Thursday, April 6, 2017

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.

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