Campus Clips: ESPN Family to Air 14th ACC/Big Ten Challenge; University of Texas Dominates in Revenue and Spending

The 14th annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge Presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods on Nov. 27-28 will be highlighted by North Carolina at Indiana, Ohio State at Duke and North Carolina State at Michigan, six programs expected to be highly ranked entering the 2012-13 season. ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will combine to televise all 12 games of the two-day event matching top college basketball programs playing for conference supremacy and the Commissioners Cup. All 12 games will also be available via WatchESPN, which delivers live access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3 on PCs, smartphones and tablets to fans who receive ESPN’s linear networks as part of their video subscription from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks or Verizon FiOS TV…

…ESPN has also selected 23 additional ACC football games for ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3. Along with the seven previously announced contests, with the newly announced games, the schedule includes every conference home game available on an ESPN network for the first three weeks of the season, all of the Thursday night selections and the eighth annual Dr. Pepper ACC Football Championship Game on Saturday, Dec. 1, in prime time on ESPN or ABC…

…In the past three years, USA Today Sports’ annual analysis of college athletics finances shows, no college athletics program has out-earned or outspent the colossus that is Texas. The Longhorns took in a little more than $150 million in 2010-11, the most recent year for which public schools’ filings with the NCAA are available. That outdistanced second-place Ohio State by $18.5 million. The ‘Horns’ outlay for football and 19 other varsity sports was $133.7 million, almost $11.5 million more than Ohio State put into its 36 teams. Texas’ program is one of only 22 across Division I that operate in the black — it generated enough revenue to cover athletics expenses — an increasingly touchy issue in times of shrinking state allocations and economic stress in higher education. Moreover, the Longhorns kicked $6 million back to the school’s academic side a year ago. For five years, half of the take from their new statewide, 24-hour cable television venture, the Longhorn Network, is earmarked for academics…

…Conference realignment hit the Colonial Athletic Association hard this week as Virginia Commonwealth moved to the Atlantic 10 while Old Dominion jumped to Conference USA…

…Hofstra University hired Jeff Hathaway, formerly the Director of Athletics for the University of Connecticut and the outgoing chairman of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, as Hofstra University’s new Vice President and Director of Athletics. Hathaway is signing a 5-year agreement with Hofstra University.  He will begin in June 2012, at a date to be determined later this week.  Eastman & Beaudine assisted in the search, and President Rabinowitz, consistent with the need for confidentiality and speed, consulted with members of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees as appropriate…

…Earlier this week, Northwestern Oklahoma State University unveiled a new athletics website.