Texas U to Launch Own 24/7 Sports Network

In what could become the first of its kind enterprise, the University of Texas is negotiating to create its own 24-hour sports channel, reports BusinessWeek. University officials have teamed up with IMG Worldwide talent agency to negotiate programming distribution of the tentatively named Longhorn Sports Network on Time Warner, Comast, and AT&T in Texas and possibly border states.

The network plans to air a wide range of sports, but does not yet have exclusive rights to its most popular division—Longhorn football—raising "doubts about what kind of an audience the network could attract," said one analyst. College sports have enjoyed a huge programming boom in the past decade, and with its new network, Texas hopes to collect a major portion of the revenue generated by its own teams.
(More University of Texas Austin stories.)