Notes: Big Ten Homecoming, Arizona Bowl, Links to Previous Articles

* While we wait on finalization of the Big Ten TV contracts, here's the list of Big Ten homecoming games that have been set so far.  In the past, the start times were set for these in April or May, usually after night games were designated unless a homecoming game was moved to the evening.  I do not know if they will continue to have homecoming start times set in the spring.  Nearly all Big Ten stadiums will have permanent lights coming into the 2017 season due to the expiring TV contracts where primary networks (ie: ABC/ESPN) paid for temporary lights, so this process could be changing.

I was unable to find homecoming dates for Nebraska or Rutgers through the schools or other news reports.  I am currently connecting Ohio St.'s homecoming to this page about the Nursing major's events for homecoming.

9/23 - Michigan at Purdue, Rutgers at Nebraska
10/7 - Illinois at Iowa, Penn St. at Northwestern, Maryland at Ohio St.
10/14 - Michigan at Indiana
10/21 - Indiana at Michigan St., Illinois at Minnesota, Maryland at Wisconsin, Purdue at Rutgers
10/28 - Wisconsin at Illinois, Rutgers at Michigan, Indiana at Maryland
11/11 - Rutgers at Penn St.

FOX has their network upfront on 5/15 and ESPN has theirs the following day, so maybe those are the two dates to look out for.

* One of the items that may not have carried over as part of the Campus Insiders & ASN joint venture is the rights to the Arizona Bowl, which have been picked up by CBS Sports Network.  A few years back, it was thought that the game would end up on CBSSN, but never did.

An astute observation on the date of the game (December 30th):

@mattsarz What an interesting date they chose, same day as the Fiesta Bowl.

— Sean O'Leary (@stholeary) April 18, 2017

To be clear, the Fiesta Bowl organizing committee does also hold the license to the Cactus Bowl, but the Arizona Bowl is under its own operating committee.  With that said, the games will probably overlap in their timeslots as my expectation is the Fiesta will lead into the Orange Bowl, which has been scheduled for a primetime start.

* In the area of self-promotion:

• I wrote a piece on the remodeling of American Sports Network, which includes new backdrop programming from Campus Insiders and 120 Sports.
• Went through the exercise of guessing weeks zero through three again now that a handful of games have been set for TV
• Weeks Zero & One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• A breakdown of televised men's basketball games by conference.

Breakdown of D1 Men's Basketball on TV For 2016-17 By Conference

I've done this in prior seasons, skipped it last year and decided to bring it back for this year.  Here's a breakdown of men's basketball on TV by conference.  I broke the games down in the following categories:

• Broadcast network
• Pay TV
• Further breakdown by 80+ million, 60-80 million, 40-60 million & under 40 million subscribing homes using the February coverage estimates found at SportsTVRatings.com and data from WhatYouPayForSports.com for a few networks not rated by Nielsen.  Check both of those links if you want an idea where a pay TV network was classified
• Syndication & Regional Distribution
• Includes ASN, ACC Network, ACC RSNs, FSN, NBC RSNs, ROOT Sports

The TV rights are those contracted with the home school's conference, so BYU's home games on BYUtv are nowhere to be found here (add 13 to the 60-80 million column if you want to include them).  All counts include conference tournaments games that were televised.  

The reason syndication was set aside is that the number of viewers is often variable and I wasn't interested in calculating it on a game by game basis, hence it gets its own bucket.  The fact is the data in this column probably isn't as reliable as it could or should be because I am likely under reporting the number of games.   For example, the WCC count is solely their "Game Of The Week" when I could be adding in a lot of other games, but those other games could be contracted out by the schools with the telecasts regionally shared.  I just don't know enough in that area which is why I tried to stick to situations where a conference had entered into an agreement with an entity. An example of that would be the Big 12, who had about 16 institutionally held games distributed through FSN & several Texas games on Longhorn Network.

Anyways, here's the link.  Have fun.

Way Too Early CFB TV Guesses for Week Three For 2017, Take Two.

Took a final crack at Week Three.

