This past weekend the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament held their regionals at four different sites. For the past few years, the tournament games have been broadcast on ESPNU, a college sports only network under the ESPN "umbrella". In addition to being broadcast on their network, ESPN has allowed other networks to pick up the game feed and broadcast the game in areas where there would be great interest. For example, a public television network in Michigan often picked up games involving Michigan or Michigan State.
While this tournament is not the nationwide phenomenon that the hoops tournament is, it is still seen as very important in some parts of the country and having the games syndicated allowed many people to watch the games without a satellite dish. This year though, ESPNU did not allow its feed to be picked up by local networks, with the exception of one game. This forced many fans, including myself, to get reservations at a restaurant to watch the game.
ESPNU probably did this in hopes that people who wanted to watch the game but didn't have the means would go out and buy a satellite dish. I realize that you don't get anywhere in the business would without being shrewd, but this went a little too far. They broke tradition, and I really don't think it helped their business all that much.
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