Sports Information Dep't fails Cornell fans

[billhoward]

Used to be the job of the Cornell SID (sports information director) was to hand out 5x7 glossies of the players and updated stat sheets. That and make sure women didn't get into the press box. Women were banned through the early 1970s at Schoellkopf, I believe, but banned only if you were working press; it was okay for the AD's wife to sit there and keep warm.

With the advent of the Internet, you no longer need information filtered through the eyes of a newspaper writer a day or week later. You could listen on mulitple radio broadcasts if more than one broadcast was allowed. There's lametracker. Sorry, Gametracker. There'll be during-the-game fan posts from Lynah or Newman or Friedman (surprised we don't see more of that).

You can watch every game yourself if there were a video feed. And that's where Cornell is falling down. If there's not a video webcast from every home or road Cornell basketball, football, hockey, wrestling, or lacrosse match, Cornell's SID ought to arrange to make it happen. Because sports information has changed from handing out black and white photos and pouring really crappy coffee and making nice with the journalists who'll get you the information indirectly ... to providing it directly, because now they can, if only they would. At worst, there's a video camera recording a wide-angle view of the action for the coaching staff and players.

Plus, it would be a recruiting tool (for as long as Cornell had this kind of advantage more or less exclusively): If every game is available as  a webcast, home or away, that's going to be an even better lure to the family of Matt Moulson when Matt's younger brother decides where to play hockey. The players parents and family get to follow along all season long, not just the few games they see in person. It doesn't have to stop with football, hockey, hoops, and lax. It could extend to soccer, fencing, wrestling, volleyball - if not every sport initially, at least a lot of them. The costs aren't zero, but they're not significant, either. You could probably even arrange with Industrial Light & Magic to add an algorithm to wipe out, on the fly, offensive Indian jersey mascots were we playing North Dakota. Oops, sorry, this is the Big Red, not Big Green.

Cornell's sports information department is failing us because they're thinking inside that traditional box: from mimeographed stat sheets to online stat sheets, glossy photos to online jpg photos. But not taking the event itself directly to the fans. If they're thinking bigger thoughts such as putting all major sports events on the web as live video, they haven't shared that plan yet.

Cost is an issue but it's not really an issue. Alumni and friends have historically been generous to Cornell sports, probably because it's easier to see the fruits of your labor than by donating more microscopes and seeing a few more biology majors get into Hopkins Medical five years from now.

[Robb]

I agree 100% with everything you said.

One historical note: when I was on the men's fencing team from 91-93, we had a feeling that we were in danger of being eliminated, so we (our coaches, anyway) looked into starting a fundraising campaign to create a specific endowment to fund the team.  We were told that we were not allowed to do an endowment campaign at the time, because the university-wide 125th anniversary $1.25B campaign was going on at the same time and they didn't want sub-groups distracting from that.

With the $4B Far Above campaign going on right now, I wonder if athletics would even be allowed to try to raise an endowment for broadcasting Cornell sports.

[billhoward]

[quote Robb]I agree 100% with everything you said. One historical note: when I was on the men's fencing team from 91-93, we had a feeling that we were in danger of being eliminated, so we (our coaches, anyway) looked into starting a fundraising campaign to create a specific endowment to fund the team.  We were told that we were not allowed to do an endowment campaign at the time, because the university-wide 125th anniversary $1.25B campaign was going on at the same time and they didn't want sub-groups distracting from that. With the $4B Far Above campaign going on right now, I wonder if athletics would even be allowed to try to raise an endowment for broadcasting Cornell sports.[/quote]

A university that promises instruction in any study ought to have sports in every field. The don't-ask-for-money-we've-got-a-major-fund-drive-under-way refrain politely masks the duration of fund drives: between the planning, the quiet phase (when Cornell still raised a billion or so), and the campaign itself, it seems as if Ezra's Billions is barely over before Far Above kicks in. Personally, I don't give a rap if fencing lives or dies. Just as you probably don't care if the Cornell Sun, my favorite charity, comes or goes, or my fraternity. Except that all our little societies together make up the majesty of Cornell, and we're the poorer for it when a part of us dies. I admire some of the groups that support undergrads, starting with the marching band alumni.

