DeKALB | Baseball fans hoping to keep up with their favorite team while living in the residence halls are forced to go elsewhere during the baseball season.

If students want to watch the Cubs or White Sox in action, they have to wait until the game is broadcast on WGN, ESPN or FOX, since NIU does not have Comcast SportsNet, the station providing a large number of both squads’ regular-season games.

In light of Comcast’s absence, students are finding other methods to keep up with their favorite club.

“I’ll usually find the scores by looking on the Yahoo! Sports Web site,” said sophomore psychology major Johannis Rosario.

NIU’s cable is supplied by Campus TeleVideo, a satellite-delivered cable provider to colleges and universities.

“We purchase the content and distribute it through a campus-based network system,” said Michael Stang, director of Residential Facilities and Operations.

The cost of the current cable package is about $150,000 annually, Stang said.

“Comcast Sports Network is not a part of this package because it’s prohibitively expensive,” he said.

As of 2005, adding Comcast SportsNet to the current line-up would cost four to five dollars per room each month, Stang said.

According to NIU’s Web site, one-third of the 18,460 students that attend NIU live on campus. This equates to around 6,000 people living on campus, which means it would cost between about $24,000 to $30,000 a year to broadcast the Comcast channel on campus.

Rosario feels adding the station may be unnecessary.

“I think that CSN should only be added if there are enough people who will watch the station a lot,” he said. “If there are not enough people out there who want to watch the games, then there’s no reason that it should be part of the line-up.”

If students wish to request new stations be made available in the dorms, they may contact the Residential Hall Association, which determines the channel line-up.