The Texas Longhorns have their TV network. During conference realignment talk this summer, we thought something like this would happen. Here's the report from Sports Business Journal:
The Univ. of Texas today will announce a 20-year, $300M deal with ESPN to create the Longhorn Network, the first-of-its-kind channel to broadcast live UT athletic events, shoulder programming and non-sports university content. The Longhorn Network will launch in the fall and will be owned by ESPN, which will pay the school a rights fee that averages $15M a year, sources said. In addition, ESPN has committed close to $400M in production value to the channel over the 20-year term.
So Texas is basically going to be rolling in the cash. The Longhorns budget for 2010-11 is already the nation's highest at $137 million.
Folks have suggested Mizzou could create their own TV network. Despite not being the most popular team in the network, I think Mizzou could do fairly well drawing from both the Kansas City and St. Louis markets.