Why a top-25 game wound up on the Longhorn Network

One or two Texas games have to be on LHN every year. This week, pieces fit together to relegate a big one to that channel.

The Longhorn Network is that thing all of us non-Texas fans conveniently forget about until a specific point in every season.

That point has come, now that the Horns are set to host ranked Iowa State in what’s absolutely the best game the ESPN-run network has ever broadcast in its seven-year history.

As far as Texas football games on this Texas TV channel are concerned, LHN usually serves to pick up the scraps. The contract between Texas and ESPN says they have a “mutual desire” to put at least two games on the channel, though just one is required to be on it.

ISU-Texas is the second of this year, after the channel also had Tulsa-Texas in Week 2. Usually, if there are two games on the channel, they’re against a Big 12 team like Kansas or Iowa State (which used to be bad) and an FCS team or Rice.

So, if you’re looking for No. 16 ISU vs. No. 15 UT on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, that’s where to find it.

Because of the nature of the Big 12’s TV rights deals, there are usually one or two games a week within the league that aren’t picked up by FOX or ESPN.

Those games are included in the Big 12’s broadcast deals as third-tier rights. In layman’s terms: The schools regain control of showing the crappy games the league’s primary rights-holders don’t find it beneficial to broadcast on their own.

It’s not as simple as all the best games always getting picked up, because networks often have requirements to show specific schools a specific number of times. That’s probably part of how Kansas-Oklahoma wound up on FOX at 7:30 ET this week, for instance.

Every Big 12 school has its own way of doing things when its games become third-tier. Kansas goes through ESPN3, Oklahoma usually has a game on pay-per-view (like its win over Army earlier this season), and Texas has the wildly lucrative Longhorn Network, which reportedly makes the school around $15 million a year.

And because of all the fractured rights landscape, not just the one with LHN, there isn’t currently a Big 12 Network like every other Power 5 league has. (The ACC’s launches later this year to join the SEC’s, Big Ten’s, and Pac-12’s.)

LHN’s great for Texas, but the channel might be the biggest reason there isn’t just a Big 12 TV network that could show this game.

LHN’s existence has a lot to do with Texas still being in the Big 12 at all. The Horns getting access to a big, private stream of TV revenue helped keep them in the league when conference realignment could’ve swept them away to the Pac-10 around 2010.

Now, simply put, why would Texas walk away from all that revenue without a big monetary incentive? And why would the Big 12 pay out some sort of whopping sum to get Texas into the fold of a potential Big 12 Network?

Another potential factor, at this point: The Big 12’s grant of media rights, which is the biggest thing holding the conference together, expires in the summer of 2025. The league might not want to invest in a TV channel for a conference whose future isn’t clear for more than a few seasons after the network would be up and running.

LHN certainly isn’t perfect. It reportedly lost close to $50 million in its first five years. It has In 2016, LHN cut some studio shows and some employees. There are some issues under the surface.

“We, like all networks, regularly evaluate programming and make strategic decisions accordingly,” an ESPN spokesman said. “The total number of Longhorn Network positions remains the same.”

It did, however, secure former UT players Ricky Williams and Vince Young to remain as analysts ... whatever that means. Those guys would work for free and live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin if it meant they can live in Austin and talk UT football.

Stories from LHN employees about its relationship with UT are not glowing. Despite LHN/ESPN giving UT millions every year, LHN employees often complain that the athletic department is not helpful with access and interviews.

But LHN was invented and persists because of the almighty dollar.

At least it’s got a good game on it for once.