Insight Bowl will work to get game on local TV

Not everybody will be fortunate enough to make the trip to Arizona in a few weeks to watch Iowa State play Minnesota in 2009’s version of the Insight Bowl.

So if you can’t go, will you be able to watch it on Iowa’s largest cable company Mediacom? That question was still up in the air as of today at around noon. According to Iowa State director of athletics Jamie Pollard, it doesn’t look good.

“Unfortunately, the cable provider throughout the majority of Iowa, Mediacom, hasn’t chosen to pick it up,” Pollard said. “That is somewhat of a challenge in this market. I don’t see that changing. Whether there will be an opportunity for it to be seen over the air in the home market, I’m glad to hear that they are working on it.”

However, Insight Bowl representatives are and will continue to work on this issue. That’s according to Jay Fields, who was in attendance at the presser.

“One of the things that we will do over the next couple of weeks is work with the NFL Network to try to get better access in the team markets so that folks here who don’t have it, can see the game,” Fields said. “We’ll work hard to make sure that the local folks have a chance to see the game.”

This isn’t foreign territory to Insight Bowl representatives. The bowl game faced the same issue last year when Kansas met the Gophers in the contest.

“We worked with the NFL Network and some local stations and operators to get the game aired in the local markets,” Fields said about last year’s game. “The NFL Network has done a good job. They have expanded their distribution by about 10 million homes.”

This is the fourth and final year of the Insight Bowl’s contract with the NFL Network. Fields told reporters that the bowl game has not made a decision on next year’s television deal, nor would they until after the conclusion of this year’s contest.