This week at work we took an informal poll on who still paid for cable TV.  It was not surprising to see a few people had been living without cable TV for 2+ years.  I am confident that I could never give up cable TV simply because of the sports.  Now we have ESPN signing an exclusive agreement with the University of Texas to join forces on creating the Longhorn Sports Network.

This is not the first university to make an exclusive broadcast arrangement with a network, but it is the first in a long time.  Typically a conference makes an arrangement to have games broadcast on a network, but usually it is not exclusive and usually it is only for football and men’s basketball.  The Longhorn Sports Network will show more than just football and men’s basketball, it will feature all University of Texas sports.

For the first time we have a single channel dedicated to official video for all sports of a given university.  I now can see my cable subscription future becoming clearer.  Over time, I think you will see more and more universities do these exclusive deals where ALL varsity sports will be broadcast.  The next leap is that this is all available online, where I simply subscribe to university channels that I care about.  Throw in professional sports, and say bye bye to cable TV.  If only I can convince my wife that The Bachelor is not worth having cable for.