control its own brand.
As long as they show the DU games with the same level of excellence as they have been, I'll be tuning in.
Too bad they can’t figure out how to film an away game.
Production costs about $25-30,000 for a home game, and probably more for an away game, unless you can pick up an existing feed from some other cable operation who is also doing the game locally.
Given the costs involved, the advertising doesn't cover the costs and DU pays for the difference.
We're lucky to get what we get. I would bet only Minnesota makes a profit on TV due to fan base size.
All the others likely subizidize.
It makes no sense to film home games when there are so many empty seats. DU should black out the games locally unless the game is sold out. Just a way to get the slackers to actually go to home games.
Don’t all the teams film their own games? Are you saying that FSN is as incompetent as PioneerVison about getting someone else’s feed? Or they just can’t afford to pay the other cable service? No one wants to trade for DU games? Or they just want to you to pay more for sports packages that still don’t carry all the games?
1. Blackouts are a relic of the past. Much more important to get program visibility on TV than it is to fill the last 1,000 seats with lazy people.
2. FSN-RM plays DU games because DU pays them to do it. Chances are, other programming (poker, college hoops, etc.) would generate higher ratings in that same slot, so FSN has little interest in chasing down some local cable feed in Mankato or Anchorage, etc and running it instead of more luractive programming to fill their slot.
So you’re saying that DU pays FSN so that people don’t have to come to home games. And they are losing money by doing that. What moron thought that up? For a business school capitalizing on cable television pioneers this is disgraceful. If DU or FSN made money selling ads there might be some logic but if what you are saying is true, it is an embarrassment to FSN and the university. Another black mark on the Coombe administration.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to televise away games to generate more interest so that people would actually come to home games?
Playing games on TV is a huge recruiting tool for the Pioneers. The fact that these games are shown nationally are an added bonus.
Countless teams and programs have done studies and found that televising home games actually helps attendance by increasing awareness.
Any Denver attendance issues are directly related to the quality of the opposition. Games against CC, BC, Sconnie and major schools are sell-outs. Games against no-name programs are seeing large numbers of no-shows and empty seats.
DU has been televising home games on FSN-Rocky Mountain for the past 14 season and on other local cable sports networks since the mid-Eighties.
At most DU is only televising half of their home games this season. Denver has always been a football town and attendance usually picks up in the 2nd half of the season.
I don’t think it’s Denver fans coming out to see quality teams. Rather it’s fans from other teams that come out if their team is playing well. Fans from other teams that either live in Denver or travel to see their team play. In years past, Wisconsin fans often came close to outnumbering DU locals. The Bleacher Creatures were drowned out by cheesehat wearing Badgers in all their glory. More recently the Green Horde of North Dakota have shown up in mass overwhelming the puny DU student section. While not as adamant as the Big Red football fans, the Maverick fans have a loyal following and I suspect that come February, Magness will be packed with their fans.
DU fans can watch from home as other teams revel in the home ice advantage their numbers bring. DU actually encourages it. As Swaami has said, Chancellor Coombe even goes so far as to pay for it.
We sure haven't seen many opposing fans this year, and in previous years, the most opposing fans I've ever seen here is perhaps 1,000 Sioux fans, most of whom live in Denver. Maybe 750 Gopher or Badger fans in a good year for those schools. But it would be innaccurate to say those fans bases "outnumber" or "drown out" the locals. They make some noise, but it's not a home-ice advantage.
The Pioneers sometimes do have issues generating high student turnout during school breaks, but student turnout has been pretty good when good teams are in town and school is in sesssion. We do struggle with student attendance against schools with lesser brand names (MSUM, UAA, MTU, SCSU, BSU, and UMD) but that's true accross the board. The tickets are sold, but the people are skiing.
For most people who live here, going skiing is more important than hockey.
Not true. But I’ve probably been going to DU games a few decades longer than you have. In the days of the Old Barn , when DG could still fit into a large, the Wisconsin fan base filled not only their allotment of tickets but purchased every open seat. It was a mad house. I wonder why they gave up wearing the cheesehats?
These days, the DU students make a good showing on Fridays. By Saturday their section, even for big names like NoDak and CC, is pathetic.
I think it's time for DG to realize that it is totally impossible to fill out our schedule with "name opponents". There are probably no more than 10 NCAA D1 hockey programs with a national name recognition. Get over it, playing Mankato, Bemidji, UNO, and so on is just how it is going to be. You can't make college hockey into something it is not and you sure as hell can not force ASU, UCLA, USC and so on to start a program that they don't really have any desire for to begin with. This dream you have of filling the arena with games played against all these nationally known schools is just that: a dream. You need to wake up, dude...
One thing that is not helping with ticket sales and games being televised is that because of conference expansion and the way the schedule works out we do not get North Dakota, Minnesota, or UMD at home and we don't play Wisconsin in Madison (which more than likely would be on television). UMD is not the draw that North Dakota or Minnesota is but they are a decent program and having a good year. On the plus side, our remaining schedule is pretty easy in that we don't play many teams in the top half of the standings. Hopefully we win most if not all of those games and win big because we do not need losses to bad teams muddying up our chances at the tournament.
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