A Few MBK Early Season Event Notes for 2015-16

* Thanks to Jeff Wirth on this one.  The 2K Sports Classic is moving to a Friday-Sunday event, at least for 2015.  Jeff found that one of Billy Joel's concerts is scheduled for Thursday 11/19/15.  My guess is that the need for exclusive use of the facility for setup & tear down means that MSG was unavailable to host the basketball event on Wednesday 11/18.  It might also mean that St. John's, if they were to host a game in the Gavitt Tipoff series, would be locked into a game on Tuesday 11/17 if they were to host a game at MSG instead of at Carnesecca Arena.

The times on Friday (5pm start) still allow for a football game on ESPN2 at 9:30pm (more likely than ESPN I believe due to NBA) and the Sunday start at 1pm might indicate that ESPN will show the championship round after Sunday NFL Countdown, assuming ESPN2 carries the Hall of Fame Tipoff games, along with games from their Charleston & Puerto Rico events airing over ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.

* Sports Business Journal reports that FOX Sports will take over additional duties for the Las Vegas Classic & Las Vegas Invitational early season MBK events, including team selection.  Per Blogging The Bracket, six of the eight "host" spots for these are filled.

I would be curious to know if FOX:

• is looking to expand these events to an eight team tournament or will stay with the four hosts, which can be more palatable for the host teams.
• was involved in team selection for 2015
• is interested in moving the dates of these events around.  The Las Vegas Invitational was slotted on Thanksgiving & Black Friday with the Thanksgiving games scheduled as bookends for the TCU at Texas football game.
• With that said, there is no guarantee that FOX Sports 1 will have a college football game on Thanksgiving.

* Admittedly, I didn't pay much attention to this either, but the Cincinnati at USF football game on Friday 11/20 may be waiting for CBS Sports Network to work with the organizers of the Paradise Jam event to determine which games will be available for them to air.  Last year, CBSSN carried two games at 4pm & 6:30pm with a Mountain West football game at 9:30pm.  If CBSSN is still the rights holder for the event (I am checking with the tournament organizers), the basketball event times might shift slightly to get to an 8pm ET start for the football game or the football game could be slotted to start right at 8:30pm ET.