Sunday, July 25, 2010

Quick Hits

  • Conference USA recently re-signed with CBS College Sports for another five years. The press release itself doesn't really mention if CBSC gained any rights and from what I've been able to gather, CBSC didn't gain any expanded rights. ESPN is continuing to negotiate with the conference and it's expected that a new deal with the conference could be completed before the season starts. The ESPN deal is expected to mirror its existing deal (1st choice of 10 C-USA FB games and 5-8 MBK games). I will monitor the C-USA media day today and report back if there is indeed any changes.

  • At the very end of this article, it notes that Arizona is petitioning the PAC-10 and FSN to air its games vs. The Citadel and California on Fox Sports Arizona. The reason for this is because Arizona (along with Arizona St.) prefers to play its early season home games at night due to the extreme temperatures. FSN and the PAC-10 have to rule on the exemption because because FSN has national windows on both of those dates.

    The interesting part is that Arizona St. will be featured in both of the same game times on FS Arizona. One game appears to be due to the two entities granting ASU an exemption (vs. Northern Arizona on 9/11, same date as Citadel game). The 2nd exemption would have to be granted against ASU's national appearance vs. Oregon (same date as UA's game vs. California)

  • Now that the SEC has announced its schedule of secondary national, regional and PPV games, what is left to be announced for opening weekend? Very little. Only games I could see being televised is a Big East Network regional telecast of the Stony Brook-USF game and a Comcast produced telecast of the UC-Davis vs. California game. For the 1st three weeks, we appear to be 95% complete, with the exception of game affiliates & coverage maps. Head over to my site for more details.

2 comments:

jason202 said...

Have you heard whether or not the Big East Network football Games of the Week and regional broadcasts will be in HD this season? They finally started producing some of the basketball games in HD last season, so I'm hoping this carries over to football.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

I have not heard anything from ESPN Regional TV about that. I will try to find out that information.