If the game has both its time & TV network set (see link above), I'm not going to re-list it here.  If one of the two is missing, I'll list it since something is in doubt.  The links at the top of each week will have those games.  Also, I'm not going to list games that are scheduled for ESPN3, ACC Network Extra, Campus Insiders, CUSA.TV, etc. since the start times for those games are often set by the schools.

Only a handful of games have been changed from the original post in February and that post has some of the external event considerations and selection orders I considered.  If its in bold below, either the time or network changed from the original post, likely due to a schedule release or date change, or in the case of Massachusetts at Temple, I elected to set a start time & network for it.  The four Saturday games that changed have notes on them.

Friday
Massachusetts at Temple, 7pm ESPNU

Saturday
Notre Dame at Boston College, 12pm ABC
Army at Ohio St., 12pm ESPN
Georgia St. at Penn St., 12pm ESPN2
Tulane at Oklahoma, 12pm FS1
UCLA at Memphis, 12pm ESPNU
Iowa St. at Akron, 12pm ESPNEWS
SMU at TCU, 12pm FSN
Purdue at Missouri, 12pm SEC
Samford at Georgia, 12pm SEC
Kansas at Ohio, 12pm CBSSN
FIU at Indiana, 12pm BTN
Morgan St. at Rutgers, 12pm BTN
Connecticut at Virginia, 12:30pm ACC Network
San Jose St. at Utah, 2pm Pac-12
Delaware St. at West Virginia, 2pm ROOT Sports Pittsburgh
Central Michigan at Syracuse, 3pm ACC RSNs
Miami (FL) at Florida St., 3:30pm ABC
Tennessee at Florida, 3:30pm CBS
Oklahoma St. at Pittsburgh, 3:30pm ESPN
Arizona St. at Texas Tech, 3:30pm ESPN2
Baylor at Duke, 3:30pm ESPNU
Georgia Tech at UCF, 3:30pm CBSSN - previously at 7pm on CBSSN where Oregon at Wyoming will air
Bowling Green at Northwestern, 3:30pm BTN
Northern Illinois at Nebraska, 3:30pm BTN
Virginia Tech at East Carolina, 4pm ESPNEWS - had on Thursday night & needed to find a home for it.
Mercer at Auburn, 4pm SEC
UL-Lafayette at Texas A&M, 4pm SEC
Air Force at Michigan, 4:30pm FOX
Oregon St. at Washington St., 5pm Pac-12
LSU at Mississippi St., 7pm ESPN
Colorado St. at Alabama, 7pm ESPN2
Kansas St. at Vanderbilt, 7pm ESPNU
North Carolina at Old Dominion, 7pm beIN Sports - originally on ASN
Kentucky at South Carolina, 7:30pm SEC
North Texas at Iowa, 7:30pm BTN
Middle Tennessee at Minnesota, 7:30pm BTN
Clemson at Louisville, 8pm ABC
Texas at USC, 8pm FOX
Rice at Houston, 8pm ESPNEWS - was at 4pm on ESPNEWS
Northern Colorado at Colorado, 8pm Pac-12
Wisconsin at BYU, 10:15pm ESPN2

Ole Miss at California, 10:30pm ESPN

Fresno St. at Washington, 11pm Pac-12

The New ASN: Silver Chalice TV?

The news finally appeared that Sinclair Broadcasting's American Sports Network would be changing in its format, with the creation of a new entity involving Sinclair, Silver Chalice and 120 Sports.

From the point of view of college athletics, Campus Insiders and ASN will be providing the live events where 120 Sports, with equity partners including pro sports & media entities, would provide a great deal of the studio programming.

Its hard for me to completely describe the relationship between 120 Sports and Campus Insiders.  I look at them as first cousins.  120 Sports, at this time, doesn't have any live events to contribute, but the equity partners they have should be able to provide the network with a ton of unique content.  The Silver Chalice umbrella counts White Sox & Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf as its chairman.

