Quick hitters on the Bayou Classic, MBK events and MVC on CBS & CBSSN

Some random stuff, quick hits, etc.

* As mentioned in a previous post, the Missouri Valley Conference and ESPN struck a new rights agreement.  One of the items that caught my eye was that ESPN retained the rights to the men's basketball conference tournament semifinals, since they had aired on the MVC TV Network previously, along with the championship game.

Now we have a home for the semifinals: CBS Sports Network.  The semifinals along with eight regular season men's basketball games will air on CBSSN and CBS will remain as the home of the tournament championship game.  CBS had aired the championship for ten years and the 2016 game would have been the last game under an existing sublicense agreement.

The semifinals will air on CBSSN starting this year.  ESPN currently sublicenses events from the American, MAC and MVC to CBSSN.  CBSSN also has a sublicense with FOX for Big East content.

My expectation is that the regular season games on CBSSN will be in addition to games on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU and not that games will be moving from ESPN outlets over to CBSSN.

* Also, as part of the MVC-ESPN rights agreement, local & regional television agreements, including the MVC TV Network that has aired on regional sports networks will be retained per the teleconference announcing the agreement.  As for the ESPN3 production equipment rollout, I do not know how quickly that will happen, but Southern Illinois appears to be one of the schools getting their equipment soon based on the TV outlet for their home non-conference men's basketball schedule.  Indiana St. will also show games on ESPN3 this year and is looking for students to help out.


* The Maui Invitational and Paradise Jam television schedules have been released, at least most of the schedule for Maui as the game times for 11/25 are to be determined.  Game times for the Paradise Jam have been adjusted from the original bracket to account for CBSSN airing a football game on the evening of November 20th.

* When the SWAC released their TV schedule, they originally had a graphic that had the Bayou Classic game (Grambling vs. Southern) on NBC with a start time of 7pm ET and I found that a bit odd.  Southern had noted a few months back that the game had moved to a 3pm ET start.  So when I asked the SWAC's twitter account the time, another interesting tidbit was provided.

It's TBD until the NBC family of networks decides which platform will carry it. Thank you @mattsarz

— The SWAC (@theswac) July 21, 2015

Very good chance https://t.co/tRt5JyQs9g

— The SWAC (@theswac) July 21, 2015

For now, I'm expecting NBC or NBCSN to carry the championship round of the Barclays Center Classic event that day.  That day also has English Premier League matches & qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, though those two events would occur, mostly, during the morning hours.  But to read that the SWAC is expecting the game to move to NBCSN would break a run of 24 straight airings on broadcast TV, specifically NBC.

* The Ivy League TV schedule will include six games on NBCSN with five of the six on Friday nights.  Only "The Game" aka Harvard-Yale will be played on a Saturday on NBCSN.

* Credit to American Sports Network, who is taking up a lot of FCS telecasts alongside their largest package from C-USA.  Whether the Big Sky game (Northern Iowa at Cal Poly) is contracted through the conference or just through Cal Poly, I don't know, but for the sake of Cal Poly as the home team, I'm listed it as "Big Sky" for now.

The Ivy League, Big Sky (see above), OVC and Southland are new additions to ASN for football.  The Ivies and OVC had basketball games on ASN during the 2014-15 season.

Also, the Southland count includes five games that will be announced during the course of the season.

Big Sky	1
Big South	3
C-USA	30
CAA	9
Ivy League	7
OVC	6
Patriot League	2
SoCon	3
Southland	12