Schedule
ESPN covers the majority of college basketball on television during the regular season, but not every conference places its games on their networks. Because ESPN puts out a stellar press release for their offerings, we'll give a plug to the others who bring you your hoops fix, particularly CBS who brings you the NCAA tournament along with Turner Sports.
CBS will continue to span the college basketball globe, if you will, with 42 games and the majority from SEC, Big East and Big Ten arenas. One change from prior seasons is that CBS will not have any regular season games from ACC arenas due to ESPN owning all rights to the conference and electing not to sublicense any games. CBS will have have five conference championship games (Atlantic 10, Big Ten, Conference USA, Missouri Valley and Pac-12), though this will be the final season they will carry the Pac-12 final as that will rotate rightsholders between ESPN and FOX Sports.
Note that the C-USA final is now a FOX property that will continue to be sublicensed. The MVC and Atlantic 10 finals are also sublicenses, but from ESPN.
CBS Sports Network will carry 75 games from the Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Mountain West and Patriot League plus three neutral site events. The network will carry its first conference championship game as it now has the rights to the Patriot League championship.
FOX Sports Networks has at least 68 games on its docket. 56 games from the Pac-12, including the majority of the Pac-12 tournament, 10 games from Conference USA as part of their new TV contract and at least one neutral site event. The Pac-12 will see an increased presence on Sundays in '11-'12 as they appear to have replaced the ACC Sunday Night Hoops package. Not listed, yet, in the FSN schedule is the Paradise Jam event from the Virgin Islands which they've televised in previous years. That one I expect to add to the schedule.
NBC Sports Network will have eight MWC games, one each Saturday at 4pm ET starting on January 14th with the exception of January 21st when CBS has a MWC game. NBCSN will again carry the MWC final.
Technically BYUtv isn't an ESPN Network. They have 15 BYU men's basketball games (7 to 10 more games are expected to be added), 7 BYU Women's Basketball games (8 more are expected to be added), and 9 BYU-Hawai'i men's basketball games, so 31 games are confirmed and an additional 25 games could be added.
ReplyDeleteRoot Sports Northwest will be providing Gonzaga home games that aren't on ESPN's Networks.
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ReplyDeleteThanks. I didn't include BYUtv because its covering one team's games (as I mentioned to you I don't include D-II, D-III or NAIA games, nor women's games). Also ROOT Sports NW isn't a national network as most people need to purchase an out-of-market sports package to see the channel.
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