Sunday, September 24, 2017

CFB TV Facts, Figures and Speculation for September

Some notable items when it comes to TV selections for future weeks.  I'll do another one of these in a couple weeks at the midpoint of the season and again after selections are finalized for October 28th.

American
* Including the conference championship game, 19 games have been scheduled to air on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU out of a required 28 games.
* 14 games are scheduled to air as ESPN3 exclusives or on local/regional TV.  Assuming no other games air on ESPN3 or local/regional TV (I'm unsure that will hold up), 82% of games would air on national TV.

Big 12
* ESPN has made seven of its 23 selections.  Two of the six have been placed on ESPNU, which is limited to 4-5 games per season.
* FOX is required to air at least three more Big 12 games (six for the season) on their broadcast network.
* Overall, ESPN & FOX Sports have combined to air 12 games on ABC, FOX, ESPN, ESPN2 and FS1.  The two TV partners must combine to air 25 games, which includes reverse mirror telecasts.  This count includes Tulsa at Oklahoma St., which is allowed to count here even though it was Oklahoma St.'s member retained game, per those with knowledge of the game's classification against the current TV deals.
* COMPLETE SPECULATION: Assuming priority of broadcast television over pay TV and primetime vs. mid-afternoon (with some exceptions), I believe the following TV partners had top choice in September:
  • 9/2: FOX Sports (UTEP-Oklahoma)
  • 9/9: ESPN (Iowa-Iowa St.)
  • 9/16: ESPN (SMU-TCU)
  • 9/23: ESPN (TCU-Oklahoma St.)
  • 9/30: FOX Sports (Oklahoma St.-Texas Tech)
Big Ten
* If weeknight primetime games count towards the number of primetime games FOX Sports and ESPN are allowed to carry, FOX Sports has five scheduled so far and ESPN has four.  If weeknight games are excluded, each partner has carried two Saturday night games.
* Purdue has yet to be scheduled on BTN.
* Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio St., Rutgers, Penn St. have completed all required appearances on BTN, which are two games with at least one of the two being an intraconference game.
* FOX Sports has used 14 selections so far and ESPN has used 12.  Both are expected to use the maximum of 27 selections.
COMPLETE SPECULATION: Assuming priority of broadcast television over pay TV and primetime vs. mid-afternoon (with some exceptions), I believe the following TV partners had top  choice in September:
  • 9/2: ESPN (Ohio St.-Indiana)
  • 9/9: ESPN (Oklahoma-Ohio St.)
  • 9/16: FOX Sports (Army-Ohio St.)
  • 9/23: FOX Sports (Notre Dame-Michigan St. by virtue of being selected in the spring)
  • 9/30: ESPN (Northwestern-Wisconsin)
Pac-12
* Both FOX and ABC are required to air one more Pac-12 game in primetime on the east coast.  FOX is also required to air four more Pac-12 games in total.  ABC's required primetime game will fulfill their requirement to air Pac-12 football.
* ESPN has scheduled half of their required 22 Pac-12 games.  FOX Sports has used 12 of their 22 picks
* Arizona St., Colorado, Oregon, Oregon St., Stanford, Washington, Washington St. are allowed to be selected by either ESPN or FOX Sports for the rest of the season.  These schools will have a maximum of nine appearances on those two networks due to other games already selected for Pac-12 Networks.  The other five Pac-12 schools must appear once more each on Pac-12 Networks.
COMPLETE SPECULATION: Assuming priority of broadcast television over pay TV and primetime vs. mid-afternoon (with some exceptions), I believe the following TV partners had top  choice in September:
  • 9/2: FOX Sports (Texas A&M-UCLA)
  • 9/9: FOX Sports (Stanford-USC)
  • 9/16: FOX Sports (Texas-USC)
  • 9/23: ESPN (USC-California)
  • 9/30: ESPN (Colorado-UCLA)
    • I could be swayed to FOX Sports selecting California-Oregon ahead of this one.
SEC
* Georgia, Tennessee and Florida have each been scheduled for two CBS games that count towards the maximum five appearances.  This rule is flexible where a school could get a sixth appearance.
* Arkansas's appearance vs. TCU was sublicensed from ESPN.  Only the scheduled Black Friday game vs. Missouri counts.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

In the Pac-12, is there a chance that Washington State-USC on ESPN was a top choice?

Matt Sarzyniak said...

I was trying to focus this in the area of Saturday selections only. I suppose it is possible. These games were already on weeknights when the Pac-12 schedule was released publicly. I do think those games are set aside with a specific TV partner in mind though.