Campus Insiders and Sinclair have direct relationships with the following collegiate conferences for live events:

• Conference USA 
• It is believed that this may be the only live events agreement that Sinclair is bringing from ASN in addition to a schedule of games on Campus Insiders.
• Mountain West
• SportsLabs, a media platform in the Silver Chalice family, is the platform running the conference's website.  Campus Insiders also provides the framework for the Mountain West Network digital network.
• Patriot League
• Campus Insiders powers PatriotLeague.TV.
• WCC
• Similar to the Mountain West, the conference's website and digital network are in the Silver Chalice family.

All three entities have partnered on distributing the Arizona Bowl the last two years, with ASN providing the telecast and both Campus Insiders and 120 Sports handling digital delivery and exclusive second screen programming.

The ACC's website is also maintained by SportsLabs, along with websites from multiple schools, including Wyoming, Penn & Kansas St.  Digital network repositories for both the ACC and Big 12 exist over at Campus Insiders too.

For the new entity, the feeling I get it that Sinclair will provide it with the distribution outlet of digital subchannels on several Sinclair owned TV stations that previously housed the 24/7 ASN feed.  From that point of view, you might view it as Sinclair getting out of the business of actively managing a sports channel and reducing its risk by providing the blank canvas of airspace to Silver Chalice and 120 Sports to program over it, with those two entities, hopefully, providing better distribution digitally, better content and improved event production over what Sinclair provided.

So what events could make it to the new network?  My initial expectation is Conference USA will be there at the start.  Maybe this network tries to attract another former ASN tentpole in the Atlantic 10, who has prior experience with Campus Insiders.  After that, I don't know because I don't know how the existing contracts are structured for the Mountain West and WCC with their TV partners to handle another national TV partner if this entity is considered as such, particularly in cases where the "conference footprint" is designated as in-market with streaming in the out-of-market areas.  Over time, I could see it being a player for media rights, particularly with a conference like the Mountain West who has expressed dissatisfaction with existing TV partners over the number of evening football games and how it has eroded ticket sales.  Or maybe a conference like the Big Ten, who has elected to go with shorter term rights deals with ESPN and FOX Sports, would look at Campus Insiders to handle something a package of content like BTN Plus, but with a few football & men's basketball games in the future.  Whether they could pony up the cash to get a deal done is anyone's guess, and as anyone who follows Sports TV Ratings on Twitter will tell you, digital viewers do not equal TV viewers, so the revenues from linear TV can't necessarily be derived through digital distribution.

What I'm also curious about is the linear television distribution beyond Sinclair's multicast channels.  Campus Insiders has been able to provide live content through several different mediums, such as Verizon's go90 mobile video delivery app, Dish Network's Sling TV and Twitter.  Will the network continue to have dedicated feeds, or live event programming through those delivery methods?  ASN had live events provided to several RSNs in the Xfinity family along with unaffiliated RSNs like Altitude, NESN, MASN and Cox Sports.  Will that continue or end, particularly if a standalone channel is started?

More questions than answers, but hopefully it will provide easier access to these games for fans, higher quality programming and a better return to the schools, either financially at the gate through more control of start times or a rights fee off the production of live events.

Way Too Early CFB TV Guesses for Week Two For 2017, Take Two.

Took a 2nd crack at Week Two.

If the game has both its time & TV network set (see link above), I'm not going to re-list it here.  If one of the two is missing, I'll list it since something is in doubt.  The links at the top of each week will have those games.  Also, I'm not going to list games that are scheduled for ESPN3, ACC Network Extra, Campus Insiders, CUSA.TV, etc. since the start times for those games are often set by the schools.

A fair portion of this is going to look a lot like the Week Two post from February, minus a couple changes due to C-USA and Mountain West TV confirmations.  A few networks changed on a couple games and a couple moved to different start times.  The big change came from FOX Sports and the USGA releasing its television schedule, which includes Walker Cup coverage on September 9th on FS1.

EDIT: And since it looked like that February post, that means I forgot two SEC games.  Since you've first read this (possibly), I added both Northern Colorado at Florida & Alabama A&M at Vanderbilt.  Both at 4pm ET on SEC Network (one on the alternate, we'll find out later).  I moved Fresno St. at Alabama to ESPN2 at 7pm, Eastern Kentucky at Kentucky to 12pm on SEC Network (or alternate), Chattanooga at LSU from ESPN2 to ESPNU and staying at 7pm ET and removed Miami (FL) at Arkansas St. from TV and likely to ESPN3.

