A new 24-hour college sports television station will sign on Sunday, but Ames’ primary cable provider isn’t going to make it available to local residents any time soon.

College Sports Television (CSTV) will televise regular season and championship games in more than 25 men’s and women’s collegiate sports, but Division I men’s basketball and Division I-A football will not be shown. Every other sport — from lacrosse to tennis — is on the table.

Steve Purcell, regional vice president of Mediacom, said he hadn’t even heard of the network.

“This is news to me,” Purcell said. “I’ve never heard of it, so there definitely are no plans for the cable system at this point.”

The network will officially debut on April 7, immediately following the Division I men’s basketball championship game. It will unscramble its signal for the first time at 1 p.m. on Sunday to show the Connecticut-Notre Dame women’s basketball game.

CSTV has an agreement with 27 conferences, representing more than 250 colleges and universities. The programming will vary from live sports to coaches’ shows and documentaries.

Following the Connecticut-Notre Dame contest, the network will air “Countdown to CSTV” — a six-week preview period when the network will allow cable and satellite operators to offer its programming for free.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase our commitment to college sports, and to women’s sports in particular, to operators and fans alike,” CEO and CSTV co-founder Brian Bedol said in a statement. “Our mission is to become the ultimate home of collegiate sports programming, and this highly anticipated game will capture the passion and electricity we’ll present to viewers on a regular basis.”

This isn’t Bedol’s first attempt at a sports network. Along with Stephen Greenberg, Bedol co-founded Classic Sports Network, which was eventually sold to ESPN and is now ESPN Classic.

Purcell said he’s not sure the network is a viable option for its packages because other networks already have contracts with Iowa State and Iowa. “A majority of the rights are taken up for most services and most teams,” he said. “The Iowa State and Iowa contracts are already divvied up. ESPN and Fox have the rights to all the regional stuff, so I can’t imagine what this group would be able to get the rights to.”

Mediacom’s policy is to evaluate the value of each available network, Purcell said. “Even if a product comes available, we would go through and see if it makes sense to put it on our network,” Purcell said. “If it doesn’t bring anything to us, I don’t know if we’ve got a large enough market.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.