Texas A&M Takes Concerns About Longhorn Net Airing HS Games To NCAA

Texas A&M is "urging the NCAA to use a 17-year-old rules interpretation that it believes would keep the Longhorn Network from airing high school games," according to Dennis Dodd of CBSSPORTS.com. Documents reveal that A&M "wants TLN classified as an 'institutional publication', per bylaw 11.2.3.4, which would make it an 'athletics representative of the institution.'" The '94 interpretation dealt "mostly with what was, at the time, an explosion among specialty print publications," several of which "reported recruiting news in varying degrees as part of their coverage." Those publications were, "in essence, what could [be] interpreted as print versions of what the TLN is attempting to become in 2011." A&M argues the NCAA, in "allowing institutions to create video-based publication agreements without any restriction on content, is opening Pandora's box." Dodd noted today's Big 12 AD meetings in Dallas "to discuss 'institutional networks' could be the most significant for the conference in more than a year." A&M appears "to have leverage with a potential move to the SEC," and that could "lead to a tsunami of conference realignment if other conferences are forced to react within the marketplace." Dodd added, "The growing controversy over broadcasting high school games seems to have only two resolutions. Either it will happen or it won't." ESPN and Univ. of Texas officials have said that they "are fine if the NCAA restricts the airing of high school games." Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe "has put a moratorium on the practice until the issue is resolved." College athletics is "watching the TLN situation closely"; Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany last week said the conference had no plans to broadcast high school games (CBSSPORTS.com, 7/31).