There is a certain order to the universe that should not be tempered with. One natural rule is that sports fans must root for their hometown team.

And at Syracuse, the Internet is helping a dislodged bunch of students remain hometown fans.

With the advent of widespread high-speed Internet connections, team and league officials across the sports spectrum recognized the potential for streaming games over the Web (whether live or after the fact). A variety of models have evolved, but the trend is only growing, and nearly every potential player (the leagues, individual teams, the networks) is jousting for a slice of the profit pie.

The unaddressed consequence is the collapse of the need to actually [ITALICS]be [ITALICS] within a team’s media market to watch its games.

College campuses offer a prime example of the rising popularity of fans watching far-off teams from a personal computer stream. While Central New York audiences only get the daily Mets and Yankees games on cable television, students from Boston can be seen huddled in front of a laptops keeping tabs on Jonathan Papelbon and Big Papi through the online service MLB.tv.

‘It is now possible for a fan of a particular team to watch every game no matter where they live and, in some ways, regardless of their schedule,’ said Heidi M. Parker, an assistant professor in the sports management department, in an e-mail. ‘Also, with the younger generation, using a computer has become a very integral part of their lives.’

In the transcendent, mobile American culture of the 21st century, the net has made it possible for pockets of random fans to accumulate in cities regardless of the home team.

Even SU Athletics is on the online video act.

Roger Springfield is the director of media properties and production for the university. He spends his days editing video content for the Orange All Access subscription service on suathletics.com.

Orange All Access offers a behemoth of content for its paying subscribers ($79.95 for the year). Practice footage, pre-and-postgame press conferences, player interviews, game highlights, a few feature stories and complete games await subscribing Orange fans. The site is constantly updated and the video is high-quality.

Springfield said Orange All Access has the most video content of any collegiate sports site in the country and has been a priority for Director of athletics Daryl Gross since he arrived at Syracuse.

The purpose is to supplement games with insider access for fans. Springfield considers the lengthy highlights and complete press conferences as the un-truncated edition of what is shown on local TV news.

‘It is just like a television news operation, but we do the full-length version,’ Springfield said. He added traditional media will have to reinvent itself because it will not be able to compete with the freedom of control and depth of content on sites like SU’s.

The revolution still hasn’t taken place though.

The service is chiefly used to open the window of Syracuse sports to displaced fans, provide local diehards with comprehensive footage and to allow the families of athletes to follow their kin.

Orange All Access also serves as an outlet and promotional tool for potential recruits, Springfield said.

The site’s numbers back up the relatively segmented audience. There are currently 3,000 subscribers – there have been 7,000 since the service launched in spring 2005.

An average men’s basketball game will be viewed by 800 fans. For its marquee matchup with Connecticut the women’s team attracted 300 fans – an increase from the 10 to 15 viewers Orange All Access drew per game just a season ago.

A mere 472 users watched a recent men’s lacrosse game against Georgetown, while another 115 listened to the audiocast.

Yet, growth is still possible.

Springfield said Orange All Access will be redesigned in the fall. He hopes to include more free content and feature classic Syracuse games from the archives.

‘That will be a big draw for people to go back and watch those games whenever they want,’ he said.

It may come at a cost, but for a dedicated Syracuse fan there is no better way to immerse oneself in the minutiae of all things Orange. For both the far-off alum and the potential athlete at SU, there are opportunities to follow all 19 teams’ every step, no matter how far from the Salt City they may be.

Online broadcasts and team-produced content is currently defining itself as it goes through the gauntlet of legal challenges and reacts to impulses of the sports marketplace.

But, these issues are rarely evident to the average fan.

It is even less likely that they are concerned with the ramifications of court decisions and revenue analyses. The Internet has offered them the taintalizing possibility of living wherever they want while watching endless hours of old and new footage without having to jump on the local team’s bandwagon – or jump off their computer.

Matt Reilly is the sports in media columnist for The Daily Orange. He can be reached at msreilly@syr.edu.

Published on April 14, 2008 at 12:00 pm