Goodbye Longhorn Network

Longhorn Network Settles Into The West Texas Burnt Orange Sunset
By Larry Carlson For Https://Texaslsn.Org




DeLoss Dodds, Athletic Director at the University of Texas from 1981-2013, once famously snapped off a line that made the Longhorn faithful smirk and UT enemies boil. Asked something about "keeping up with the Joneses" in college sports, Dodds, self-assuredly, swatted the concern as if it were a lazy, slow-moving housefly.

"We ARE the Joneses," Dodds said. Overseeing the capture of nineteen national championships and 287 conference crowns brings confidence. Smugness, perhaps.

And sometimes, oftentimes, the rich get richer.

Talk of a network for Longhorn sports came bubbling up to Dodds' Bellmont Hall office, one decade into a new millennium. At first, Fox Sports was thinking of investing $3 million per year for the rights. There was a hint at Texas A&M joining in with UT so that there would be enough content to justify existence of 24-programming, even heavy on re-runs.



But the Aggie decision makers weren't in the mood.



Quickly, ESPN got serious about the plan. Texas football had been riding high. It was the Gibraltar of collegiate pigskin programs, having recently rolled to nine straight 10-win seasons. A bad dream of a 5-7 season in 2010 seemed no cause for worry.



The broadcast behemoth offered up $15 million annually for a twenty-year contract to air Longhorn sports coverage. All sports, not just football. Lots of gamecasts for baseball softball, volleyball, men's and women's hoops. Even Dodds later confessed to being more than pleasantly surprised by what was on the table.



Other schools were in disbelief. Especially those who competed against UT.



Nebraska had already had its fill of Texas and the Big XII. Cornhusker operatives griped regularly about a perceived burnt orange favoritism in the league. Instead of keeping up with "the Joneses," Nebraska opted out for the Big Ten.

The Aggies, weary of a century in the Texas-sized shadow of UT, might well have considered the birth of ESPN's Longhorn Network to be the last straw that Texas always wielded to stir every big deal.



A&M and Missouri, like Nebraska and Colorado before, were getting out of Dodge.



First, they would have to co-exist and compete against the Horns for the

2011-12 school/sports year. Mack Brown was in his 14th season on the Forty Acres. Augie Garrido, already the winningest D-I college baseball coach, still loomed large at Disch-Falk Field, and ultra-successful Rick Barnes was UT's head of the hardwood. Texas was loaded for bear in the big sports. And the Olympic sports and "country club" sports were positioned even better. Dominant.



Flash forward thirteen years. ESPN, committed to first-class coverage of virtually every sport at Texas, got stuck with a decade of futility in the sport that mattered most. Haters, and there are many, could laugh derisively about UT's "ESPN jinx." Longhorn football endured three losing seasons under head coach Charlie Strong.



Five years later, Steve Sarkisian, already the third coach to follow Brown, launched another ship that sank in the 2021 season with just five wins. At last, to bring the curtain down on LHN's final football campaign, Sark's third UT edition of Horns won a dozen games and came within one pass of an appearance in the FBS title game.



Through it all, anchors such as Lowell Galindo and Alex Loeb delivered remarkably insightful and entertaining pre-game content, coaches' shows, player profiles and more for not just "the revenue sports." They spotlighted championship teams in volleyball, softball, tennis, and more, humanizing Texas athletes and mentors while steadfastly emphasizing fair coverage and avoiding "homer-ism" on "Texas GameDay" football settings.

This was ESPN, after all, not hometown radio/TV hype. Not every opponent was touted as a Goliath, not every Texas touchdown hailed as if VY were again beating the Trojans. If Longhorn fans wanted rah-rah content, they instead saw and heard up-and-coming journalists – Kaylee Hartung and Samantha Steele Ponder come to mind – well prepared to report, and former players unafraid to analyze and criticize.