On the point of Cornell and webcasting more sports, if somebody presented it as accomplished (and funded) fact to the department, they'd go along. Al DeFlorio would like to see next weekend's wrestling match vs. Penn State (in Ithaca) be webcast. I would love to see the hockey-at-Harvard game webcast. Really, how hard could it be? How expensive? If it's an event nobody wants to commercially broadcast (like a CSTV), Harvard can't ask for rights fees.

[Beeeej]

[quote Robb]One historical note: when I was on the men's fencing team from 91-93, we had a feeling that we were in danger of being eliminated, so we (our coaches, anyway) looked into starting a fundraising campaign to create a specific endowment to fund the team.  We were told that we were not allowed to do an endowment campaign at the time, because the university-wide 125th anniversary $1.25B campaign was going on at the same time and they didn't want sub-groups distracting from that.[/quote]

First of all, there's extremely good logic in asking units not to go maverick.  Cornell's development operation is extremely sophisticated, at least at the higher levels - and whenever someone has significant potential to make a difference to Cornell, someone is assigned to oversee Cornell's relationship with that person.  The decision about when to ask someone, for what purpose, and for how much is also primarily driven by what the alum has demonstrated to be the right timing and the right priorities.  So when a campaign is underway - really, frankly, anytime at all - they need to know that nobody is going to make an approach at the wrong time, for the wrong purpose, and for the wrong amount.  In the fencing team's case, if the Athletics Development office could have made a case that there were people who probably wouldn't give to anything except fencing, there might have been a way to do it, but I'm sure they had their hands full at the time as well.

[quote Robb]With the $4B Far Above campaign going on right now, I wonder if athletics would even be allowed to try to raise an endowment for broadcasting Cornell sports.[/quote]

Even as far outside the loop as I've gotten, I'm reasonably certain they don't already consider such an endowment to be a priority.  However...

Hypothetically, if an alum approached Athletics with the suggestion that he would be willing to fund online video streaming of Cornell varsity sports, and it was clear he was both capable of doing it and not really interested in putting the money into other Cornell priorities, someone would probably notice.  I obviously can't say what the result of someone noticing would be.  Cornell could very well decide that they don't want to commit to doing those casts themselves; just because someone offers Cornell money for something doesn't mean they will necessarily want that something.

But to get started, what that alum would need to know, basically, is about how much it would cost per year, and then multiply that by about twenty to get a sense of how big the endowment would have to be.

Hypothetically.

[Beeeej]

[quote billhoward]On the point of Cornell and webcasting more sports, if somebody presented it as accomplished (and funded) fact to the department, they'd go along. Al DeFlorio would like to see next weekend's wrestling match vs. Penn State (in Ithaca) be webcast. I would love to see the hockey-at-Harvard game webcast. Really, how hard could it be? How expensive? If it's an event nobody wants to commercially broadcast (like a CSTV), Harvard can't ask for rights fees.[/quote]

Presumably, Harvard has the right to decide who can broadcast from their facility.  In addition, if Cornell charged viewers, Harvard would most certainly be able to ask for rights fees.  And finally, if Cornell were using Harvard resources to do the cast - e.g., their bandwidth - Harvard could absolutely charge them for those resources.

[billhoward]

Colleges may charge ~$100 for a press-box telephone, ISDN, or network connection for radio broadcasts. $100 would buy a lot of video bandwidth, too. Harvard could ask for rights fees on top, but for minor sports are there any to be had? When faced with a request to do a webcast back to Ithaca, Harvard would ask, "What's in it for Harvard?" and decide, "Not much." Colleges encourage discovery by students and traveling the road not taken but that doesn't apply to day-in, day-out college administration. Harvard doesn't have precedent to say yes, so the answer would be no.

If an eLynah consortium asked to do a webcast, the likely response would be, "Buzz off," or enough rules and stipulations to make it impractical. If WHCU said it wanted to stream video along with its audiocast, Harvard would have to think a little harder of a way to say no, and even harder if Cornell itself wanted to do a videocast as a sports information service to the Cornell and college hockey communities, especially for the players' parents and hockey alumni. Eventually webcasts of most all sports events, home and away, will be the norm, I believe, but in 10 years, not by Feb. 24 in Cambridge.

[Beeeej]

[quote billhoward]Harvard could ask for rights fees on top, but for minor sports are there any to be had?[/quote]

Hence "if Cornell charged viewers."  Anytime money is made by the party granted rights, the grantor is more than reasonably entitled to ask for a cut.

