ESPN answers Big Blue Madness TV concerns

Justin Connolly, ESPN's Senior Vice President for College Networks, on Tuesday presented the network's response to University of Kentucky fans concerned Big Blue Madness won't air on live TV in its entirety Friday night.

The plan hasn't changed as far as that is concerned. But while ESPN3.com remains the only live source other than ESPNU cut-ins – that's due to music rights -- Connolly said the SEC Network's staff has added two coverage elements.

First, clips and highlights will air on SEC Now at 9 p.m., which follows LSU-Missouri volleyball. After that, at 11 p.m. an hour-long Big Blue Madness special will air with most of the action – just minus the music.

Connolly's comments to The Courier-Journal, in full:

Could you fill me in on where the situation stands now?

First thing's first. Our expectation is Big Blue Madness will be covered more this year than ever before. It's going to be covered live in its entirety on ESPN3. We're going to do a lot of cut-ins live on ESPN. We're going to do highlights and clips on SEC Now, which is our…show on SEC Network. We're also going to do a packaged show on SEC Network around Big Blue Madness.

The core issue for us is a rights clearance issue. We have an issue with clearing the music live on a network. So what we've tried to do is build the most robust plan around that across ESPN's platforms to cover it. We know it's important. It's unique. It's different. It's what makes Kentucky basketball special. We want to do right by the fans, and we don't want to skimp on the coverage.

Was there any thought behind using the SEC Network's alternate channel or passing rights to a local channel?

We had a discussion about it this morning. I think, two things. We can actually produce it with the music on ESPN3 live. We want to focus on that in terms of the availability of 75 million subscribers. That gets it out there. I think SEC Network – to put it on TV – we're going to do it in a packaged format to deal with some of those musical complexities."

Q & A continues below Big Blue Madness video player

So what has changed from the original plan until now? I don't think I've heard about the packaged show on SEC Network.

Yeah, that's new and incremental. It looks like an 11 p.m. timeslot. So we'll do it in a fairly short order – a turnaround. We'll have someone monitoring the music issues and making an appropriate call. And then we'll have SEC Now in terms of those highlights. Those would be the big two notables in terms of how we're trying to serve Kentucky fans as best as they can.

For those sitting at home without ESPN3, how many cut-ins will there be on ESPNU?

I guess what I'd say is, on ESPNU there are going to be a lot of cut-ins to Kentucky no matter how you slice it – the production plan five days ago or the production plan today. Kentucky is the lead force here. There's going to be a lot of coverage on live TV for Kentucky fans. That's just the way we've thought about from the get-go.

What would the cost have been (for music). Is it really exorbitant? Would you have to pay for every song?

It's not my particular area of expertise. I can tell you from some briefings that there are some songs that can't even be cleared for commercial use before the production. I think one thing we may do in the future is sort of work well in advance to see if we can figure out the music issues.

Is there anything else you'd want to make sure UK fans know about Friday?

The only thing I'd note is, again, from our perspective there's going to be more coverage of Big Blue Madness this year than there ever has been in the past when you layer in ESPN3 with availability to 75 million subscribers nationally. ESPNU has a robust cut-in plan. There are highlights and clips on SEC Now, and also the packaged program on SEC Network. The game plan here always has been and continues to be finding the best way to serve fans, and I think we have a pretty good plan.

Jonathan Lintner can be reached at (502) 582-4199. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanLintner.