Frozen Four - No Television Coverage For The Gopher Women, Even In The Finals

Well this sucks.

With Minnesota riding a 47-game winning streak and aiming for an undefeated season, school officials made an even stronger push to get it on TV. The Big Ten Network got involved and tried to televise Sunday’s championship game but couldn’t reach an agreement with the NCAA.

A pox on everyone's house. NCAA? You suck. Turner Sports Media (yea, it turns out the rights to many NCAA championships are not owned by ESPN)? You suck. Big Ten Network? You suck.

A video stream of Friday’s semifinals and Sunday’s championship game will be available on NCAA.com. The NCAA partners with Turner Sports Digital to show events such as this online.

Apparently, the NCAA asked the Big Ten Network to cover the costs of buying out the Turner contract for this event, which would have been tens of thousands of dollars. Gophers officials directed all questions to the NCAA.

To be fair, on a purely financial level everyone involved has a argument about not wanting to lose money. Of course, all of the entities involved can afford it. But the true blame rests with the NCAA who has chosen to sell the rights to their championships to a group that refuses to make it possible to televise the biggest events for a sport on the biggest stage. Remember though folks, it's all about the student athlete and most of the SA's are going pro in something other than sports (which is why the NCAA is making money off making sure non-Big 4 sports can't get on TV now). Be proud NCAA. Let's see what they have to say on the subject.

"We just weren’t able to reach agreement that would satisfy the contractual agreements already in place," said Keith Willard, the NCAA’s assistant director of championships.

Asked if the NCAA is disappointed the event won’t be televised, Willard said, "We’re very excited about the interest level, and there’s going to be a very exciting atmosphere in here and a full house."

So, to clarify, you're excited that you made sure the game could only be seen by a few thousand people instead of everyone across the hockey world who wanted to. You've made sure that if the best women's college team in history completes the best season ever that the people who do see it live will see it on a crappy internet feed. And should Minnesota get upset, you've made sure that the huge upset gets less attention.

GO HOME NCAA...I HATE YOU.

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