Fans of the Oklahoma Sooners or the Auburn Tigers may never have to travel farther than a local sports bar to see their favorite college football teams in action. But supporters of the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks have no such luck: Small-conference teams virtually never show up on television.
So instead of trying, futilely, to negotiate TV contracts, the lesser conferences are taking their games straight to the Web. This season the Big Sky Conference, which features Northern Arizona, will broadcast all its football games (as well as its basketball and volleyball matches) online, according to the Associated Press. And the commissioner of the Ivy League predicts that almost all the league’s sporting events will air on the Web—for the benefit of alumni and proud parents—within seven years. —Brock Read
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