Division II’s first-year broadcast arrangement with CSTV is bold, unique and maybe even a bit risky. More than anything else, though, the initiative is new — and subject to the same excitement and growing pains that are experienced by any newborn.

The partnership, which was announced in August, calls for the cablecast of nine regular-season games (three football and six basketball) and the broadband videocast of 72 other games (40 football and 32 basketball).

For those who are historically inclined, the agreement is significant since it marks the Association’s first foray into regular-season broadcasting since the College Football Association lawsuit of the mid-1980s ended exclusive NCAA control over regular-season football telecasts.

However, the contrasts between the old NCAA Football Television Plan and the current arrangement greatly exceed any similarities. For starters, the 2006 Division II approach does not require member institutions to be part of the agreement nor is built on the payment of a major rights fee. From Division II’s perspective, the-program is much more about promotion than about generating revenue. Unlike the contentious Division I days of 20 years ago, there are few strong objections to Division II’s involvement with regular-season football.

"This is a great opportunity for us to pound our chests in pride and say, ‘Here we are,’ " said David R. Brunk, Northeast-10 Conference commissioner and chair of the Division II Management Council’s Identity Subcommittee.

Not only do the telecasts and broadband productions provide the means for Division II to explain itself to the public, they also make a large number of Division II contests available (at no charge) to fans, alumni and parents who are unable to attend a particular game.

Indeed, the initiative has abundant appeal for a number of constituents. But some concerns exist at the implementation level, some based on philosophy and some based on unfamiliarity and newness. None of the friction points comes close to being a deal-breaker, but they all need to be addressed before the strategy can realize its full potential:

The first concern is largely moot since the Division II Presidents Council already has chosen to partner with CSTV. However, it remains interesting to contemplate whether the CSTV approach somehow constitutes competition with conference broadcast packages.

Division II Management Council Chair Jill Willson doesn’t believe that the package creates a rival environment and is convinced that the membership should participate to elevate the division’s image.

"I know my president would be extremely upset if he learned that I had declined the opportunity to be a part of this initiative," said Willson, director of athletics at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. "First, it’s the right thing to do as a Division II member to be a part of this national campaign to enhance the Division II identity. Second, what a great service this provides for our alumni and fans, many of whom aren’t able to attend our games in person.

"Finally, the resources that the NCAA and CSTV can bring to the table to promote the featured broadband games each week is about the best exposure I can think of for Texas A&M-Kingsville."

Media consultant Rich Luker, who frequently has criticized the athletics community’s rote pursuit of television coverage, continues to contend that television without purpose is pointless, but he also believes that this initiative has a purpose. And he also disputes that "broadband" and "television" are the same thing.

"Broadband is personalized media, not mass media," he said. Since the Division II national cable package on CSTV involves only three football games for the entire year — a number that Division I exceeded in the first four hours of the season — Division II doesn’t seem to be guilty of national over-reach.

Beyond that, some athletics directors believe that a distinction can be made between Division II’s regionalization philosophy and taking advantage of national media opportunities.

"Regionalization is a big part of the Division II mission and philosophy," said Greg Bamberger, director of athletics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Division II Football Committee, "but that’s for scheduling purposes. You want to focus on your area because many of our schools were built on the philosophy of servicing local populations. But in this day and age with technology, I don’t see any harm in a local institution being able to send its message across the whole country."

Northwest Missouri State University Athletics Director Bob Boerigter went further, saying that national exposure is a growing expectation at all levels.

"Everybody in our league, especially at the presidential level, believes that we need to be doing this to be of service to fans and alumni all over the country who have interest in our programs," he said.

Now that the program is in place, the challenge involves driving the potential audience to the product. Each week, the NCAA announces what broadband games are available (as does CSTV), both through NCAA.org and NCAASports.com. CSTV plans to increase its promotional efforts over time, but the most effective communication will have to come from the conferences and institutions themselves since they constantly are in touch with their fans and alumni.

In the case of the Northeast-10, Brunk said the games will be announced through conference and institutional press releases and Web sites, through institutional game broadcasts and through public-address announcements at Northeast-10 contests.

Still, the promotional hill is steep for now.

"You can’t really call broadband ‘emerging technology’ because it has been around for a while," said Division II Vice President Mike Racy. "But it typically has been directed at narrow audiences, like the fans of a particular school, and almost always on a pay-per-view basis. So to some extent we’re having to battle misimpressions among broader audiences that this service might require special software or that a fee is required. Neither is true, and I’m sure that we’ll control those misunderstandings fairly quickly."

