Black is to White as....

Black is to white as…Linda Bruno is to intelligent.

Chance are you have no idea who Linda Bruno is, and even after I explain, you still might not care. But, maybe you’ll at least sympathize with those she is affecting. Bruno is the commissioner of the 14-team Atlantic 10 Conference (don’t even get me started on that – I could wax poetic about how going back to 10 teams, made up of 10 current members would improve this conference drastically).

Well Bruno has decided to sell the conference’s television basketball rights to CSTV. In the A-10, basketball is king. The football conference is Division I-AA, so it’s not a big deal. In the past, the A-10 has run something called A-10 TV, which would produce up to five games a week during conference play. Those games would be aired on local regional sports networks throughout the conference's footprint. For those of you unfamiliar with that footprint, it ranges from Boston down to Charlotte and west into Ohio (plus, as of last year, St. Louis). It was a great set up that allowed for decent exposure of the conference in some major markets.

That is now gone. Instead, Bruno has signed a deal with a fledgling cable sports television network that isn’t available in pretty much the entire footprint of the conference. As the characters in the Guinness commercials are prone to say, “Brilliant!” She single-handedly has removed any television coverage of the conference in the cities where the teams play.

A recent Providence Journal article discusses the fact that the University of Rhode Island is a week away from its season and still is unsure if it will have any games on local television. Cox Cable is the cable provider to pretty much the entire state and they don’t carry CSTV. Part of Bruno’s deal was that CSTV would get exclusive rights, so as of right now there is no way to get even local coverage of the team in its home market.

Bruno’s logic for signing the deal was to get the conference more national television exposure. Well, more nationally televised games are great, except you should take care of your backyard before you go rummaging through your neighbors'.

"I think people are just realizing this has come to light with the start of the basketball season, but we've been working on this since we signed the contract with CSTV," Bruno was quoted as saying in the Providence Journal article.

Way to stay on top of things chief! Presidents of the 14 member-institutions of the A-10 should be calling for her ouster because of this gross failure.

Oh, and if Bruno hasn’t realized it by now, television exposure is one of the best ways for coaches to recruit players, so this year while the A-10 coaches are on the recruiting trail and a potential players asks, “How often are you on TV?” The coach can respond, “Well we aren’t on TV in our own city or in any of our opponents’ cities, but I think some people with satellite dishes get us in Montana.”

“Brilliant!”

Photo Source: Atlantic 10 Conference