This Saturday’s football game against Louisiana Tech wastelevised on KFWD-52. It was the first home game televised thisyear, and as it stands, no more SMU games will be televised in theDallas market this season.
Ed Board is fully aware of the Mustangs’ recent woes. Butwhat does the team, the school and the athletic department have tolose by televising the games?
Ed Board believes there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Yes, our team has lost 18 of their last 19 games, but not all ofthe games have been complete blowouts. Games such as Texas Tech,Boise State and San Jose State could have made for compellingTV.
Ed Board is quick to point out that the Boise St. game wassupposed to be televised two weeks ago, but KFWD experienced”technical difficulties” and a 1996 episode”LAPD: Life on the Beat” was broadcast. Ed Boardbelieves that viewers would be more likely to watch a football gameover a knockoff of “Cops.”
This was a missed opportunity since the team played one of itsbest games of the season and it came against a top-25 opponent.
The price tag to televise a game is only $30,000 according toindustry figures. That’s less than the cost of attending SMUfor two semesters. So why the frugality on the athleticdepartment’s part? Football already accounts for the vastmajority of the athletic department’s budget.
Despite the fact that the Mustangs were trounced by LouisianaTech and that about half of the 13,117 people in the stands leftbefore the end of halftime, the team and the SMU campus gainedvaluable exposure from being on TV.
The 41-10 score and the empty seats may not have been a prettysight, but the telecast featured images of the campus, Gerald J.Ford Stadium, the football team and the game itself. What betterway to promote not only the football team, but the entireuniversity?
Aside from that, the announcers’ were generally positivewhen it came to calling the game. They acknowledged the youth ofour football team and the future potential our programpossesses.
Attendance at the games is above the 15,000 mark needed for ourfootball team to remain in Division I, but Ed Board believes thatnumber could increase if SMU’s games were broadcast. Thebroadcast could only help energize the Mustangs’ fan base andcould even pick up a few fans along the way.
Things may improve when the Mustangs’ move to ConferenceUSA in the summer of 2005. Because of C-USA’s broadcastingdeal with ESPN, the Mustangs’ will hopefully stampede intoliving rooms across the country since C-USA has a broadcastingagreement with ESPN. Until then, Mustang fans who can’t ordon’t attend that games can only stare at their TV sets andwait.
