DAC, RMAC games available through Web casts

By Jim Holland, Journal staff | Thursday, July 31, 2008

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RAPID CITY — Can’t make it to see your favorite local college sports team on the gridiron or court?

No problem. Both the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and the Dakota Athletic Conference have recently signed agreements with B2 Networks to offer live pay-per-view broadband video Web casts of all conference football, basketball and volleyball contests starting with the 2008-2009 school year.

For local college sports fans, that means all DAC games involving the South Dakota School of Mines, in Rapid City, and Black Hills State University, of Spearfish, will be available through B2TV on your home computer.

Also available are the RMAC games involving Chadron State College in northwest Nebraska.

Audio streaming of radio sports broadcasts has become common. Adding the video portion provided by the college takes the Web cast to the next level, said South Dakota School of Mines men’s basketball coach Jason Henry.

“You can listen to a game on your computer and that’s great,” said Henry.

“Now a bigger selling point is that you can watch it on the Internet. It’s even better,” he  said.

A number of options are available through B2 Networks.

A single game pay-per-view Web cast costs $7. A football season pass is $40 and a basketball season pass is $89.95. An all-access pass, which includes football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball, is $125.

Season passes include home and away games. The basketball package includes all men’s and women’s games.

Only conference contests are included, however. Non-conference away games will not be available if the home school isn’t a member of a conference with an agreement with B2TV.

The game video is provided by the college.

No instant replay or multiple camera angles are used.

The single-game pay-per-view links are available 10 minutes prior to game time.  Season passes will be available starting on Aug. 4 at participating school’s football sports pages and at http://b2tv.com/seasonpassselect.asp.

Henry expects the pay-per-view option to be a boon for parents and alumni spread across the country, and around the world.

“Our kids are from all over and the parents who can’t make it up here can get the games on the Internet,” said Henry.

“It’s a great thing for our conference and for our parents and fans, especially. It’s a good recruiting tool. We’re definitely excited about it,” he said.

Chadron State College athletic director Brad Smith agreed.

“You always hear of parents out on the ranch going and sitting on top of hills so they can get their radio tuned into our games.  That’s a thing of the past. If you’ve got a computer you can pick the game up and watch it on the computer screen,” Smith said.

“It’s a very innovative way of us gaining exposure for our athletic programs,” he said.

Also available are copies of archived games on CD for $19.95 each, at http:// b2tv.com/od.asp

According to the company’s Web site, the first B2 Network live Web cast was a Feb. 2003 game from Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

In May 2003, the East Coast Hockey League’s Kelly Cup became the first league championship broadcast to a worldwide audience. Partnerships soon followed with the American Hockey League, United States Hockey League, United Hockey League and National Lacrosse League.

Starting in 2006 and 2007 the network expanded into college and high school athletics, broadcasting more than 300 regular season games and league championships in eight different conferences.

The network plans to expand further into broadcasting to mobile phones and PDA’s.

“Technology continues to amaze me,” said Smith.