Updates on rights negotiations

Two sets of TV rights are being negotiated at this time. The ACC is the big one and Conference USA is also up for bid.

Its been reported that the ACC will move all its rights over to ESPN. The average viewer doesn't notice the difference, but Raycom was the men's basketball rightsholder and they sublicensed games to ESPN, FSN, CBS and other entities along with keeping a regional package for itself.

The good news is that the ACC got a lot more cash than most expected, including me. FOX was very interested in the rights and were willing to put games on FOX, F/X and FSN. And Raycom isn't out of the picture as they (and possibly FSN) will continue to broadcast ACC events by sublicensing those events from ESPN.

The ACC is now firmly positioned as the 3rd conference of the Big Six on ESPN. The Big Ten and SEC are nos. 1 & 2 and the ACC should be firmly in 3rd ahead of the Big East. If the ACC earned any more Saturday football games on ESPN/ESPN2, I believe its safe to say that the Big 12 will be looking to either remain with FSN and/or Versus or continue to move towards its own network (with or without the PAC-10) and open up all its broadcasting contracts. The PAC-10's calculated risk of more late night games to take advantage of the SEC as a lead in could push them over to ESPN and into position #4. After that, it depends how viable the Big East will be as a football conference in a couple years.

As for C-USA, no one expects to get a deal that would pay much more than 10% of what the ACC will get. But they may have the ability to continue the existing deals with ESPN and CBS College Sports. That would be a huge win for C-USA as ESPN doesn't have much interest in C-USA sports beyond the eleven football games and 4-6 men's basketball games. CBS College Sports would then retain the inventory.

PAC-10 Announces Partial TV Schedule

The PAC-10 schools announced a portion of their early season telecast list. Its a larger list than I've seen in the six seasons I've been tracking college sports. For the ABC/ESPN list, the 1st surprise is the number of preselected games (16 of 21 games). The other surprise is that over half of the games on ABC/ESPN are on ESPN, where in the past 60%-70% of the games were on ABC. And several of the games that ABC could take may still air on ESPN. Its possible that 70% of the ABC/ESPN games could end up being ESPN games.

I think the 21st window may be the TCU vs. Oregon St. game.

As a team-related aside, USC is involved in at least six of the seven ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 windows and already has ten of its twelve games assigned to a network & time slot.

A second surprise was an abbreviated list of FSN games. These games tend not to appear until June 1st along with the Versus games. No Versus games were selected today. Its expected that Versus will have their selection on June 1st.

PAC-10 associate commissioner Duane Lindberg has also provided me the list of the other five 12-day/6-day windows.

Here's the list. All times Eastern

ABC
9/18 Nebraska at Washingon, 3:30pm
10/9 USC at Stanford, 8pm
10/23 12-Day Window, 3:30pm
10/30 Oregon at USC, 8pm
11/6 12-Day Window, 3:30pm
12/4 12-Day Window, 3:30pm

ABC, ESPN or ESPN2
10/2 Washington at USC, 8pm
11/13 USC at Arizona, 8pm
11/20 Oregon St. at USC, 8pm
11/27 Notre Dame at USC, 8pm

ESPN/ESPN2
9/4 TCU vs. Oregon St. @Arlington, 7:45pm ESPN
9/11 Stanford at UCLA, 10:30pm ESPN
9/18 Iowa at Arizona, 10:30pm ESPN
9/18 Wake Forest at Stanford, 11:15pm ESPN2
10/2 Stanford at Oregon, 11:15pm ESPN
10/16 12-Day Window (Oregon St. at Washington OR Arizona at Washington St.), 10:15pm ESPN
10/21 UCLA at Oregon, 9pm ESPN
11/6 12-Day Window, 10:15pm ESPN
11/18 UCLA at Washington, 8pm ESPN
11/26 Arizona at Oregon, 7pm ESPN
12/2 Arizona St. at Arizona, 8pm ESPN

FSN
9/11 Colorado at California, 3:30pm
9/11 Virginia at USC, 10:30pm
9/18 Houston at UCLA, 10:30pm
9/25 Oregon at Arizona St., 10:30pm
10/16 California at USC, 3:30pm
11/20 Stanford at California, 3:30pm
11/26 UCLA at Arizona St., 3:30pm

Four OOC road games involving PAC-10 teams were also selected today.

9/4 UCLA at Kansas St., 3:30pm ABC
9/11 Oregon at Tennessee, 4:30pm ESPN
9/18 Arizona St. at Wisconsin, 3:30pm ABC/ESPN2 (reverse mirror)
9/18 USC at Minnesota, 3:30pm ESPN

PAC-10 FB Window Guesses

ABC comes out with their telecast window and early season selections on Monday for the PAC-10. The PAC-10 is the one conference that requires all national telecast windows be designated before the season starts.

9/4 TCU vs. Oregon St., 7:45pm ESPN (confirmed)
9/11 Stanford at UCLA, 3:30pm ABC (confirmed as network selection)
9/18 Nebraska at Washington, 3:30pm ABC
9/25 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm ABC
10/2 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm ABC
10/9 USC at Stanford, 3:30pm ABC
10/9 UCLA at California, 8pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
10/16 California at USC, 3:30pm ABC
10/21 UCLA at Oregon, 9pm ESPN (confirmed)
10/23 -- DARK --
10/30 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm ABC
10/30 Oregon at USC, 8pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
11/6 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm
11/13 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm ABC
11/13 USC at Arizona, 8pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
11/18 UCLA at Washington, 8pm ESPN (confirmed)
11/20 -- DARK --
11/26 Arizona at Oregon OR UCLA at Arizona St., 7pm ESPN2 (network window confirmed)
11/27 12-Day Pick, 3:30pm ABC
11/27 Notre Dame at USC, 8pm ABC
12/2 Arizona St. at Arizona, 8pm ESPN (confirmed)
12/4 USC at UCLA, 3:30pm ABC

We'll post the official list, when available here and on Twitter. The weeks listed as dark, IMO, will be weeks where FSN gets an early afternoon telecast window. Note that on 10/16 that there is a NASCAR race on ABC at night and only the 3:30pm window will likely be used.