Four games for the week of September 17-23 generated 9,566 user sessions. A report for the South Dakota-St. Cloud State game was not available because of technical difficulties — the second of the implementation challenges.

Technical issues

John Servizzi, who coordinates the overall broadband production, said that most of the early problems have involved network access. "Some of the football fields are either off-site or not part of a campus network, so that’s where the hiccups have been," he said. "What we’re doing is investigating some equipment options that will allow us to connect to stadiums more easily."

Campus support also has been an occasional issue, mostly because of the additional responsibility that has been placed on already overburdened sports information staffs who are fighting the challenges that come with the beginning of the academic year. "I think once we get to basketball season, things are going to be a lot easier," Servizzi said.

While the problems that have occurred might frustrate the participating schools and their fans, Brunk said they are to be expected.

"With any new initiative like this, something is bound to happen, especially with institutions that maybe didn’t have the proper wiring or a hook-up that they’re trying to get up to speed." He noted that his own conference encountered a few glitches early on in its videostreaming arrangement with Penn Atlantic. Those problems were quickly resolved, and the experience might lead to smoother technical sailing for CSTV in Northeast-10 locales.

The third major concern encountered in the implementation of the Division II broadcast and television package involves whether it might adversely affect attendance.

How broadcasting affects attendance is an issue that has been debated since radio first mixed with college sports back in the 1920s. Since radio and television coverage have greatly expanded over the last century concurrent with consistently large gains in attendance, it’s clear that the aggregate effect of broadcasting on attendance is positive. But television can affect attendance for a particular game, and that may be a special concern at the Division II level.

This year, Central Washington and Western Washington chose to opt out of broadband coverage for their October 21 "Battle in Seattle" at Seattle’s Qwest Field.

The concerns are understandable, especially if the game is one of the big draws of the year. The Western Washington-Central Washington game drew more than 11,000 fans in 2005. Add in the fact that the broadband package does not yield any extra revenue for the participating teams, and one quickly can see why athletics directors would be careful about the decision to participate in some circumstances.

Still, there is little to suggest that broadband coverage hurts attendance.

Boerigter said that Northwest Missouri State and Pittsburg State University officials discussed the matter before agreeing to broadband coverage of their annual football game at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium. That game annually draws between 20,000 and 25,000 fans, usually the largest attendance annually for any Division II event.

"We made a call that we didn’t think the broadband telecast would affect our in-house attendance," he said. "It’s not going to be like a TV production. You’re not going to show all the cheerleaders and the marching band and the anguish of the mothers and those sorts of things. We reached the decision that our fans, those within 100 miles of Arrowhead Stadium, are still going to come to that game because they’re going to want the in-game experience.

"Certainly, we don’t want anybody to stay home, and we do have a clause in our contract not to allow live television. But in this particular case, we have collaborated on all that and decided that it was best to be part of the broadband package. If the request had been to show this live with a regular production like we’re seeing on CSTV, I’m sure the stance would have been much different."

Bamberger said that in many other cases, the attendance effect wouldn’t matter because ticket sales are low to begin with.

"At least in our world up here in the PSAC, with the gates for most of us, we’re not raking in a lot of money," he said. "A lot of people who are coming are coming in as comps — students, faculty and staff have free admission. So we’re not relying on our gates to meet our budgets. Believe me, paid attendance does help and we do utilize those funds, but most of our schools don’t rely on that gate."

Ultimately, Brunk believes that the new approach will enhance attendance, even if if causes a few short-term setbacks.

"If you’re a fan, you’re going to be there," he said. "I think the broadband will keep the interest of some who, instead of sitting at home and watching something else, might view it on broadband and think, ‘Next week there’s a home game that I might be interested in.’ Something like this will increase attendance down the road. It will create the interest and allow people to see what we’re about."

And if people see what Division II is about, the belief is that they’ll like what they see.

Although the principal purpose of the Division II-CSTV broadcast partnership is to promote Division II, the new arrangement could yield an incidental benefit: more effective evaluation of teams under consideration for the football and men’s and women’s basketball championships.

Rather ironically, the Division II Football Committee was among the groups least likely to see the first football games that were shown on the new CSTV broadband package. Those broadcasts began the week of September 9, but the games were not archived until the last week of September. Since committee members were busy administering their own games, they were generally unable to view the broadband offerings.

