Saturday, April 30, 2016

Notes from Mountain West 2016 CFB TV Releases

Mountain West controlled TV schedule

* 29 Games are available for ROOT Sports and Campus Insiders to form their game packages.  After that, both CBSSN and ESPN can come back and choose two more games each if they want.  In 2015, Tulsa at New Mexico on ESPN3 was the only choice made after ROOT Sports and CI chose their league-wide packages.

* Eight Hawai'i games are available for their Oceanic Cable pay-per-view package:

9/10 vs. UT Martin
10/1 vs. Nevada
10/8 at San Jose St.
10/15 vs. UNLV
10/22 at Air Force
10/29 vs. New Mexico
11/19 at Fresno St.
11/26 vs. Massachusetts

Last year, ROOT and Oceanic Cable provided separate productions of Hawai'i's road game at New Mexico, so I think its reasonable to believe that the road game at Air Force could end up on ROOT & be a PPV game on the islands.  The other seven should be PPV exclusive with the webcast of the game on Campus Insiders for the mainland.  That leads me to...

* So which games are likely to air on ROOT Sports and Campus Insiders, specifically Campus Insiders produced vs. school productions?  Here's what I'm thinking.  Note that some schools could not or elected to not produce their own webcasts last season, which is possible this year too:

Jackson St. at UNLV09/01/2016CI (School Produced)
Weber St. at Utah St.09/01/2016CI (School Produced)
Cal Poly at Nevada09/02/2016CI (School Produced)
New Hampshire at San Diego St.09/03/2016Campus Insiders
Abilene Christian at Air Force09/03/2016ROOT Sports
South Dakota at New Mexico09/03/2016CI (School Produced)
Georgia St. at Air Force09/10/2016ROOT Sports (RM only due to Mariners)
UTSA at Colorado St.09/10/2016Campus Insiders
Sacramento St. at Fresno St.09/10/2016CI (School Produced)
UT Martin at Hawai'i09/10/2016Oceanic PPV
Portland St. at San Jose St.09/10/2016CI (School Produced)
Northern Colorado at Colorado St.09/17/2016CI (School Produced)
Arkansas St. at Utah St.09/17/2016ROOT Sports
Buffalo at Nevada09/17/2016Campus Insiders
UC Davis at Wyoming09/17/2016CI (School Produced)
Idaho at UNLV09/24/2016Campus Insiders
San Jose St. at New Mexico10/01/2016Campus Insiders
Nevada at Hawai'i10/01/2016Oceanic PPV
Hawai'i at San Jose St.10/08/2016Oceanic PPV
Air Force at Wyoming10/08/2016ROOT Sports
UNLV at Hawai'i10/15/2016Oceanic PPV
UL-Monroe at New Mexico10/22/2016Campus Insiders
Hawai'i at Air Force10/22/2016ROOT Sports / Oceanic PPV
Colorado St. at UNLV10/22/2016Campus Insiders
New Mexico at Hawai'i10/29/2016Oceanic PPV
Fresno St. at Colorado St.11/05/2016ROOT Sports
Wyoming at UNLV11/12/2016ROOT Sports
Hawai'i at Fresno St.11/19/2016Oceanic PPV
Massachusetts at Hawai'i11/26/2016Oceanic PPV


* As a few of you noted. the Mountain West's Saturday schedule on CBSSN is slanted heavily toward games starting after 10pm ET / 8pm MT / 7pm PT.  For those of you who are fans of schools in the American & the MAC, plus potentially C-USA if their games remain with CBSSN, here's a look at the available TV windows.  

* CBSSN and ESPN did not trade any Mountain West controlled Boise St. football games.  They are allowed a swap of one game each.

* The CBSSN telecast of Boise St. at Hawai'i starting at 1pm HT / 4pm MT / 6pm ET on 11/12 seems odd, especially with an hour break until the next game (San Diego St. at Nevada).  I don't know if a mistake was made with respect to accounting for when Daylight Savings Time ends (Sunday 11/6) or if CBSSN plans to air something other than football once the Tulsa at Navy game ends, as Hawai'i does not observe DST.  There would be roughly 2.5 hours between the games, so its possible they would be showing a basketball game since it is in season at that point.

* The two hour break between the end of San Jose St. at Fresno St. & the start of Colorado St. at San Diego St. on 11/26 does follow a pattern that CBSSN employed last year.  At 7pm ET last year the championship of the Emerald Coast Classic aired and the championship of the Great Alaska Shootout aired following the 9pm ET start of Colorado St. at Fresno St. in 2015.  Expect the same again this season.

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