[billhoward]

Call the videocast "shareware" or "open source video." Don't charge, do accept contributions. Help keep Harvard's endowment under $30B.

By the way, if we want to get the ball rolling before Harvard, here's good news: the domain www.flyingfishvideo.com remains available. www.ffvideo.com is not, but that URL could be misconstrued.

[Beeeej]

[quote billhoward]Call the videocast "shareware" or "open source video." Don't charge, do accept contributions. Help keep Harvard's endowment under $30B.[/quote]

And if contributions don't cover the cost?

Plus, remember, if Cornell is actually the party doing it, the contributions have to be official donations to Cornell run through the development office to Athletics with all proper accounting.

Just trying to be realistic, here.  You seem to be pie-in-the-sky-ing everything.  "Just do it" is great for personal motivation, not so much for changing the way a large organization does business.

[Robb]

[quote Beeeej]
First of all, there's extremely good logic in asking units not to go maverick.[/quote]
I didn't say that there was bad logic involved - I just stated a fact (that we were not allowed to start an endowment campaign) without any judgements one way or the other.

[KeithK]

[quote Robb][quote Beeeej]
First of all, there's extremely good logic in asking units not to go maverick.[/quote]
I didn't say that there was bad logic involved - I just stated a fact (that we were not allowed to start an endowment campaign) without any judgements one way or the other.[/quote]And whether ot not it makes sense from the standpoint of the overall University it's still unfortunate for the smaller units.

[Beeeej]

[quote Robb][quote Beeeej]
First of all, there's extremely good logic in asking units not to go maverick.[/quote]
I didn't say that there was bad logic involved - I just stated a fact (that we were not allowed to start an endowment campaign) without any judgements one way or the other.[/quote]

I didn't say you said that.  ;-)  I just thought it might be worth a more in-depth look for the people who inferred a judgment or thought the Development office was being unnecessarily draconian or unreasonable.

[Robb]

[quote Beeeej]
I didn't say you said that.  ;-)[/quote]
I knew you were going to say that!  

[Trotsky]

I realize your comments were about the SID's role in promoting Cornell sports in general, but since 99.999999% of my interest in Cornell sports is limited to men's hockey, my comments are directed to that.

We, the online Lynah Faithful, have the interest, time, focus, knowledge and resources to do as much or more for Cornell hockey than the SID, AD and the university combined.  While it is unfortunate that the university's poorly conceived and even more poorly executed deal with CSTV prohibits us from setting up and providing online audio and video access to the games themselves, that is really the only restriction on us.  We could, with coordination, produce a Cornell-centric version of USCHO -- contact alumni players, publish interviews, promote the team.  Many of us already provide various web support for Cornell fans -- this forum, a strictly private affair created and maintained in spite of direct administration hostility, is a testament to the superiority of private efforts over official, blessed efforts.  Cornell provides nothing comparable for any CU sport than one alumnus and a handful of contributors do.

If we identify goals, pick a leadership group, commit resources, and work with or, if necessary, around the university and athletic department, we can do a far superior job promoting Cornell hockey than a handful of well-meaning but over-worked and underpaid administrators and their rotating brigade of undergrad interns.  The sum of the abilities of the alumni community dwarfs the sum of the abilities of university employees.  And this focus would also prevent work from being dissipated by the official university policies.

The point is the same as anybody who has worked one day at one job in the actual real world has discovered: Cornell as an institution is cute and all, but the moment it gets in the way it is no longer interesting or valuable.  We can just identify the work and get on with it.  Just copyright everything so they can't steal it later.

[billhoward]

eLynah would be the ideal framework for a site that could, as you said, "contact alumni players, publish interviews, promote the team." Unless there's so much hostility on the part of Cornell directed at eLynah, as opposed to indifference.

No reason eLynah or the Cornell Hockey Assn. couldn't set up a video operation for home and perhaps away games in the spirit of supporting Cornell hockey win or tie. Remember though that the Cornell deal with CSTV also calls for CSTV to run Cornell's sports website, serve up ads, etcetera. Not that that's hard to do, either. Cornell just needs to be reminded of all the people who started successful businesses while in college or just out.

A half-a-loaf solution would be if Cornell strikes a tougher bargain with CSTV this time around and sets some QOS standards CSTV has to meet to keep the contract in force.