However, an archive of all the Division II games is now available at www.cstv.com/ncaa/divii, which means that football and basketball committees will be able to view top Division II games at will from now on. Since almost every team in the preseason Division II top 25 will appear on the broadband package, the Division II football and basketball committees will have evaluation options available to them that previously existed only for a few Division I sports.

Now the question is whether the new tool will actually help with evaluations. The answer appears to be "maybe."

"As we do our rankings," Football Committee Chair Greg Bamberger said, "it’s not really based on how good a particular player is or maybe how badly a team beat somebody or how close a particular game was. We go strictly by criteria that are presented to us by the Championships Committee."

Northwest Missouri State University Athletics Director Bob Boerigter, also a Football Committee member, said he is intrigued by how the new technology might help in time — although now might not be the time.

"It’s a possibility," he said, "but at this stage in time, the technological possibility hasn’t really caught up with the committee. We’re still spending more time trying to evaluate the numbers and making sure that the ratings are based on the criteria. But that certainly could be another resource that could be very helpful to us in due time."

Or maybe not.

"It might help," Bamberger said, "but sometimes it might also hurt. You might say, I know this team is better than that, but you watch them and they don’t play well that day. So actually, physically seeing someone — that’s nice, and it’s nice to have that information, but when it comes down to us actually making decisions about who’s ranked where and eventually who receives bids to the playoffs, that kind of information doesn’t come into play."

Division II Championships Committee Chair Mike Covone, director of athletics at Barry University, believes the new technology has promise.

"To be honest, I don’t think many of us in Division II have given much thought to video appraisals simply because the video hasn’t been available," he said. "But now that we do have complete games of top teams archived in a single place, we probably do need to figure out if there’s a way that we use that information to make comparisons. I don’t know where that discussion will come out, but we should give the concept some thought."

While the production of each Division II broadband videocast is a relatively small task, the responsibility for delivering four games each week and 40 games over a season is rather large.

Here’s how it works:

Each week, the necessary equipment must be moved from site to site. This has been an occasional problem so far, with shipments sometimes arriving as late as Friday morning for Saturday games. John Servizzi, the coordinator of the program, said that’s because much of the equipment has been routed back to the manufacturer in Texas for technical adjustments after use the previous Saturday. Corrections now have been made, and Servizzi believes that the equipment should routinely arrive on Wednesday or Thursday.

On Fridays, a producer arrives at each site at about noon. Each one begins a hasty training exercise for local staff who will be manning the cameras. "Typically, those have been students from the broadcast programs at the various schools," Servizzi said. "That’s worked out really well since we’re kind of showing these schools the way to get their games on Webcasts and how easy it can be to do."

The producers also ensure that they have the necessary Internet access. The lack of access has been the biggest ongoing problem in the early stages of the broadband initiative (see accompanying story), but now that the producers are aware of the potential pitfall, Servizzi is increasingly able to plan his way around trouble.

On game day, the producers change roles and become directors, calling the camera shots of the freshly trained crew. Each stadium is equipped with the three cameras that were shipped earlier in the week. Most often, two are placed in the press box (one for game action, the other for tight shots on key players, coaches, fans or cheerleaders). The other camera goes low, probably on the field. The host team’s radio broadcast serves as the play-by-play. The game runs its course as fans and alumni across the nation enjoy entertainment that wasn’t even remotely possible a decade earlier.

It is, of course, not the same as television in many ways, but Servizzi (who teaches video production at Butler University in his "day job") believes that may be more benefit than liability.

"We’re using radio audio for play-by-play and color, and radio’s a much different style of call than television typically is," Servizzi said. "So what television will show graphically the audience is actually getting from the announcers — first and 10, how much time’s left.

"And that kind of supports the way people use live streaming on the Internet. A lot of them are multitasking. What I’ll find lots of times is that people will watch their team on offense and then only toggle back over if they hear the announcers getting excited about something. The viewing habit is a lot different, so the broadcast has to be a lot different as well."

What’s next for this rapidly expanding field?

Servizzi is busy working with a software manufacturer to build a replay application for the Division II system. An upgrade to Windows Media Version 10 will help in a number of ways, and so will general advances in the field.

"Apple’s got a new device coming out that communicates from your computer to your television wirelessly," Servizzi said, "so when some of those things become pervasive, kind of like the iPod is, you may have more and more people who are watching streaming video on their TV in their living room.

"As the quality comes up, this has the potential to replace cable systems."