Sept. 20, 2004
NEW YORK - CSTV: College Sports Television (www.collegesports.com) is celebrating 50 launches in the past 30 days, including markets such as San Francisco-Oakland, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Seattle, Denver, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Portland, Tucson, Sacramento and Buffalo, marking record growth in the media company's distribution since its debut in April 2003. Through its numerous platforms, CSTV provides more live college sports games, events, news, information, analysis and broadband content, and reaches more college sports fans, than any other company.
Over the last 30 days, College Sports TV has launched on Comcast systems in San Francisco-Oakland, Baltimore, Denver, Seattle and Spokane, Wash., Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., Tucson, Sacramento, Fresno and other markets. Adelphia has launched the network in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Key Biscayne and South Dade, Fla., and Time Warner Cable has added College Sports TV in Dayton, Wilmington, N.C., Palm Springs/Palm Desert, Ca. and Shreveport, La. Insight has launched College Sports TV in markets such as Lexington, Peoria, Rockford and Normal, Ill.; CSTV is now available on all Insight systems.
College Sports TV is also expected to debut on cable in New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Albuquerque, Nashville and Little Rock in the coming weeks. College Sports TV is already available on cable in markets such as Los Angeles, Detroit, San Diego, Cleveland, Houston, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Milwaukee.
According to a Beta Research Study whose results were released earlier this year, College Sports TV ranked #1 overall in interest among all operators surveyed about adding emerging and mid-sized networks in 2004.
CSTV Expands Advertiser Roster
In addition to its recent distribution success, CSTV has expanded its advertiser roster, with State Farm, Allstate, XBOX, Nintendo, GEICO, Champion Athletic Wear, Sirius Satellite Radio and Nike among the marketers who are on board this fall. State Farm is sponsoring College Sports TV's College Football Halftime Show and was presenting sponsor of the network's college football preview show. Allstate will be the presenting sponsor of CSTV's College Basketball Pre-Game Show and the network's live coverage of the Pete Newell Challenge basketball doubleheader in November. XBOX is presenting sponsor of Crystal Ball, the network's weekly college football studio show.
"Our innovative mix of original, event and studio programming has made CSTV the number one destination for college sports fans across all platforms," said Brian Bedol, President and CEO, CSTV. "These recent launches speak volumes to the value cable operators place on CSTV. We will work closely with all these distributors to create customized opportunities, taking advantage of our unique relationships with hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide, and our growing roster of sponsors and advertisers."
CSTV is a multi-media company that consists of the first-ever 24-hour college sports television network, College Sports TV; the leading college sports online network, CollegeSports.com; and the first ever 24-hour college sports radio network, SIRIUS College Sports Radio.
College Sports TV televises regular season and championship event coverage from over 35 men's and women's sports across every major collegiate athletic conference as well as many select NCAA Championships. CSTV and the Mountain West Conference recently announced a fully integrated multi-media partnership, beginning in Fall 2006 that will deliver more games to more people in more homes across more sports than any other Conference partnership. College Sports TV currently has agreements with the top three national distributors - Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable, among others.
CollegeSports.com, the most-trafficked college sports Web site, and its network of nearly 160 official athletic sites are the number one online source for college sports broadband content, news, information, scores and analysis. SIRIUS College Sports Radio will broadcast a comprehensive package of college football and basketball games from teams in the Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, and SEC conferences, as well as from Notre Dame.
CSTV was co-founded by President and CEO Brian Bedol, Chairman Steve Greenberg and Executive Vice President Chris Bevilacqua. Bedol and Greenberg co-founded Classic Sports Network, which they sold to ESPN. It is now ESPN Classic. Bevilacqua is a former senior executive with Nike Inc., where he headed the company's successful foray into the college market.