Monday, August 31, 2015

Recap post heading into CFB re: in-season selections & some MBK TV info

* For most Saturday games after week three (September 19th), game times will be set 12 days in advance.  Some will be set as late as six days in advance and the number of times a TV outlet can do this varies by conference.  Anywhere from two to four six day holds.

Network designations, as long as the kickoff time is set and, I believe, the network family isn't changing (ie. ESPN2 or ESPNU, FSN or FS1 or FOX), does not count towards a six day pick.

I'll continue to guess at the 12 day selections and occasionally the six day selections if they are available on Sundays mornings.  First of these you should see on 9/13 for the 9/26 games.  The announcements for the 9/26 games will come out during the day on 9/14 and come out whenever the conference and their TV partners are ready to announce them or when they've decided they want to see what happens on 9/19.

If you want to see what TV options are available, I keep a Google Docs spreadsheet of what has been set aside in media websites and published releases for each network.  I'll maintain it as best I can throughout the season.

* Some apps you may want to use to watch football games this year.  Check with your app store as to what is available to you:

  • WatchESPN
  • FOX Sports Go
  • NBC Sports Live Extra
  • BTN2Go
  • Pac-12 Now
  • Campus Insiders
    • Listing the following conference specific apps also built by SportsLabs
      • Mountain West
      • Patriot League
  • Southland Conference (for ASN telecasts)
  • (CBS) College Sports Live
  • BYU TV
Several websites, like CAA.TV, OVC Digital Network and NEC Front Row, are responsive and work well on phones and tablets.  

Each app/website varies with respect to use with Apple TV and Chromecast and may have costs associated with them or require you to authenticate with a pay TV provider.


Now for some quick recap items:

* ESPN has folded ESPN GamePlan & Full Court into a single package called ESPN College Extra, which you can read about here.  My TV provider is U-Verse and they will not be offering it in HD and I'm not sure if ESPN is offering it in HD, so if they are not and you thought this was going to be some sort of breakthrough, you may be disappointed.

EDIT:  Maybe its in HD after all: https://forums.att.com/t5/Features-and-How-To/ESPN-College-Extra/td-p/4301698

As for the cost of the package, please contact your pay TV provider.  U-Verse says they'll offer ti subscribers in select base packages plus those subscribing to their sports package.  From the providers listed in the release, or specifically not listed, Comcast/Xfinity, Cablevision and Dish may not be carrying it on September 5th.  Again, contact your pay TV provider.  They'll know.

* Game times and television outlets have been set for the Battle 4 Atlantis and Great Alaska Shootout and can be viewed here.

* The Mountain West released their men's basketball TV schedules for ESPN Networks, CBS Sports Network, ROOT Sports and the Campus Insiders produced games on Mountain West Network on Friday.  The games have been populated here from the release the conference issued.

* The Big Ten released the men's basketball conference schedule last Thursday.  No TV was set for that portion of the schedule but a few non-conference games did have TV set for them.  I've added them to the site.

* My expectation is that they we should see the ACC men's basketball conference schedules finalized and released this week.  Last year the ACC released them on 8/27, which was the day before the opening Thursday night of FBS football.  The Pac-12 might be in a few weeks.  The date ranges have been finalized but the schedule did not show up until 9/15/14.

Others that could appear soon include the Atlantic 10 (release date for last season: 8/27/14), American (8/28/14), Big East (9/9/14) and WCC (schedule finalized for most schools already, TV released on 9/2/14).

1 comment:

  1. From talking to a member of the USU AD, it seems like the MWC has increased requirements for schools to originate football broadcasts, specifically requiring HD broadcast equipment. This seems to be somewhat confirmed by the fact that all 4 non televised/streamed FBS games in week 1 are MWC home games. I like that the MW is trying to increase the quality of the product, but would rather have an SD stream than none at all. The USU AD basically said they don't have good enough cameras now, are trying to raise money for some, but could be a while. Hopefully the same requirement is not in place for MBB.

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