An Open Letter To Our CBS Extreme Access Overlords

I can understand that you want to charge $70/year or $10/month for access to online streaming video for games, the coach’s shows and press conferences. Video streaming is expensive to implement and maintain. However, for that price, you’re not really giving us much bang for the buck. What Kentucky fans want is true inside access, not necessarily rebroadcasting the PR productions you guys create.

Of course, Kentucky fans want too much access. We want live web broadcasts of every morning’s practice. We want to see a broadcast of Billy diagramming plays and drinking Dr. Pepper. We want Coach Sip to participate in online chats during practice, so we can tell him, “Hey, Sip, tell Billy to teach them how to play zone defense!”

Instead, how about supplementing your programming with some different feeds, that could be played concurrently with the live broadcast of games? Not the overly-Flash-animated GameTracker utility, which is at least a minute and a half behind live TV broadcasts. More like ESPN Full Circle, except you can choose which video feeds you want to see on your computer monitor (and not have all of them forced down your throat). These would be specific audio and video feeds that would be worth a listen or a glance throughout the game.

Do I have ideas? Well, duh. I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t!

BillyMike & RichMike — NASCAR lets you listen to the crew radio frequencies, shouldn’t we also get to listen to the coaches? Put a little lapel microphone on the coaches and send them out to battle. Leave the microphone on during halftime, so we can hear the inspirational words each coach gives their team. (Of course, this stream is not for listeners under the age of 17. Or sensible Christians.)

Unleashed Tom Leach — Every time Kentucky scores a touchdown or makes an 8-0 run, you should allow (and film) Tom Leach acting excited. But, more excited than his normal professional demeanor. He should strive to be like Tiziano Crudeli (thanks, Orson):

(Note: Kissing Mike Pratt on the cheek is not required.)

Kige Ramsey’s Timeout Update — At each timeout, Kige films a little 30-second clip of his thoughts on the game and immediately publishes it. Instead of putting him in Rupp, put him in one of the local Lexington Wal-Marts. When the team plays an away game, ship Kige to a Wal-Mart in that location. I guarantee Wal-Mart will co-sponsor so long as Kige talks about at least one of their products per game. By the way, have you been to Wal-Mart lately? If I mention Wal-Mart one more time, I get a $50 gift card. Booyah! That’s 5 free gallons of pickles!

Spirit Cam — A camera that follows the dance team the entire game. We all know this is tacky and classless. But you could charge extra for this stream — say, $3.99 per game — and still get over 1000 people fighting for the bandwidth.

Jared Carter NCAA Basketball 2009 Challenge — Since he’s just going to rot on the bench anyway (boo Billy! boo!) why not hook up an Xbox 360 and have Carter plus another member of our roster play UK versus the team we’re playing. Jared would be UK and the special guest would be the visitor. (Bonus points if we can talk Louisville into letting Lee Steiden play Carter on January 4th.) There would be mysteries solved from week to week. Would Carter use himself? Would he create a player with better stats named “C. Arter”?