All times Eastern

Friday 9/8
Ohio at Purdue, 8pm ESPN2

Saturday 9/9
Louisville at North Carolina, 12pm ABC
Cincinnati at Michigan, 12pm ESPN
East Carolina at West Virginia, 12pm ESPN2
UTSA at Baylor, 12pm FSN
UL-Monroe at Florida St., 12pm ESPNU
Memphis at UCF, 12pm ESPNEWS
Indiana St. at Tennessee, 12pm SEC
Eastern Kentucky at Kentucky, 12pm SEC
Eastern Michigan at Rutgers, 12pm BTN
Towson at Maryland, 12pm BTN
Wake Forest at Boston College, 12:30pm ACC Network
Indiana at Virginia, 12:30pm ACC RSNs
Boise St. at Washington St., 2pm Pac-12 Networks/Washington
Texas St. at Colorado, 2pm Pac-12 Mountain
Auburn at Clemson, 3:30pm ABC
South Carolina at Missouri, 3:30pm CBS
Iowa at Iowa St., 3:30pm ESPN2

Charlotte at Kansas St., 3:30pm FSN
Northwestern at Duke, 3:30pm ESPNU
FAU at Wisconsin, 3:30pm BTN
Western Michigan at Michigan St., 3:30pm BTN
USF at Connecticut, 4pm ESPNEWS
Alabama A&M at Vanderbilt, 4pm SEC
Northern Colorado at Florida, 4pm SEC

Pittsburgh at Penn St., 4:30pm FOX

Minnesota at Oregon St., 5pm Pac-12 Networks/Oregon

TCU at Arkansas, 7pm ESPN

Fresno St. at Alabama, 7pm ESPN2
Chattanooga at LSU, 7pm ESPNU
UT Martin at Ole Miss, 7:30pm SEC
Nicholls at Texas A&M, 7:30pm SEC

Central Michigan at Kansas, 7:30pm FSN
Western Kentucky at Illinois, 7:30pm BTN
Oklahoma at Ohio St., 8pm ABC

Stanford at USC, 8pm FOX

Oklahoma St. at South Alabama, 8pm ESPNEWS

Montana at Washington, 8pm Pac-12 Networks/Washington

Weber St. at California, 8pm Pac-12 Bay Area

San Jose St. at Texas, 8pm Longhorn

Houston at Arizona, 10pm FS1
Utah at BYU, 10:15pm ESPN2

Hawai'i at UCLA, 10:15pm ESPNU

Nebraska at Oregon, 10:30pm ESPN
San Diego St. at Arizona St., 11pm Pac-12 Networks/Arizona

Way Too Early CFB TV Guesses for Weeks Zero & One For 2017, Take Two.

I suppose its fair to take a second crack at this now that we know a handful of start times for Week Zero (there's very little to work with here) and Week One.

I'll finish up Weeks Two & Three in the next day or two.  Here are the schedules for Week Zero and Week One, along with my original guesses.

If the game has both its time & TV network set, I'm not going to re-list it here.  If one of the two is missing, I'll list it since something is in doubt.  The links at the top of each week will have those games.  Also, I'm not going to list games that are scheduled for ESPN3, ACC Network Extra, Campus Insiders, CUSA.TV, etc. since the start times for those games are often set by the schools.

All times Eastern

Week Zero (8/26 & 8/27), both 8/26
Hawai'i at Massachusetts, 12pm ESPN3
Portland St. at BYU, 6pm BYUtv
Stanford vs. Rice, 10pm ESPN

Week One (8/31 - 9/4)

Thursday 8/31
Presbyterian at Wake Forest, 7:30pm ACC RSNs
Holy Cross at Connecticut, 7:30pm SNY
Ohio St. at Indiana, 8pm ESPN
UL-Monroe at Memphis, 8pm CBSSN
Buffalo at Minnesota, 8pm BTN
North Dakota at Utah, 8pm Pac-12 Network/Mountain
New Mexico St. at Arizona, 11pm Pac-12 Network/Arizona

Friday 9/1
Washington at Rutgers, 7pm ESPN
Utah St. at Wisconsin, 8pm FS1
Boston College at Northern Illinois, 9:15pm CBSSN
Colorado St. vs. Colorado, 10:15pm ESPN

My early thought, which probably falls apart, is FOX broadcast network carries the USMNT World Cup qualifier and FS1 carries Mexico's game.  To carry El Tri, they might need to move up Utah St. at Wisconsin to 7pm ET to start Mexico's game at 9pm or 8pm local time, wherever it is played.

Saturday 9/2
Maryland at Texas, 12pm ESPN
Tulsa at Oklahoma St., 12pm FS1
Kent St. at Clemson, 12pm ESPNU
Liberty at Baylor, 12pm FSN
Missouri St. at Missouri, 12pm SEC Network
Akron at Penn St., 12pm BTN
Bowling Green at Michigan St., 12pm BTN
William & Mary at Virginia, 12:30pm ACC Network
Portland St. at Oregon St., 2pm Pac-12 Networks/Oregon
BYU vs. LSU, 3:30pm ABC
NC State vs. South Carolina, 3:30pm CBS
Louisville vs. Purdue, 3:30pm FOX
Jackson St. at TCU, 3:30pm FSN
Georgia Southern at Auburn, 3:30pm ESPNU
Nevada at Northwestern, 3:30pm BTN
Wyoming at Iowa, 3:30pm BTN
Charleston Southern at Mississippi St., 4pm SEC Network
VMI at Air Force, 4pm ROOT Sports
Montana St. at Washington St., 5pm Pac-12 Networks/Washington
California at North Carolina, 5:30pm ESPN
Central Arkansas at Kansas St., 7pm K-StateHD.TV
Southeast Missouri at Kansas, 7pm Jayhawk TV
UTEP at Oklahoma, 7pm PPV
Houston at UTSA, 7pm beIN Sports
Appalachian St. at Georgia, 7:30pm ESPNU
South Alabama at Ole Miss, 7:30pm SEC Network
Alabama vs. Florida St., 8pm ABC
Eastern Washington at Texas Tech, 8pm FSN
Arkansas St. at Nebraska, 8pm BTN
Ball St. at Illinois, 8pm BTN
Southern Utah at Oregon, 8pm Pac-12 Networks/Oregon
Northern Iowa at Iowa St., 8pm Cyclones.TV
Michigan vs. Florida, 9pm ESPN
Western Michigan at USC, 10:30pm FS1
Northern Arizona at Arizona, 11pm Pac-12 Networks/Arizona

Western Carolina at Hawai'i, Midnight OC Sports

I've tried for weeks to get an answer regarding which conference is the rightsholder for NC State vs. South Carolina & unfortunately I have received no concrete answer on the subject.  I'm assuming it is a SEC game.

Also, I cut back on the number of Big Ten games aired via ESPN or FOX Sports, placing Akron at Penn St. on BTN.   This led me, along with the two games moved to Sunday 9/3, to cut out the 12pm ABC window.

Re: Troy at Boise St. - see note at the top regarding streaming.  Boise St. home games can be shown on ESPN3.

Sunday 9/3
South Carolina St. at Southern, 3:30pm ESPN

Monday 9/4
Georgia Tech at Tennessee, 8pm ESPN

Notes: C-USA Primary TV Schedule Release, AAC Addition, Civil War & Thursday-Friday Schedules

C-USA Primary TV Schedule

* The C-USA TV schedule is skewed more towards non-conference play with half of the twelve games.

* With ESPN covering a lot of games from other conferences on the opening weekend, it made sense for both Kentucky at Southern Miss and Vanderbilt at Middle Tennessee to remain on Saturday and go to CBS Sports Network.   ESPN did take Navy at FAU, Lane Kiffin's first game as FAU coach, and moved it to Friday night.

* Where are the TV designations for games like Houston at UTSA & North Carolina at Old Dominion?  I think you'll see them in the next batch of announcements, which should include beIN Sports.

