CHSAA to charge to watch playoffs online

The Colorado High School Activities Association will be charging you to watch the playoffs this season, starting as soon as next week.

When the girls' swimming and diving state finals begin Feb. 8, so will CHSAA's foray into the pay-per-view world, as the private nonprofit charges subscribers $3.95 for a day of viewing, $6.95 for a week and $9.95 for a month.

"Live events have limited shelf life, are expensive to produce and advertising revenue alone cannot support the expense involved in that production," CHSAA commissioner and Wasson graduate Paul Angelico said. “We need to experiment with this now to determine its viability.”

Over the past couple years, CHSAA has offered any state playoffs or tournaments for free on chsaa.tv. But now, CHSAA will be charging to view via Play On Sports!, the Atlanta-based parent company of chsaa.tv that is test marketing pay-per-view of high school sporting events in several states.

“Colorado is a very technologically adept state,” CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann said. “We need to experiment with this. We anticipate seeing a drastic drop in viewership, which is a bad thing from our perspective. But we’ve got to figure out how this works. This is working on the same model as ESPN3.”

CHSAA Winter Playoff Events

Feb. 8-9 – 4A Girls’ Swimming Championships – VMAC (Thornton)
Feb. 8-9 – 5A Girls’ Swimming Championships – EPIC (Fort Collins)
Feb. 14-15 – State Skiing Championships – Winter Park Ski Area (NO CHSAA.tv)
Feb. 21-23 – State Wrestling Championships – Pepsi Center, Denver
Feb. 28 – Ice Hockey Semifinals, DU Magness Arena, Denver (2 games)
March 1 – Ice Hockey State Championships – DU Magness Arena, Denver (1 game)
March 7 – 5A Girls Elite 8 Basketball – Denver Coliseum, Denver (4 games)
March 8 – 5A Boys Elite 8 Basketball – Denver Coliseum, Denver (4 games)
March 9 – 4A Boys & Girls Elite 8 Basketball – Denver Coliseum (8 games)
March 14-16 – 1A Boys & Girls State Basketball Championships – Budweiser Events Center, Loveland (22 games)
March 14-16 – 2A Boys & Girls State Basketball Championships – Massari Arena, CSU-Pueblo (22 games)
March 14-16 – 3A Boys & Girls State Basketball Championships – Moby Arena, CSU-Fort Collins (22 games)
March 14 – 4A/5A Girls Basketball Semifinals – CU Events Center, Boulder (4 games)
March 15 – 4A/5A Boys Basketball Semifinals – CU Events Center, Boulder (4 games)
March 16 – 4A/5A Boys & Girls State Championship Games – CU Events Center, Boulder – ROOT SPORTS (4 games)
March 16 – Inaugural Unified Exhibition Game – CU Events Center, Boulder (1 game)