Cox demolished its previous record for pay-per-vie

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High on the to-do list this week at Cox Communications in Omaha is to send a thank you card to Nebraska Football Coach Bill Callahan.

 

Due to the strong interest in Callahan's first game at NU, Cox demolished its previous record for pay-per-view subscriptions to an event Saturday night.

 

The final count for the Nebraska-Western Illinois game was 10,774. The old mark was 4,200 twice before - for the 2002 Nebraska-Missouri football game and a Mike Tyson boxing event.

 

Mike Kohler, Cox's vice president for public affairs, said Tuesday the subscription count for the Husker game might have topped 11,000 if not for some problems.

 

"Saturday night at game time," Kohler said, "we thought we were having technical difficulties."

 

What really happened was the demand near game time was so high, Kohler said, that "dozens and dozens" of orders couldn't be processed or were delayed.

 

"It blew our minds," he said. "We were giddy about the possibility of selling 4,500 subscriptions. We thought that would be really doing well."

 

Those who tried to order and couldn't, or missed part of the game, will get credits from Cox, Kohler said. At $29.95 per subscriber, Cox's gross revenue from the game was nearly $323,000.

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Wow. Now Cox is probably trying to come up with a way to combine Mike Tyson and Husker football..... dont forget your headgear!