Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Appearances vs. Games In Basketball Contracts

There is some confusion out there regarding the current Big East extending their contract with CBS Sports to show men's basketball games on CBS broadcast network.  Both the Big East and CBS press releases note "up to 12 appearances".  12 appearances though do not equate to 12 games.

A conference game for the purpose of the contract counts as two appearances.  Further, CBS can count a team playing in a non-conference game, regardless of where it is played, as one appearance.  CBS isn't alone in phrasing contracts for basketball as appearances vs. games.  ESPN does this too as this press release with the WCC shows (see the part re: 48 appearances).

Anyways, here's how appearances broke down for the regular season (ie. not part of a conference tournament) on CBS.  Note that CBS sublicenses games from ESPN from ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 home arenas, so that muddles the numbers even further.  This was mangled here as well.

ACC - 6
A-10 - 4
Big 12 - 8
Big East - 13
Big Ten - 18
Pac-12 - 4
SEC - 13

Note the ACC appearance number of six matches what the Sporting News articles says with respect to games.

33 regular season games, 66 appearances.

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