Friday, April 26, 2013

Quick TV Schedule Notes From the Past Week (4/19/13 - 4/26/13)

* I thought there was still a slight chance that NBC Sports Network would still end up with some MWC games, particularly after seeing NBCSN's English Premier League plans where most games on their network on Saturday would air before noon ET and, at least with what was announced, no replays/tape delayed airings of games on Saturdays.  CBS Sports Network ended that speculation on their side by taking 21 of their 22 possible games.  They also happened to take the vast majority of these games (17) as Saturday games.  I don't expect ESPN to sublicense any of their MWC content.

* Is there a 22nd CBS Sports Network game?  Possibly.  I am checking with the conference regarding the status of the conference championship game.  CBS Sports Network had the first crack at negotiating to carry the game.  It could be considered the 22nd game.

* CBS Sports Network didn't select the Rutgers-Fresno St. game and neither did ESPN.  I would guess that ESPN will be picking it up, probably for ESPNU.   I don't know if there is interest on either side on moving the game to Friday or Saturday, or if ESPN is trying to move other games to Thursday or Friday to match up with this game on ESPNU.

* The MWC contracts with ESPN and CBS Sports Network allows for ESPN to trade the rights to one Boise St. home game in exchange for a MWC-controlled Boise St. road game.  Boise St.'s home game with Nevada ended up on CBSSN and it appears ESPN traded for the BSU road game at Fresno St.

* So far, Hawai'i has four national telecasts, all on CBS Sports Network.  Three as part of the MWC schedule and the road game at Navy.  If it is true that Hawai'i receives no monetary compensation as part of the MWC television deal, but is allowed to retain its local PPV deal which requires four telecasts, they have at least seven available games right now.  ESPN could certainly take another game or two if they desire.

* For "bonus" revenue purposes, both Boise St. and San Jose St. so far have each earned an immediate $600K out of the MWC TV revenue.  Boise St. is guaranteed at least three ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC appearances through the MWC every year and one of those appearances looks like it will be on a Saturday unless another MWC controlled BSU game is moved to a weeknight by ESPN, so their minimum of "bonus" revenue is $1.1 million.  Air Force, Fresno St., San Diego St., Nevada and Utah St. each earned $300K off the top.  Assuming a pool of $20 million in television revenue for 2013, currently $3.2 million is earnmarked for bonuses, with the remaining $16.8 million currently as the amount to be shared equally amount 11 teams.  Again, this assumes Hawai'i is not a party to the television contract and keeps its PPV money instead.

Boise St., for the new payout system, would take home approximately $2.643 million in TV money.  San Jose St. would earn $2.127 million.  The five teams with one national appearance would receive $1.827 million each and the other four teams without a qualifying bonus TV appearance would each earn $1.527 million

* After looking over the available slots for CBS Sports Network, there should be at least 13-18 Conference USA games on the network.   That assumes three things:

  • All open mid-afternoon & primetime go to C-USA
  • 2-3 of the weeknight games end up with CBS Sports Network with the other going to FOX Sports 1
  • Maybe 1-2 noon EST kickoffs
* NBC announced a shiny new TV deal with Notre Dame, the first time the two entities have contracted with each other beyond a five year term.  NBC Sports Network will now end up with select games.  The previous deal allowed games to be moved to pay TV, but didn't specify the network and didn't allow NBC to guarantee that a game would air on cable.

Three days later, the ACC announced their grant of rights for the remainder of their TV deal.  Particularly with the football scheduling agreement ND has with the conference, it is protection for both sides, even if ND isn't committing the biggest piece of their pie to the deal. ND gets the peace of mind of knowing that the schools currently in the ACC should be around through the remainder of this current TV deal to help them with football scheduling.  The grant of rights keeps ND tied to the conference as each football playing ACC member stands to make close to $20 million per year from ESPN, up from slightly over $17.1 million per year, per school.

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