Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Site updates & expectations

Hi.  You might have been directed here by a friend online or stumbled across the college sports schedules site by some other means.  Wanted to give you a brief primer on how I tend to push updates to the schedule through the football season:

* Mondays (after September 8th) - This is the point as to when networks will set kickoff times twelve days in advance, sometimes as late as six days in advance.   I'll try to note this where I can on my Twitter timeline and at some point in the evening I'll post a more polished schedule.

* Tuesdays & Wednesday - I'll be working to finalize any RSN or affiliate lists.  You will usually find those links in the CoverageNotes section next to each game

* Wednesdays & Thursdays - If there is a coverage map released by ESPN, those will typically get released on Wednesdays or Thursdays before a game.  I'll add those to the CoverageNotes section

* Fridays - I try to shore up any links for streaming and any other coverage notes I missed.

* Saturdays - I'm not necessarily at home, nor can I solve your problem with ESPN, FOX, CBS, ESPN3 or (insert network here).  May I suggest you seek out the appropriate network on Twitter (you don't need an account) as they usually note channel changes, etc.

* Sundays - Any games where a network or kickoff time for the following Saturday should be set at some point during the day, if they were not set at some point on Saturday.  On Sundays, I also try to predict the network assignments that could come down on Monday based on available TV windows.

A few other items:

* If you email or tweet me, I may not get back to you right away.  For various reasons.  Could be that I don't know the answer.  Could be that your email isn't asking a question.  Could be that I have other things to do and don't have the time to respond.  Like you, I have a primary job & responsibilities.  Neither of them involve the schedules site or this blog.  Please don't feel slighted.

* This time of year (August-October) tends to have a lot of men's basketball scheduling announcements too.  I'll try to note those with MBK at the beginning or somewhere in the tweet.  Because there is more games involved with men's basketball, getting those games in takes a fair amount of time too.

* I want to be clear that I do not represent any network, their line of thinking or their preferences, real or perceived.

* I do not list announcers, nor do I have any real preferences around 99% of them.  Networks tend to post them at the beginning of the week on their press sites.  You can find those at ESPN Media Zone or the FOX Sports press site.

* Over the past couple years, I've taken the position not to cheerlead or promote any TV provider.  I believe that is a personal choice and if a cable, satellite or telco provider meets your needs, that's great.  And if they don't or they differ from mine or someone else's point of view, that's cool too.

* I rarely know when network X chose a game over network Y.  I really don't know selection orders anymore as the television landscape has changed a lot.  Plain & simple: the rules are not as hard & fast as they used to be.  Lots of grey areas.

* Same goes for blackout rules, unless the info is readily available online.  If something is not correct with a blackout, please contact your provider.

* Please do not ask me to predict a game's kickoff time more than 12 days in advance.  If you're asking me to predict the kickoff time for a game in November and its still August, that requires me to make far too many assumptions about available TV windows, team records, etc. that I'm not willing to do.

* This also goes for travelling to a game that does not yet have a kickoff time.  My suggestion is to not send that email or tweet, but book your travel to arrive early.

Please enjoy the season & good luck to your school.

4 comments:

Hokie Mark said...

Matt, you had me right up to this: " If you email or tweet me, I may not get back to you right away... Could be that I have other things to do..."

C'mon!

(Seriously, great job on both this blog and the mattsarzsports.com site!)

GC said...

Great job on the listings and blog!!!
Greg

Unknown said...

Matt:

Do you know if any of the American Sports Netwrok games will be syndicated to non Sinclair stations? I can't find anything via Googling or anything on the Sinclair web site, but you're far more plugged in than I am.

Thanks for the web site. I've been using it for years.

Matt Sarzyniak said...

Hi Jim. I know that COX Sports TV in New Orleans, the station that used to broadcast the Hornets games, will carry at least one ASN game and Altitude Sports has a SoCon game from ASN scheduled at the end of September. So I think they are working towards that.

I believe affiliate lists for ASN will be out mid-week.