Oklahoma Football: Don't Expect Much from Sooners' New Cable Network

It started in January of 2011, when the Oklahoma Sooners saw the Texas Longhorns work their magic in establishing the Longhorn Network. The Sooners decided that the whole "dedicated school network" business sounded mighty good, and they embarked on a path to create their own "All Sooners, All the Time" network.

Around 17 months after starting down the path, the Crimson and Cream are finally at the starting line as far as the network is concerned.

Athletic director Joe Castiglione says the OU network—yet to be truly blessed with a name—is going to launch this fall, according to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, and that is a big deal to the Sooners' faithful fans:

"

OU launchingcable network this fall according Joe C. One fb game on it this fall. "Comprehensive distribution strategy," Joe C

— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) May 31, 2012"

One football game on the television is just part of the move from the Sooners as they travel down this path. Unlike the Longhorn Network or BYUtv, this channel is not going to be "All Sooners, All the Time," as the original plan called for. Rather, Dodd reports they will be filling blocks of time with Sooners content. How much time?

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OU network will not be necessarily 24/7. 1,000 hrs of OU programming per year. Distributed across Fox regional platforms

— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) May 31, 2012"

One thousand total run-time hours. Throw in four hours for a football game, the one game they get to air live, and you're down to 996 to go. While the number is pretty imposing, in the grand scheme of a year we're talking about just over 10 percent total air time. That's right—1,000 hours of programming is just 11.4 percent of the 8,760 hours in a calendar year.

So it is not OU all the time, but the network is also not confined merely to the borders of Oklahoma, as noted by Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman:

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The unnamed OU Network will be distributed in four states, including Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. Will offer 1,000 hours of programming.

— kbohls (@kbohls) May 31, 2012"

Unlike Texas, the OU network is not a dedicated channel; rather, it would be sort of like a rent-a-channel, which means it can skip over the struggle the Longhorn Network has had in getting its network on with cable service providers. In all of this, that is a win for the OU network because whether folks in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas or Oklahoma, for that matter, want the channel or not, they already have Fox Sports and cannot stop OU from invading their living room.

All in all, this is going to be interesting to watch come to fruition. Ultimately it sounds a lot more like a dressed-up "Sun Sports" deal akin to Florida and Florida State than a true "OU network," but if Castiglione and the Sooners can make it work, then more power to them.