DENVER, Colo. – Team "Peak Consulting," a graduate student team from the University of Colorado – Denver (UCD) Business School was crowned the grand prize winner of the Rocky Mountain Cable Association's (RMCA's) 14th Annual "Cable Apprentice" competition held earlier today in front of an industry studio audience at Comedy Works South in Greenwood Village, Colo.

Today's finalists were three-person graduate school student teams selected from earlier campus competitions. The three teams represented their respective schools; the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, the University of Colorado – Denver Business School and the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs College of Business.

Today's winning UCD students from Team Peak Consulting were Jessica Olvera, Vasanth Rajasekar, and Chantelle Stevenson. The three students take home final's grand prize of $3,000 - and $4,500 in total - for winning the case study competition.

The three final teams were tasked this year with evaluating and presenting a successful launch and business strategy for the upcoming NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming TV service from the point of view of the case protagonist, Matt Bond, Chairman of Content Distribution for NBCUniversal. Judging the competition were Jana Henthorn, President and CEO, The Cable Center, Bob James, VP, Content & Acquisitions, NBCUniversal, and Roger Seiken, SVP of Programming, WOW.

The RMCA's Cable Apprentice leverages the great talent from the existing education base in the Greater Denver/Front Range with the wide collection of pay TV operators, programmers, consultants and vendors in the region. Started in 2007, the annual RMCA Cable Apprentice event gives graduate business students real-life, pay TV business case studies for intensive research and analysis. This is the first year the "Cable Apprentice" has been opened up to competing schools after DU previously competed exclusively in the popular competition.

In addition to the grand prize total of $4,500 ($1,500 to each of the final teams), each member of the winning team will have a preferred opportunity for a local paid cable industry internship. Previous hiring companies included Charter Communications, Comcast, Sand Cherry Associates and STARZ. Since its inception, many "Cable Apprentice" competitors have secured permanent jobs at area pay TV industry companies following successful internships.

The Rocky Mountain Cable Association