Updates from this week, 4/9/12 - 4/13/12

* The news came down Monday that FOX will have college football on a weekly basis in primetime on the east coast, with the exception of October 27th where the World Series takes priority.  According to comments in the blog article previous to this one, FOX will have a game that day in the afternoon and they'll also have a game on Black Friday during the day.

Broadcasting & Cable says it will be 12 Pac-12 games in primetime.  FOX's own release is generic, saying simply "college football".  There's been some smoke regarding FOX being allowed to show some Big 12 games on the broadcast network, and that would be a good reason for FOX to be generic in their release.  According to the release when FOX signed their deal with the Pac-12, it was for eight games on FOX and 14 on F/X.  Unless the conference allowed the terms to be altered, I buy into the reports that the FOX games will be from more than just the Pac-12.

And yes,  C-USA can have games on FOX.  That isn't something I expect to see, at least not more than 1-2 games early in the year.

* Reached out to the Pac-12 office regarding when they expect to announce early television selections.  Have been told that they are working that out with ESPN and FOX, but that June 1st seems to be the target date. Based on the news that FOX's broadcast games will be in primetime, we can assume the five midseason weeknight games will be on cable and since those dates are still open on ESPN, it feels rather safe to assume that those games will be part of ESPN's twenty Pac-12 telecasts.

* Also reached out to the Mountain West offices regarding their television situation now that the mtn. is ending shortly.  The response I received was that rightsholders (in plural) and league presidents are working on the television arrangements for 2012-13.  Not just for football but all sports.  That tells me that CBS Sports Network and another party, likely NBC Sports Network, is working to try to add as many MW events as reasonably possible.  Also likely working through what happens to the events that the rightsholders do not pick up.

* Big East basketball rights should come up for exclusive negotiation with ESPN soon, if they haven't already.  The contracts for football and basketball are not synched up in terms of their endpoint.  When the conference elected to stay with ESPN last time, football was extended though it had two full years to go. Keep a watchful eye on what the conference does.  For their sake, unless they get an offer from ESPN that knocks their socks off to the point that it makes no sense to go on the open market, I hope that the conference negotiates each sport separately, but also tries to sync up the length on both so that they can take all deals to the market at the same time in the future.