* Stanford vs. Rice moving to 10pm ET is a slight difference from the original images sent out regarding the start time.  See the original banner below:

If it airs on ESPN, there's also about an hour gap between the start of this one and the end of Chattanooga vs. Jacksonville St. as FCS games typically take less time.

* Western Kentucky at Old Dominion on Friday 10/20 was not set with a start time, however the Air Force at Nevada game airing after it is scheduled to start at 9:30pm ET, so look for the C-USA game to have a 6pm ET start unless a change is made to move the Nevada game back 30-60 minutes.

* Similar to WKU-ODU not yet having a start time, Illinois at USF now has a game airing after it on Friday 9/15 on ESPN with Arizona at UTEP starting at 10:15pm ET, so look for Illinois-USF to start at 7pm ET.

* On the basketball side of the house, Wichita St. is expected to be introduced shortly as a member of the American Athletic Conference.  A potential scheduling rotation could be where two groups of six schools play home-home inside their group/division and single plays cross division to get to 16 conference games.  They could also go with rotating cross division home-home to maintain 18 conference games (EDIT: An 18 game conference schedule is planned per link above). Possible groupings:

"East": Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Temple, UCF, USF
"West": Houston, Memphis, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, Wichita St.

These "divisions" are fairly clean with respect to time zone.

* Outside of C-USA, the Civil War (Oregon St. at Oregon) has moved to Saturday 11/25 from Friday 11/24.  Oregon's press release noted that ESPN requested the move as the Ducks men's basketball team is in the PK80 (Phil Knight) event being played in Portland on November 23, 24 & 26 along with the school to allow fans to potentially attend the basketball games and the football game without having to choose between one event or another on Friday.

As with most of ESPN's basketball events around Thanksgiving, Saturday is an off day allowing their networks to carry their college football inventory.  It should be noted, and I can't stress this enough right now, that ESPN was not yet publicly scheduled to carry the football game and there is no guarantee they'll end up with the game now that it has moved to Saturday.

* So what could ESPN's Thursday & Friday night CFB schedule look like, provided I didn't miss an announced game?  Here's a possibility with  everything in red being a guess.  To reiterate, everything in RED is a guess, not factual:

* Here's a guess at what FS1's could look like.  Again, if its in RED, its a guess:

* For completeness, head to this Google Sheets link to view CBSSN's Thursday & Friday night schedule

Notes on Mountain West National TV Schedule & Remaining Thursday-Friday Openings

2017 Mountain West National TV Schedule

* No trade of Boise St. games between CBS Sports Network and ESPN.  ESPN can send one Boise St. home game to CBSSN in exchange for a BSU Mountain West road game.

* National weeknight games are down two from last year, where there were ten total weeknight games on ESPN Networks and CBSSN.  An case could be made that the two games in "Week Zero", Oregon St. at Colorado St. and USF at San Jose St., help cut down the national weeknight schedule.

* By placing the Boise St. at Utah St. game at 10pm ET on 10/28, look for the Air Force at Colorado St. game at 3pm or 6:30pm ET.  This leaves the possibility for an 11:30am ET start for an American Athletic Conference or Mid-American Conference game.

* The two Mountain West games on 11/4 may be earlier in the day to allow CBSSN to air a portion of the PBR World Finals live, as they have done in past years.

* Look for Temple at Cincinnati game to start at 7pm ET on 11/10 with BYU at UNLV set to start at 10:30pm ET.

* UNLV at New Mexico does not yet have a start time, but should be following the conclusion of the 2K Sports Classic basketball event.  In 2016, UNLV at Boise St. followed it with a scheduled start of 9pm ET and Air Force at Boise St. followed the basketball games in 2015.

* Expect the MAC game that CBSSN has scheduled for Friday 11/24 to precede New Mexico at San Diego St. with a 12pm ET start.

* Based on the start times of the two Mountain West games on 11/25, the final of the Emerald Coast Classic basketball event should be the meat of the MW game sandwich.

* Hawai'i looks to be one game short of the seven games needed to reach their revenue expectation for their PPV package, unless the road game at UMass provides them with a PPV opportunity. The six games currently available are:

• 9/9 vs. Western Carolina
• 9/30 vs. Colorado St.
• 10/14 vs. San Jose St.
• 11/4 at UNLV
• 11/11 vs. Fresno St.
• 11/18 at Utah St.

