Some items related to Big Ten & American TV schedule alterations

Sometimes these blog posts are just a regurgitation of tweets with a little extra info.  Stop if you've felt like you've read this before

* Big Ten Network night games should be announced next week and kickoff times for their homecoming games should follow in the next month.  I believe the goal of the conference is to have each team showcased once in primetime, but that does not mean that they will host a primetime game.  Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue and Rutgers should each appear in Saturday night games on BTN.

As for homecoming, here are the dates for all Big Ten schools.  ESPN did not select any of the homecoming dates to be moved to primetime.  BTN certainly could and ESPN could end up moving a few of these to 3:30pm and put them on ABC or one of the ESPN platforms.

Illinois - 10/25 vs. Minnesota
Indiana - 10/18 vs. Michigan St.
Iowa - 10/11 vs. Indiana
Maryland - 10/18 vs. Iowa
Michigan - 11/1 vs. Indiana
Michigan St. - 9/27 vs. Wyoming
Minnesota - 10/18 vs. Purdue
Nebraska - 9/27 vs. Illinois
Northwestern - 10/18 vs. Nebraska
Ohio St. - 10/18 vs. Rutgers
Penn St. - 9/27 vs. Northwestern
Purdue - 9/27 vs. Iowa
Rutgers - 11/1 vs. Wisconsin
Wisconsin - 10/25 vs. Maryland

After these get moved, the first three weeks' kickoff times for Big Ten controlled games tend to come out.  Sometimes the first three weeks' come out first before the homecoming games.  Either way, homecoming kickoff times will be set in advance of the season.

* One interesting item centers around the announcement of the Virginia Tech-Ohio St. game as a night game on 9/6. ESPN requested the Michigan St.-Oregon game to move from 9/13 to 9/6 with the guarantee that it wouldn't be a night game and that it would be on national television.

Now that VT-OSU is the primetime game on ESPN, coupled with the stipulations mentioned above and that NASCAR is on ABC that evening, I think it puts the MSU-UO game in the 3:30pm time slot on ABC or maybe a 4:30pm slot before VT-OSU on ESPN.  Either way, it frees up FOX to take the USC-Stanford game on 9/6 as their primetime game.  If MSU-UO were to have aired on ESPN in primetime, I don't believe FOX could have aired USC-Stanford at the same time.  The windows on ABC and FOX has been provided a level of exclusivity with respect to other Pac-12 games, though there seem to be exceptions to this.

Pac-12 TV window exclusivity, coupled with an abundance of night games, has been a hot topic for the conference and its TV partners.  Jon Wilner recently wrote about it for Bay Area Media Group.

* With the move of two Houston home games to Friday nights, the American will have at least 10 televised football on Fridays in 2014.  They also have three games scheduled for Black Friday and they will probably be slotted for a television network.

Tulane at Tulsa was also moved to Thursday night 8/28 and unlike the two Houston games, it did not have a kickoff time or television assignment announced.  CBS Sports Network is a TV partner for the American via a sublicense agreement with ESPN and could be the television outlet for the game if ESPN isn't looking to televise the game at some odd hour or on ESPNEWS.  Tulsa has had home games kick off at 9pm or later in the past for television (9/17/11 vs. Oklahoma St. on FSN, 9/1/05 vs. Minnesota on ESPN2).

The reason I think CBSSN is the outlet is because it wasn't announced today and CBSSN has other moving parts in place for its television schedule, with around 20 more MW games to announce, at least 10 C-USA games (I really don't know how many they are carrying w/CSS out of the picture), 13-15 American games, 1-2 Patriot League games and Army & Navy kickoff times.