Syracuse Sees UConn's SNY Deal And Raises It An Even Better One

While the Big East rides out its TV contract and looks into the possibility of starting their own one day soon, the teams of the Big East are busy making their own deals.  Especially in the most important market of them all, New York City. With Syracuse, UConn, Rutgers and others trying to stake claim to the Big Apple, a great TV deal could be one of the things that tips that scales.

In August, UConn threw down the hammer by cutting a deal with SNY for over 300 hours of programming, including coach's shows, replays, press conferences and highlights. It was a disturbing revelation for Syracuse fans weened to believe that the Orange were New York's Team.  Why was this school from Connecticut getting more awareness than us?  Sure, SU had content on SNY before this but never at the breadth that the Huskies were about to receive.

DOC Gross seemed to scoff at the news, but Syracuse fans were curious to see what New York's College Team's next move would be. Syracuse made their move official today, telling UConn anything you can do we can do better, adding a SNY deal to the one they already have with Time Warner.

SNY anticipates providing more than 300 hours of live game telecasts and replays, classic game re-broadcasts, the weekly Syracuse Sidelines show with football coach Doug Marrone, basketball coach Jim Boeheim and lacrosse coach John Desko, and other additional content. Additionally, SNY will offer significantly increased coverage of SU football and basketball on its nightly Geico SportsNite news show.

That's on top of the 365 hours of content Time Warner will be showing this year as well. The immediate good news is that Syracuse football is now going to be broadcast state-wide, starting with this weekend's Maine game:

Statewide coverage kicks off Saturday night when the Orange host Maine at the Carrier Dome. The game will be televised live beginning at 7:00 pm by Time Warner Cable Sports in Syracuse and will carried live on SNY and Time Warner cable systems in the Buffalo, Rochester and Albany areas.

It might not be revolutionary but it's a deal that speaks volumes for Syracuse University. Even if all this means is that SU is keeping up with the Joneses, that's what we should be doing. There's not much they can do beyond this without starting their own network and, well, let's not get crazy. 

The next step is SNY getting their act together and promoting the Orange on their website. For now, there is little mention of SU and they aren't on the drop-down menu when you go to the Big East section on their site. The day of the UConn announcement, SNY might as well have been UConn's homepage. I'll feel a lot better when SNY is rolling out the orange carpet for us in the same manner.

Still, good news for SU fans all over New York.  Choke on it, Huskies.