Cyclones.tv, Iowa State’s 24/7 online broadcasting channel, is expanding to cable television.

On Wednesday, Cyclones.tv came to a five-year agreement with Mediacom for the formation of a television channel dedication to ISU athletics — considered an uncommon feat in collegiate athletics at this point.

“Coaches can go out and recruit now and say we’re one of three programs in the country that have their own sports channel — Texas, BYU and Iowa State,” said ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard.

Even though the deal is exclusive to Mediacom, anyone whose cable provider has channel MC22 in the Midwest can get the new Cyclones.tv cable channel.

“It’s a big win for Mediacom customers, who gain another option for following their favorite Cyclone teams,” said Mediacom Group Vice President Steve Purcell in a news release.

Under the agreement, the new channel will broadcast every home event for women’s basketball, volleyball, wrestling, gymnastics, soccer and softball. Since the Big 12 owns the initial broadcasting rights under its new television deal, however, the new channel will only be permitted to show one football game and anywhere from five-to-10 men’s basketball games per year.

Pollard said the major challenges associated with maintaining a 24/7 sports channel are cost, quality, production and content.

As far as cost is concerned, those figures were not made available.

“We’ve tried to keep [the cost] as minimal as possible,” Pollard said. “It’s a fine line; the quality and amount of stuff you’re producing goes in hand with how much you put towards it.

“I don’t have a dollar number to tell you right off the top of my head, but we’ve made a pretty big investment in personal resources for hiring John Walters and the staffing that we have and some physical equipment… which is why Mediacom is picking this up.”

Programming will be shown on the current MC22 channel. Right now, the plan is to air live home events for Iowa State and other ISU coverage in segments.

“They figure probably in two months or so, they’ll get the channel set up,” Pollard said.

From there, Pollard said the plan is to air ISU athletic programming at all hours of the day every day of the week on the channel, which will officially be branded as “Cyclones.tv powered by Mediacom.”

Anyone wanting to watch Cyclones.tv in HD, however, will have to do so online. Pollard said the cable version is beginning in standard broadcast format, but did not give a clear indication whether it will adopt HD in the future.

The channel’s first broadcast will be a basketball doubleheader Dec. 9 that will show the women’s team’s game against Fairfield at 1 p.m. and the men’s team’s game against Nebraska-Omaha at 6 p.m.

Check back to iowastatedaily.net as this story develops.