Monday, May 11, 2015

Roundup: Spring meetings & TV, ASN & A-10, Cincy tipping early season TV?

* First off, several conferences have either already held or will hold their spring meetings over the next 2-3 weeks.  Off the top of my head, the Big 12, Pac-12, Mountain West and MAC had their meetings last week and I'm aware of the ACC and C-USA meetings this week.  TV announcements for early season games & weeknight games could be coming soon.  Here's a look at the announcements for this year so far, plus the announcements we're waiting for.

* C-USA's meetings should have an update on preliminary talks on their next set of TV contracts (CBSSN wasn't listed, but I'm unsure whether that's a big deal or not) and the ACC meetings will have another discussion on the potential for a full-time ACC Network.

* Nearly all BTN Saturday night games have start times assigned to them.  Ball St. at Northwestern is MIA at the moment, but the rest were set for 8pm start times.

* There was am interesting banner posted, since deleted by the Cincinnati Bearcats football Twitter account, showing every game of the 2015 season with TV designations.  Some of them were incorrect based on some assignments for weeknight games that have been announced, such as the BYU and USF games, and I thought it was a bit interesting to have every game set aside and television set for every game.  There weren't any start times on the banner either.

Anyways, the graphic has been deleted, but I wouldn't be surprised if the decisions made for the first three games were correct.  They were Alabama A&M (ESPN3), Temple (CBSSN) and at Miami (OH) (FOX Sports Ohio)

The Temple game would fit into an open slot on CBSSN at 12pm ET.  I assume a decision to air the Miami (OH) game on FSOhio is up to the MAC & ESPN, though I wouldn't be surprised to see that one end up on ESPN3 exclusively or on Time Warner Cable since they seem to be a preferred sublicense partner of the MAC.

* A couple weeks back, I was going over the possibilities of Rice at UTEP airing on FOX Sports 1 after the NASCAR trucks race on 11/6 and thought it might be doable depending on the end of the race.  What I missed was that the BYU at San Jose St. game starts at 11:30pm not 10:30pm ET, which would allow for the possibility of a doubleheader on CBSSN with the Rice at UTEP game starting at 8pm ET / 6pm MT.

* From what I'm hearing regarding the Atlantic 10, the larger American Sports Network package could be replacing / absorbing the following
  • ASN doubling its commitment from last year from six to twelve games
  • The Campus Insiders and regional TV package managed by SNY reverting to ASN, which was a combined 19 games last year.
That would get you to 31 games, one below the minimum of 32 games that ASN intends to televise.  But that would make sense as to why ASN is taking over the two first round games from the conference tournament which were part of the SNY regional TV package.

It is my understanding that there would be minimal affect to schools who have their own local TV packages, but that would depend on which games ASN chooses.  If they choose to gobble up more games from schools that have strong local TV packages like Dayton, Saint Louis, VCU, etc. instead of games from, say, Duquesne, then there may be a different effect.

* The Horizon League announced that they will partner with Olympia Entertainment to host their men's basketball conference tournament.  For two years it will be at Joe Louis Arena with the next three at the new arena being built in Detroit.  The date of the championship in 2016 will remain the Tuesday of "Championship Week" with a 7pm ET start on ESPN or ESPN2, but it is possible that the dates of the semifinals and the rest of the tournament could change now that the tournament is being helped at a single site.

No comments: