Daily Norseman, a Minnesota Vikings community

Rutgers athletics spokesman Jason Baum announced earlier that Rutgers/Navy will be an ESPN 3 exclusive next week, the third such game this season thus far. Rutgers actually probably doesn't mind all that much not having local TV for this game, which could help attendance, but it's still not at all fair. ESPN 3 claims a lot of Rutgers games, and it's for a very specific reason. Cablevision is the cable provider for a good portion of New Jersey (and the rest of the NYC market), including New Brunswick and Piscataway. Cablevision refuses to add ESPN 3, so as leverage, ESPN makes live Rutgers games ESPN 3 exclusives so that fans can not view them on regional sports networks such as SNY, who certainly would much rather have RU/'Navy than Cincinnati/Louisville that week. ESPN 3 is a fun enough service, but this routine is quickly wearing thin. Even Knicks and Ranger fans hate the Dolans, but if this may be the one course of action that could make people actually take their side of a change. ESPN needs to give it a rest, and let their product actually sink or swim on the merits. Of course, this is also another reason why the Big East conference is terrible, as these hostile acts are only even possible because Mike Tranghese was a terrible commissioner who hated Big East football with a burning passion, and thus left himself exposed to sign a terrible television contract.