correctly, it had nothing to do with sports.
The information I have comes from a tour we did of the BYU TV studios a few months after BYUTV went live. For the record, I can't remember if the Satellite company was DirectTV or Dish, but with both of them facing the same regulations, it probably applied to both those companies--since they have been on both for a long time.
BYU was preparing for the launch of BYUTV, and the satellite provider was planning on launching or expanding its offerings, but, according to government or fcc regulations, they were under-represented in the way of public education channels. So the satellite company approached BYU about becoming one of those public education channels, and BYU agreed. BYU had to really accelerate the BYUTV launch--I mean within a very, very short amount of time, but they did it.
That's the reader's digest version of things.