ROOT Sports could end up picking up one of these games (at Utah St.?) & it could still end up on PPV on the islands.

* With two Boise St. games scheduled for ESPN or ESPN2 so far, one of the remaining home games must air on one of those two networks.  The remaining could air on ESPNU, ESPNEWS or ESPN3.

* So, what's left for Thursday & Friday night games? Per the Big 12, they have to make one more game available for Thursday & Fridays since they have only three currently moved (Texas at Iowa St. on 9/28 & two Black Friday games).  The American Athletic Conference also noted that they could have additional Thursday games in their initial schedule release.  Conference USA has yet to release any game date changes for games they control, but there are openings available, including 10/20 which currently has no other Friday night games scheduled except for the Mountain West game at 10:15pm ET.  C-USA could also have a Thursday or Friday night game on ESPNU too.

Recap of Updates to 2017 CFB Schedule

This is a rehash of tweets from the past ten days, so you may have read these 140 characters at a time already.

* Both Texas A&M at UCLA & West Virginia vs. Virginia Tech have made official moves to Sunday, September 3rd.  Had heard rumblings about the first one, but not the latter, though I made a wild guess at it for a mid-afternoon ESPN game.  The UCLA game was announced first and a Twitter user (the account is now private, but has ESPN in the bio) inferred the game was FOX's and that ESPN, actually ABC, would be having their own telecast, which looks correct at this point.

ESPN should have a Sunday Night Baseball game that night and I don't think the Pac-12 game is earmarked for ESPN2 or ESPNU with its 7:30pm or 8pm start time, so lets continue to assume FOX or FS1.  FS1 is scheduled to carry a NASCAR truck series race in the afternoon and show delayed coverage of NHRA qualifying from the US Nationals from Indianapolis, so both should be free based on whatever is decided.  FS1 has shown one Sunday night football game, SMU at Baylor, in 2014.  They also aired Purdue at Marshall on a Sunday afternoon in 2015, but the NASCAR truck series race from Ontario was scheduled for the prior weekend.

The last Pac-10/12 Sunday football game for FOX Sports, or any Pac-10/12 TV partner, was Fresno St. at Washington in 2004 which aired on FSN nationally.

* Both Northwestern games scheduled for Friday nights in October have been quietly moved back to Saturdays.

2017 Northwestern at Maryland game moved back to Saturday, Oct. 14, was moved to Friday by B1G last Fall (h/t @AGameTailgate).

— FBSchedules.com (@FBSchedules) March 31, 2017

@mattsarz also looks like the Michigan State/Northwestern game two weeks later was also pushed back to Saturday.

— Matt Lichtenstadter (@MattsMusings1) March 31, 2017

The 2017 Big Ten football prospectus confirms this in the PDF.  With both in October, not to mention both weeks had ACC Friday night games, my suspicion is FOX or FS1 was scheduled to carry these and has determined they'll have some other programming commitments, such as MLB postseason, and informed the schools that they could move those back to Saturdays.

* The Big Ten prospectus also confirms that FOX will air the 2017 football championship game on December 2nd.  Still waiting on the conference to announce the new deals with FOX Sports and ESPN.  Would assume they'll be out in April or May to get the word out to advertisers as marketing presentations typically occur in the spring.  The deals end on June 30th.

* Army start times have been set.  The Fordham game at 6pm ET should lead into Boston College at Northern Illinois between 9pm & 9:30pm ET on CBS Sports Network.  The UTEP game, with a 3:30pm ET start, is the first on-campus mid-afternoon game since 2011.

* ROOT Sports and the Big Sky Conference remain partners for football.  A new component is that the games on ROOT will be available to the conference's streaming platform, but not until 30 days after the game has aired.

* American Sports Network does appear to be going dark.  At this time, a limited number of events are on the board through mid-April, though with three specific schools hosting the majority of events. An official announcement hasn't occur, but the digital team signed off with final posts to social media on March 21.