Campus area restaurant and bar owner Cuatro Kowalski got a rude surprise last Saturday (9/1) as he planned for a bustling afternoon of serving customers as they watched the University of Texas football team defeat New Mexico in the season opener: the AT&T U-Verse cable service that he just installed after it added the Longhorn Network will provide the channel only to residential subscribers, not to commercial ones. As he told KXAN news:
"It was pretty much like a kick in the gut," said Kowalski. "We were out anywhere from $10-12,000 – the lost revenue really hurt. I think we had to turn away something like 100-150 people in person that came asking for the game."
Those fans who wish to see this Saturday’s (9/7) away game on TV against Brigham Young University’s Fighting Romneys… oops… Cougars will have to show up with beer and snacks at the homes of friends who have U-Verse (which serves 11 percent of Austin households) or Grande Communications (two percent). Longhorn Network is only showing the first two Longhorns games.
Still no word when or even if Time Warner, the area’s major cable provider, will carry the UT sports network. As the Austin Business Journal noted in late May:
“At this time, there aren’t plans to carry the Longhorn Network,” said Ryan Kelly, communications manager for Time Warner Cable.