ESPNU HD Will Launch but to Limited Audience

ESPNU HD launches Thursday, August 28th, just in time for the beginning of College Football season. The network will go live at 6:00 am EST and the first live ESPNU HD game will be Vanderbilt vs Miami (Ohio) at 7:30 that night, but not everyone will be able to see it.

The addition of ESPNU HD is an exciting notion that we’ve touched on before, as they promise to broadcast 200 live high definition events in their first year.

However, many are slow to be excited, considering the limited number of cable and satellite providers that will be carrying the new ESPN U HD network at launch. As of now, only Time Warner Cable, Verizon’s FiOS TV, RCN, Atlantic Broadband and Broadstripe have been confirmed as carriers, which leaves Comcast, Dish and DirecTV subscribers in the dark.

This could change, however as other big news announced by ESPN could influence major providers to carry ESPNU HD. ESPN recently signed a 15 year deal with the SEC, in which all of ESPN’s networks including ESPN, ABC, ESPN 2, & ESPNU will carry SEC football and basketball games through the 2024 season. Though CBS is still the primary carrier of SEC games and will broadcast all SEC home games and the SEC title game, ESPN’s expansion of SEC coverage could be reason for other Major carriers to add ESPNU HD.

Those of you receiving ESPNU HD on Thursday, congratulations. The rest of you, if it’s any consolation, there are a lot of other HD College Football games on that night. Here are some:

College Football Opening Day HD Schedule
DATE	TIME (ET)	DESCRIPTION	NETWORK
8/28/2008	8:00 PM	North Carolina State Wolfpack vs South Carolina Gamecocks	ESPN (720p)
8/28/2008	8:00 PM	Wake Forest Demon Deacons vs Baylor Bears	FSN (720p)
8/28/2008	9:00 PM	Oregon State Beavers vs Stanford Cardinal	ESPN 2 (720p)

Tags: College Football, ESPN U

You can follow any comments for this post through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.