Jason Cook on SEC Network, Kyle Field, Adidas deal
Key quotes from Jason Cook interview:
"I have never seen a basketball team face so many challenges as this team has. They've shown a lot of resiliency."
"I call this the silly season, because all the sports start overlapping. Moving to the SEC causes football to be 24/7/365."
"I knew where we were from a brand standpoint, and I thought we would have a little drop off from Johnny leaving.....However, the attention isn't waning at all. There's a real interest everywhere."
"The storyline now is 'Where is A&M going to go?' It's a glass half-full approach. A&M is the cool school to be at now."
"In the past we were just excited to have someone drafted in the 4th or 6th round. Now we have 3 guys probably in the top 10."
"Dish is the first national provider to get the SEC Network. What that does is put the rest of the companies on notice."
"Dish picking up the SEC Network 5 months ahead of the season starting shows how powerful the SEC brand is."
"There's nothing more on our plate that will help us financially than the SEC Network. That's where most of my time goes."
"I don't take anything for granted, but what we can control is demanding the SEC Network."
"Before there was Johnny Manziel, there was Tim Tebow. He is still an SEC legend, and he'll be on the SEC Network."
"Let them know that you intend to move providers if they don't pick up the SEC Network. Use the phones and social media."
"Come August 28th, DirectTV and Suddenlink have a very compelling opportunity. I'm not going to leave anything to chance."
"Kyle Field is an exciting project. I'm looking graphically how we are going to spread the A&M brand in the field."
"I think the 12 empty seats situation has gone in a good direction. It's now in the hands of the students."
"We have to make the 12th man a bigger part of our gameday experience."
"I don't think we will have an official name for the giant video board. We just want to win."
"The highest resolution you're getting from ESPN is 720p. Our video board will be a higher resolution."
"Our gameday experience is so unique, but we have to be proactive with our technology to enhance the gameday experience."
"Our core audience in athletics is 16-18 year old kids. How we present the brand may be a bit more edgy."
"Basketball is an important sport for Texas A&M, so we are doing a lot of branding work on Reed Arena as we speak."
"We're in negotiations with new Adidas contract right now so I can't say much. There's a lot coming with uniforms though."
"Last week, the engineering dept. came up with the 24 Jeff Gordon car design, and he will race at the Texas Motor Speedway."
"What we want to do is a have a big out of conference game every year, and play an in-state team every year as well."
"We do have a long-range plan for an athletic village. I think one your posters found them on the internet."
