The Longwood men’s basketball’s game on Dec. 15, 2015 will be one of four Big South games televised on ESPNU due to it’s status as a team “to watch,” according to Big South Assistant Commissioner Mark Simpson.
While the majority of Longwood students are on winter break, they, along with hundreds of thousands of people across America, can watch Longwood men’s basketball play Oklahoma State University play its first scheduled nationally televised game in the program’s history.
Through the Big South’s partnership with ESPN, the away game was selected to appear on one of ESPN’s largest cable networks, ESPNU, live on Tuesday, Dec. 15 of this year.
According to Troy Austin, Longwood’s director of athletics, their program’s selection was “very intentional” and shows its progress.
“Now it’s a small sign, but it is a sign that we’re gaining some national attention,” said Austin.
During the scheduling process, a number of factors come into play when deciding what games to televise and on what network. “ESPN knows their numbers and knows their programming,” said Austin.
The Big South is given four “wild card” games to broadcast on ESPNU during nonconference play, according to Big South Assistant Commissioner Mark Simpson.
The level of competition played a major role in the decision.
Longwood had to show the potential to make an interesting game; a result shown in the past two years under head coach Jayson Gee after upsetting Texas Christian (TCU) his first year and earning a few minutes of airtime on ESPN3 while upsetting last year’s No. 1 Big South seed Charleston Southern in the tournament.
According to Simpson, on paper Longwood appears to be peaking at the “right time in the rebuilding period,” making them a team “to watch.” He said they are currently predicted to have a winning season.
Longwood creates a “good story” with its progress through new coaching staff and “intriguing players,” said Simpson referring to College Sports Madness’ Big South preseason all-conference selections, senior forward Shaquille Johnson and senior center Lotanna Nwogbo.
The opponent, Oklahoma State, also held influence as a BCS school, belonging to the Big 12 conference. The caliber and prominence of the team helps determine the quality and popularity of the game.
“It’s a reflection of the growth in our program and our league would obviously push us in the direction of ESPNU in that ESPNU thought we were credible enough to include them in that caliber of game,” said Gee, who enters his third year as head coach.
Within the “Strategic Plan for Longwood Athletics” the department released in 2014, page 9 introduced the plan to “augment media exposure” and set the goal to have three men’s basketball games televised per year.
“One of my visions is to create a competitive Division I Big South conference basketball team that will draw more attention so more people will know who we are,” said Gee.
These televised games offer the program, the department and the university the opportunity to receive national exposure without spending millions of dollars on advertising, according to Austin.
“One of the best ways to get Longwood’s name in the public eye was to be able to play these games and different locations, have it show up in the newspaper, then on TV. Those kinds of consistent impressions benefit the university in a national sense,” said Austin. “With my bias, athletics is best suited for that for a university.”
Austin cited the best way to have the program grow and consistently reach the minimum goal of three games was simply by “winning.”
“The more we win, the more ESPN will be likely to put us in situations like this,” said Austin.
All of the Big South’s four “wild card” games, while scheduled two months in advance, stand to change depending on the situation as the game dates draw closer. It is possible that with an impressive start to conference play, Longwood could receive another.
Aside from profiting off televised games from a reputation standpoint, games of this caliber, whether televised or not, stand to generate revenue for the university.
According to Austin, the men’s basketball coaching staff is required to secure a certain number of
“game guarantees” per season. A game guarantee is an agreement made between two institutions when scheduling games regarding how much a program will pay the other to travel to their university to play them.
These guarantees can have payouts of $70 to $100 thousand for men’s basketball, not including if the home institution pays for hotel or transportation. The payouts of both men’s and women’s basketball amount to approximately 5% of the department’s revenue.
With the game not occurring until December, both Austin and Gee are focused on what’s happening in front of them.
“For me, I’m pretty locked into what’s going on right now,” said Austin referring to the fall sports currently in season.
Both Gee and his team look forward to the game, but he doesn’t want his team to look too far in the future.
Gee said, “I’m just trying to tell our guys we have a lot of games before then. We can’t just worry about that.”