Numerous Longhorn greats have put in time at the LHN broadcast booth. Among them are Vince Young, Rod Babers, David Thomas, Jordan Shipley and Ahmad Brooks. Last season's crew included NFL veterans Fozzy Whittaker, Michael Griffin and Brian Robison. Griffin and Robison were key players for UT's 2005 national champs and Whittaker played on the superb Texas teams in 2008 and 2009. This writer's personal favorites, based on their keen analysis and sometimes brutal honesty are Dan Neil, Ricky Williams and the aforementioned Michael Griffin. Williams, I believe, could have parlayed his perceptive takes, astute observations and wit into a career on The NFL Today, had he so desired. And Sam Acho, now a star in the studio for ESPN, got his broadcast start at LHN, flashing his trademark enthusiasm, brainy understanding and plain-spoken wisdom.

Many followers of Longhorn Network are regular viewers of the SEC Network and can expect some of the regulars – Galindo, Loeb and Whittaker, in particular – to be folded into the SEC coverage beginning this summer and fall. Texas baseball fans are hopeful that the easygoing yet highly intelligent observations of Keith Moreland and Greg Swindell will continue to highlight TV coverage of the Horns as they navigate Southeastern Conference hardball.



It's long been UT's slogan that "What Starts Here...Changes The World."



Texas got a windfall of substantial money from ESPN for more than a decade, though "Bevo Warbucks" was never slim in the wallet. The exposure the university and its teams and athletes received, though, was unprecedented in college sports. Sure, Notre Dame had its NBC deal for football but the visibility the Horns reaped across all sports cannot be underestimated. It will never be duplicated, either.



Consider LHN the perfect springboard into the SEC. Time for the network to lope off into a burnt orange sunset. Because a new dawn is coming.

(TLSN's Larry Carlson teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in his hometown of San Antonio. He is a member of the Football Writers

Association of America.)

TLSN TLSN TLSN TLSN TLSN

 

Good riddance.

 

Insert PFS snarks here

 

Arguably its biggest impact is what we've seen over the past 14 years with conference realignments and the genesis of the expanded CFP. When people get pissed over "rich get richer," they vote for change.

 

This is a cool vid of the Mannings,Father Archie, Cooper Peyton and Eli as they were growing up.My favorite moment is Peyton blasting Coop for horse collar. It will make sense as you watch it

 

Sorry wrong thread. I will move later. Hard for me to do it on this device
Itis still a cool vid

 

I will miss LHN. It did get repetitive, how many times can you watch the race from Texas to Alaska, even though it was for a good cause?

Here's what I enjoyed: Football (Spring game), Baseball, Softball, Volleyball, some educational opportunities around the campus - but those were minimal.

I hope that SEC network will expand to cover all teams, sports and opportunities.

 

Like the guy in high school who dated the hottest cheerleader, we will never be forgiven for having the Longhorn Network. And that is eternal and delicious. Rest in Peace my Love.

 

90% of the time LHN was pointless, but the other 10% of the content which were games we couldn't see without it made it invaluable to me. Since I had baseball season tickets I cut it off a few months ago, but if not I would still have it today.

 

I guess I’m in the minority, because I have loved Longhorn Network, not only for the opportunity to see sports, but also the other things that are going on the 40 Acres. I’ve loved the UT student film showcase, the fashion shows, and the documentaries. It’s the only reason that I’ve kept cable.

 

when is the final broadcast day?

 

I thought it was the end of June, coinciding with our move to the SEC.

 

I'm going to miss it for sure. Football and baseball were my primary sports interests, but I enjoyed keeping up with all of the other UT sports.

I've missed seeing Kaylee Hartung and occasionally Samantha Steele Ponder.... but that's just me.

 

When it was first announced I was really excited. Once it came out I was taken down a notch, meaning great for third tier live football, baseball and volleyball but after that, to be honest I was kinda "meh". Sad to see it go for those sports but hoping we'll have access by other means.

It was a good run.

