Following the announcement on Tuesday that the Longhorn Network will televise two Texas football games during the 2011 season, on Thursday the network revealed the location of the studio, as well as the on-air talent that will be among the 50 LN employees, with 31 making the move from Bristol to Austin.
The Longhorn Network studios will be located in a building at the University Park development several miles east of the Texas campus on the site that was formerly the Concordia University campus.
Lowell Galindo will serve as the main anchor after a four-year stint on ESPNU, while Austin's own Kevin Dunn will return to town to serve as the other host and occasional reporter. Fox Sports veteran Samantha Steele will fulfill the eye candy requirement as a reporter.
Galindo is a San Antonio native who graduated from Emerson College -- but almost chose to go to UT -- and spent some time with several television stations before joining ESPNU in 2007. While at ESPNU, Galindo served as the main pre-game, halftime, and post-game host for the live events televised by the network. Galindo had this to say about joining the network:
I could not be more fired up for this. Coming home and getting to cover Texas is not something that I could see happening for me. It really is a dream come true, and that's not a line.
A Westlake graduate and lifetime Longhorn fan, Kevin Dunn hosted a local radio show on 1300 AM The Zone with Geoff Ketchum's current co-host, Chad Hastings, for five years before moving on to a gig with CBS College Sports.
After spending several years covering the Big 12 and Pac-10 for Fox Sports, Steele will move to the Longhorn Network, presumably acting as the sideline reporter during live events, among other duties. A Liberty University graduate, Steele has at times been tagged as "the next Erin Andrews" and is currently in Zimbabwe working at an orphanage populated by children with HIV.
As for those who continue to wonder about whether ESPN will reach distribution deals before the Rice game on September 3, David Preschlack, ESPN's executive vice president of affiliate sales and marketing, called negotiations "incredibly productive," before adding:
We are in meaningful conversations with distributors large and small, and we are optimistic that we are going to be in a great place when the channel launches. But these talks take time, and in some ways in our world, the first week of July to the third week in August represents a long time as it relates to getting a deal done.