Jamie Pollard Expands Media Empire

Interior of the Jacobson building. Jamie Pollard is talking on two phones at once while working at his laptop. He is wearing his best business suspenders.

Now listen here Mediacom, and listen good: Iowa State is getting its own dedicated broadcast channel, and we're getting it THIS YEAR. You can choose to be on board the runaway freight train of success that is the Iowa State athletic department, or you can sit back at the station. But this thing ISU has going is picking up steam. I encourage you to hop on, lest you get run over. You think I don't have Fox Sports Net waiting on line two right now?

Look, when you think of dedicated sports channels, you currently think of two names: Texas and BYU. Huge names in the world of college sports, right? Well, they got their stations; problem is that nobody can see them. BYU's network is stuck way up in the 900's of my satellite TV guide, and I'm pretty sure the Longhorn Network is still only available through Univision.

Now Iowa State is getting in on this action; only I want people to actually see our programming. That's why I came to you first, Mediacom. Your cable coverage blankets Iowa, along with parts of Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri. Iowa State always struggles with coverage in the Hawkeye-dominated media landscape, and I'm goddamn sick and tired of it. I want every Iowa State fan to be able to see every Cyclone game, whether it's online or over the air on Mediacom. I also want young sports fans to see Iowa State games and realize that the Hawkeyes aren't the only team in this state. Only way to turn this state from black & gold to cardinal & gold is by getting Cyclone fans started young.

So I'm thinking we put Cyclones.tv content on MC22 initially. Let me be blunt: The current lineup on MC22 blows donkey taint. Christmas parades? Thinkers Throwdown? Brooks on Sports? Isn't Bob Brooks legally dead? And how many times a day can you air the same goddamn ESPN News update?

I want to give you a wealth of content; content that people actually want to watch. I want to showcase everything Iowa State has to offer on your channel. Football games, basketball games, Olympic sports, coaches shows, call-in shows... You're going to have so much original content you'll need to start a second channel just to handle all the Iowa State crap coming out of your ass. Hell, if we make a deal today I can give you Sunday's women's basketball game to air.

But we're not just going to give you all this content for free. You need to make some serious upgrades to your operation. I see that you aren't currently set up for high definition broadcasts. What is this, the dark ages? Get with the times, Mediacom. We can't have our fans watching sports in standard definition. I mean, they can always still watch the high definition feed online, but jeez... Well, I guess we can make do with your ancient standard definition broadcast for now, Mediacom; but get your act together.

And I was just flipping through some back issues of Consumer Reports and I see that Mediacom was rated the worst cable provider. Not in the state of Iowa. In the nation. How is that even possible? That's going to have to change.

On a more personal, petty note, lets consider this a big posthumous "fuck you" to Marvin Pomerantz, who basically forced Iowa State to sell WOI-TV back in the early '90s. Sure was nice for Iowa State to have its own dedicated channel for over 40 years. Well, it was nice, until Pomerantz strong-armed the Board of Regents into selling WOI out from under the university. Good thing I'm in charge of the athletic department at Iowa State now, and I can repair some of the damage caused by decades of mismanagement.

So the way I see it, this is a win-win-win. Cyclone fans get another outlet to watch their favorite team. Iowa State gets more visibility and coverage in the state. Mediacom gets more programming. Whattya say, Mediacom? You in?

Iowa State announced Wednesday that it has agreed to a five-year partnership to distribute programming, currently produced and aired on Cyclones.tv, across Iowa and into several bordering states via a fully dedicated Cyclone sports channel on Mediacom's cable television network.