 

They never could figure out how to fill all the non-live sports times. A show here or there was good, but a million re-runs of the Rose Bowl was not. Either bozos ran it or they had minimal budget.

I would have chronicled whole seasons. For example if LHN was on this upcoming fall, each Tuesday night would air a football game from the 1994 season - airing exactly 30 years from the day the game was played oh and, not a condensed version from ESPN Classic. Air the whole game! Players from the season would be invited to talk about their experiences on a show each Wednesday.

Professors would be highlighted during the day. Professor Smith is already teaching an accounting class on Thursdays 930am-11am? Then air it once during the semester. Dr. Brady is teaching an archaeology class also Thursdays 930am-11am? Then air it once during the semester. The hard part is lining up the schedule with an interesting day's topic and engaging speaker.

Augie had it right with his food show. Have a host go around Austin to show off cool stuff. Ask PBS Austin if LHN could re-air Daytripper. That was a cool way to see stuff in Texas. Find other content related to the state. License John Wayne's 1960 film The Alamo to air on March 2 annually. Hell, LHN was part of Disney. Stick the 1950s Davy Crockett show on in August in honor of his birthday. It shouldn't be that hard to populate content about Texas or UT!

 

So going forward, is there a plan in place to see baseball, softball, etc? Will I have to subscribe to the ESPN+ and SEC+ packages to keep up?

 

It's a tough question to answer, but as of this moment, yes for now.

I highly recommend ESPN+ anyhow, if not just for the ability to watch a bunch of stuff on the app, but because of the articles and insider stuff for the major sports on the website.

As of the 2024 college football season, it's pretty much a must to have either a cable provider with ESPN+, or a standalone subscription. Either way, you basically have to have a "TV provider" (Comcast, Spectrum, YouTubeTV, etc.) in order to get all of the iterations of the SEC Network. But once the new streaming service drops (ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. to launch streaming app), it'll be pretty much every live sports offering separate from a cable provider.

"It will include offerings from 15 linear networks: ESPN, ESPN+, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS, truTV."

It'll also facilitate a lot of people dropping cable for good, unless it's part of their Internet plan or whatever.

 

I never saw us lose a game on LHN

I got to see us beat OUAnd USC and the Aggies to my heart’s delight

 

Guy,

The movie should have been aired annually on March 6, not March 2. Other than that, I agree with you post.

 

I picked Texas Independence Day, which also lined up nicely during the Battle of the Alamo. The last day of the battle also works.

 

I am going to miss LHN severely !! We may be included in the SEC Network with all the other member schools, but the amount of content on Texas sports will be very limited. We may never know how much LHN helped recruiting in all sports including Football. I am hoping for some $Bigs$ to step up and bring back some facsimile thereof. And yes, I know I'm dreaming.

 

If LHN helped football recruiting, I would hate to see how bad football would have been after Mack Brown without it.

 

I thought the non-sports programming was terrible. I couldn't care less about seeing the likes of Hillary Clinton or any other politician or non-sports person speak at the LBJ Center and the other ridiculous programming.

It was called Longhorn Network and produced by what used to be a sports network for a reason. Show sports, you morons.

 

I enjoyed the LHN broadcasting crews for women's basketball (Andrea Lloyd and Nell Fortner before her), volleyball, softball and most especially baseball (love, love, love Swindell & Moreland). And the football post-game shows. So I'll miss LHN.

 

Aside from the many many games and specials I will miss the Christmas Day of Bevo enjoying being spoiled while listening to Christmas Carols. I wish I had recorded it

 

I hated it cause could not get on Xfinity, but I loved it when I was in Austin on game day weekends and the hotel carried it. That’s my only comment. Hookem.

 

There were many months that I signed up for some egregiously overpriced service just to get LHN. They broadcast Women's Basketball, Volleyball, baseball. And, Andrea Lloyd and Alex "Spanning the" Loeb were one of my favorite announcing teams. It will be interesting to see if we get the same coverage in the SEC.