Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Way too early Week 2 CFB TV Schedule Guess

Considered the following items:
  • Last year ESPN did not air a Thursday night game for the 2nd week of the season.  They elected to air the US Open tennis event on both ESPN and ESPN2.  Also, this is the opening night of the NFL season.
  • For motorsports conflicts, there are the following
    • NASCAR Sprint Cup race on Saturday night on ABC
    • NASCAR Nationwide race on Friday night on either ESPN or ESPN2
  • FOX has two MLB telecast windows.  FOX has confirmed a 1pm window on their broadcast network and a 4pm window on FS1.
  • Virginia Tech at Ohio St. and Michigan St. at Oregon were both moved at the request of ESPN to this date.  Virginia Tech-Ohio St. for a time before 3:30pm ET and Michigan St.-Oregon was guaranteed not to be a night game out on the west coast.
  • There could be conference games involving teams from the American that are waiting for a schedule release.
Thursday
7:30pm FS1: Arizona at UTSA

This game was moved along with UNLV-Arizona.  I'm playing a hunch that FOX was the one that requested both games be moved with the intention of televising both of them.

Friday
7pm CBSSN: Navy at Temple
8pm ESPN/ESPN2: Pittsburgh at Boston College (game confirmed)

Playing another hunch on moving Navy-Temple.  No insight or advance knowledge.  Just comparing against other American games that weekend.

Saturday
12pm ESPN: Oklahoma at Tulsa
12pm ESPN2: Akron at Penn St.
12pm ESPNU: San Jose St. at Auburn
12pm FS1: Kansas St. at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNEWS: Missouri at Toledo
12pm FSN: Northwestern St. at Baylor (Big 12 institutional)
12pm CBSSN: Buffalo at Army
12pm BTN: Central Michigan at Purdue
12pm BTN: McNeese St. at Nebraska
12pm BTN: Middle Tennessee at Minnesota
12pm SEC Network: Eastern Michigan at Florida
12pm SEC Network: Nicholls St. at Arkansas
12pm ROOT Pittsburgh: Towson at West Virginia (Big 12 institutional)
12:30pm ACC Network: Old Dominion at NC State
12:30pm ACC RSNs: The Citadel at Florida St.
3pm Pac-12: Sacramento St. at California
3pm Pac-12: Fresno St. at Utah
3:30pm ABC: Virginia Tech at Ohio St.
3:30pm ESPN2: Georgia Tech at Tulane
3:30pm ESPNU: San Diego St. at North Carolina
3:30pm CBSSN: Washington St. at Nevada
3:30pm FSN: Missouri St. at Oklahoma St. (Big 12 institutional)
3:30pm BTN: Ball St. at Iowa
3:30pm BTN: Western Illinois at Wisconsin
3:30pm BTN: Western Kentucky at Illinois
3:30pm SEC Network: UAB at Mississippi St.
3:30pm SEC Network: Ohio at Kentucky
4pm ESPNEWS: Maryland at USF
4:30pm ESPN: FAU at Alabama
7pm FOX: BYU at Texas
7pm ESPN2: Ole Miss at Vanderbilt
7pm ESPNU: East Carolina at South Carolina
7pm CBSSN: SMU at North Texas
7pm SEC Network: Arkansas St. at Tennessee
7pm SEC Network: Sam Houston St. at LSU
7pm Jayhawk Network: Southeast Missouri St. at Kansas (Big 12 institutional)
7:15pm FS1: Texas Tech at UTEP
7:30pm NBC: Michigan at Notre Dame (confirmed)
7:30pm SEC/FSN: Lamar at Texas A&M
8pm ESPN: Michigan St. at Oregon
8pm BTN: Northern Illinois at Northwestern
8pm BTN: Howard at Rutgers
10:30pm ESPN2: Colorado St. at Boise St.
10:30pm FS1: USC at Stanford
10:30pm ESPNU: Arizona St. at New Mexico
10:30pm CBSSN: Oregon St. at Hawai'i
10:30pm Pac-12: Eastern Washington at Washington
10:30pm Pac-12: Memphis at UCLA

Eleven SEC games in their own telecasts windows would really make this a mess.  But I've heard that the network will have overflow feeds available as needed to fit multiple games into a single TV window.

If ESPN televises Michigan St.-Oregon, I think it keeps USC-Stanford off FOX broadcast network and onto FS1 and forces FOX into choosing a Big 12 game.  BYU-Texas seems to be more attractive compared to Kansas St.-Iowa St.  I know that ESPN likes to take BYU road games whenever possible, but sometimes they fall to other entities, like last year's game at Utah St.

The NFL schedule isn't out yet for 2014, but I believe that Minnesota's games will be early afternoon games whenever possible as TCF Bank Stadium will need to be converted over for Vikings games.

The MWC schedule made things more interesting.  ESPN has rights to all Boise St. home games and there are four decent non-conference choices.

6 comments:

bigddan11 said...

Um, how would Lamar at Texas A&M air on SEC on FSN when SEC Network is supposed to absorb SEC TV, SEC on FSN, and the third-tier rights?

Matt Sarzyniak said...

Great question. The ESPN sublicense with Comcast ends in 2014, but the FSN sublicense was one year longer. ESPN allegedly has decided to let the contract expire instead of buying the content for one year. Heard that from John Ourand of Sports Business Journal.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

To be clear, the Comcast sublicense expires in June '14. FOX in June '15.

Howard Salwasser said...

On the Gophers-Vikings conflicts, I don't expect a lot of conflicts between the two tenants, because the NFL can use December to put some Vikings home games.

Chris said...

Maybe Boise State can take the slot of those late Pac 12 starts for ESPN then. That would be a good thing.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

They and the MW as a whole could probably take a few. The late starts for the Pac-12 was going to be a regular thing with ESPN. Where it got out of hand for them was with FOX because games that used to start at 4pm ET on F/X became more 10-10:30pm ET.