The bad memories of Syracuse’s 1-10 season in 2005 will last an extra week for SU students. Assistant athletic director of athletic communications Sue Edson confirmed Wednesday that Saturday’s SU-Wake Forest game will not be available to watch.

This weekend’s game was never going to be televised. ESPN360, a free broadband service that provides video, analysis and live content for currently more than 6 million homes worldwide, will broadcast the game.

But fans in the Syracuse area will only be able to access ESPN360 if their Internet service provider has made a deal with ESPN.

Only those with Verizon DSL Internet service can watch the game live on their computers free of charge. Those with Time Warner Cable, including students, will not have access to the ESPN360 broadcast.

As of Tuesday, Paul Melvin, a spokesman for ESPN, said there was a plan to make ESPN360 available to students on the Syracuse and Wake Forest campuses during the game. The free trial would benefit the students by giving them the chance to watch the game and ESPN by advertising the broadband service.

But the plan fell apart Wednesday when ESPN and the Syracuse Information Technology and Services department were unable to set up a secure connection, Edson said.

‘Syracuse University’s IT staff and ESPN’s IT staff worked on this for the past few days, maybe the last week,’ Edson said. ‘The main issue became not jeopardizing the university’s network system for this weekend.’

‘It’s too bad the cable customers here don’t have it,’ Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross said. ‘It can’t be on television because ESPN owns the rights to the game and their platform is (ESPN)360.’

Saturday’s game will be the first game since the Nov. 12, 2005, South Florida contest to not be on TV and the first non-televised road game since the Orange played at Virginia in 2004.

Josh Krulewitz, Vice President of Public Relations for ESPN, said fans that want access to ESPN360 have to contact their Internet provider.

‘It’s the same concept as with cable providers,’ Krulewitz said. ‘If they have an interest in their provider carrying the service they can express that interest to the internet provider.’

ESPN360 started as ESPN Broadband in 2001 and live games were broadcast for the first time in 2005. The Syracuse-Wake Forest game will be the first of more than 30 live games to be aired on the Web site this season.

Krulewitz calls broadcasting games live on ESPN360 a win-win situation for the network.

‘Clearly sports fans are consuming sports through the Internet,’ he said. ‘It’s serving fans through different media.’

The new broadband coverage does not result in a win-win situation for Syracuse and Wake Forest fans.

Neither Syracuse nor Wake Forest chose to broadcast the game on ESPN360. The Atlantic Coast Conference controls the television coverage because the game will be played at Wake Forest, meaning the game falls under the conference’s contract with ABC/ESPN.

Because ABC/ESPN controls the rights to ACC games, the network can choose where to broadcast those games. Mike Finn, associate commissioner of football for the ACC, said the ACC is not to blame for the ESPN360 broadcast.

‘They (ESPN) are our national carrier,’ Finn said. ‘We didn’t decide to broadcast it on ESPN360. That’s mainly their selection.’

The ESPN360 broadcast may be a reflection of the Orange’s recent struggles on the field. Syracuse and Wake Forest combined for a 5-17 record last season and both failed to reach a bowl game. A game between two sub-.500 teams is not usually an exciting match-up in the eyes of network executives, so it was unlikely ABC or ESPN would broadcast the game nationally.

Though many Orange fans will be unable to watch the Wake Forest game, ESPN360’s coverage is not necessarily a bad thing for Syracuse or the Big East in the long run because it gives such lower profile contests national exposure.

‘It’s a game that wouldn’t have been televised otherwise,’ associate commissioner of television for the Big East Conference Tom Odjakjian said. ‘(The coverage) reaches more people than would have been able to see it before and more games on television generate more revenue for the conference and the schools.’

The increased exposure may not be a consolation to Orange fans without access to ESPN360, but Gross is on their side. He just can’t do anything about the coverage.

‘It’s not that I’m not upset about it,’ Gross said. ‘I would love for it to be on TV. Believe me – we need it to be on TV. But we don’t hold the property. They (ESPN) have the contract and they set the rules.’

Published on August 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm