2018 Sun Belt TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

Some statistical notes
* This was the first year of an enhanced Sun Belt TV contract.  The linear TV enhancement for the regular season won't happen until 2020.  This update accounts the conference championship game airing on one of ESPN's TV platforms and the addition of games to the ESPN+ service.
* Texas St. accounted for the production of the local TV games.  Four of the five games aired on ESPN3.  Only the UL-Lafayette game aired on ESPN+.  Adding those games into the ESPN3 & ESPN+ appearance columns would put Texas St. at five ESPN3 appearances (most of any Sun Belt school).
* Overall, the number of regular season games on national linear TV platforms dropped from nine in 2017 to seven in 2018. One of the games in 2017 was on Championship Saturday, so even if you tack on the airing of the conference championship in 2018, they're still down a game.  One of the 2018 games was on ESPNEWS, so in terms of ESPN2 and ESPNU games, they were down three on those two channels from 2017.
* Somewhat rare: UL-Lafayette never appeared in the conference's linear TV package during the regular season, which is often set in advance of the season & is almost always weeknight games, but managed to appear in the conference championship game.
* UL-Monroe's last national linear TV appearance in a Sun Belt controlled game was Thursday 11/19/15 at Texas St. 
* Coastal Carolina has yet to appear as part of the Sun Belt linear TV package.  Coastal did appear on ESPNEWS in 2015 & 2016 vs. Liberty in Thursday night games.

2018 SEC TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

An alternate breakdown is group together all CBS games, and two separates groups for Pay TV.  The primary pay TV group is ESPN & ESPN2 and the secondary pay TV group is SEC Network, ESPNU and ESPNEWS

Some statistical notes
* As of now, this is the final year of the agreement for ESPN to sublicense two games to CBS.  The two parties could negotiate a new agreement if they see fit.  The two games that were sublicensed in 2018 were West Virginia vs. Tennessee & Georgia at South Carolina.
* Alabama was the only school to get to the maximum of five CBS appearances under the CBS contract.  As mentioned above, one of Georgia's appearances were in a game sublicensed from ESPN.  It does not count as part of CBS's contract with the conference or the appearance maximum in that deal.
* ESPNEWS is not considered to be a network that SEC games are available to air on, but the channel was used to air Middle Tennessee at Georgia on 9/15 due to schedule changes from weather related cancellations and start time changes.
* 26 games appeared on ESPN & ESPN2 in 2018, down from 31 on those two channels in 2017.
* A start time that most SEC schools hate is noon ET.  Ten SEC games started at that time of day which ended up on ESPN (8), ESPNEWS (1) or ESPNU (1).  This combined number is the same as 2017.
* Taking into account all noon ET starts across all networks, here's the breakdown of times a school appeared in a SEC controlled game at noon ET and the number of times a school hosted a game at that start time.

2018 Pac-12 TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

ESPN and FOX Sports are on equal footing with respect to the number of games they can carry, up to 22 games.

In terms of broadcast networks vs. primary pay TV.  For this, it is a different dicing of the ESPN vs. FOX Sports table.

Some statistical notes
* Why does ESPN's count only equal 21?  Apparently the Washington-Auburn game from Atlanta in week one counted towards both the SEC and Pac-12.  Figuring out neutral site TV rights kill me every year.  If someone from ESPN can help clarify why this occurred & its accuracy, I'd be grateful.
* Utah is the first Pac-12 Championship Game participant who had no appearances on broadcast television during the regular season.
* Oregon St. appearing just twice on ESPN or FOX Sports, in this case just twice on FOX Sports, is the lowest number of combined appearances on those two entities since Colorado appeared just twice between those two network groups in 2013.  The prior season, the Buffs had only appeared once on FS1 with their remaining Pac-12 controlled games on Pac-12 Networks.
* The five appearances by Washington, coupled with Utah being not shown on broadcast television, is the lowest number of combined appearances for the two championship game participants since both FOX and ABC started showing games on their broadcast network.  In 2011, the championship game participants had four appearances, but ABC was the only partner allowed to show regular season games on broadcast television.
* The 34 games on Pac-12 Networks occurred over 32 unique windows.  Two games were shown only on regional feeds while the national feed carried a primary game.
* ESPNU is available for Pac-12 games to be shown on but is rarely used.  The last ESPNU Pac-12 game was 9/9/17 (Houston at Arizona)
* Seven Saturday primetime games were shown on broadcast television, equaling 2017.  Both seasons had another non-Saturday primetime appearance.
* The number of regular season broadcast television games decreased by one from 2017.
* Four Saturday selections for shown full national on ESPN, ESPN2 or FS1 starting earlier that 7pm PT / 8pm MT.  In 2017 there were two of these games.

2018 Mountain West TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game and a few other instances that I'll detail below.

Here's the games that were counted

And a breakdown of games carried on CBS Sports Networks vs. ESPN's linear TV & digital platforms.  CBS gets first choice of games after Boise St. home games are set aside for ESPN.

Some statistical notes
* Not included in the counts are the games Hawai'i shows on pay-per-view, which are part of a side deal the school has with Spectrum within the state.  Those games get shown on Stadium's mobile & tablet app outside of the islands.  Also not included are the three games that schools elected to produce their own webcasts for after they were not selected to air on CBSSN, ESPN Networks, Stadium via Facebook or AT&T SportsNet.
* As mentioned above, Boise St. has its home games set aside for airing on ESPN's platforms.  Its a bit surprising to see Fresno St. eclipse Boise St.'s appearance count on ESPN's platforms.
* Two games were chosen by ESPN to air on ESPN3 after AT&T SportsNet and Stadium made their selections.  Those games were Incarnate Word-New Mexico & Nevada-San Jose St.
* Three games did not have any video distribution.  This choice was made by the home school similar to the choice to stream after all other TV partners bypassed the games.
* Seeing Utah St. be skipped entirely by CBSSN isn't surprising.  Looking back at last year, UNLV made all of their linear TV appearances on ESPN platforms.  What is surprising is that it was during a season where Utah St. made it into the top 25 late into the season.  In the past, ESPN worked with Campus Insiders on a game swap when Fresno St. was undefeated, taking a game at Wyoming and placing it on ESPN2 and sending Nevada-Colorado St. to CI.
* Eighteen of the games that ESPN selected before the season started both their start time & TV network decided during the season (excluding weeknights & 1st three weeks, where UConn-Boise St. had its TV network decided & Oregon St.-Nevada was elevated due to weather cancellations & schedule changes).  Of those games, the network choices were as follows:

• ESPN: 1
• ESPN2: 4
• ESPNU: 11
• ESPNEWS: 2

* For those in-season ESPN linear TV decision, the timeslots were as follows, using Pacific Time as the base:

• 12pm & before 4pm: 4
• None in 2017
• 4pm & before 7pm: 2
• Equal to 2017
• 7pm & later: 12

2018 MAC TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

Some statistical notes
* Seven regular season games on ESPN2 ties the 2008 and 2016 seasons as the second highest number of games on that channel.  2005 had eight games on the channel.
* Buffalo's seven games on national linear TV is the most for any school since Western Michigan also appeared seven times during their Cotton Bowl season.
* For the two local TV games, the Buffalo at Toledo game aired outside the Toledo & Buffalo markets on ESPN+.  Cincinnati vs. Miami game aired on ESPN3 in markets where the game was not shown on local television.
* CBS Sports Network had six of their ten games chosen through the in-season selection process where they had a choice of more than one game, either as the first choice or in the case of Black Friday, the second choice after ESPNU.  In other words, I'm not including the situations where there were two games and ESPN took theirs first & left the latter to CBSSN.  For those six games, a game involving Buffalo was chosen three times.  Akron was involved in two of those games.  An interesting side note: two of those games involved Army, whose rights are owned by CBSSN.
* There were six situations where a pair of weeknight games were set aside and the network decision was made about 6-12 days in advance, either where both games were on ESPN platforms or one game was on an ESPN platform and one was set aside for CBSSN.  Western Michigan appeared in three of the games that were chosen by the network that is subscribed to in more homes or in one particular case, linear TV vs. ESPN+.

2018 Conference USA TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played.  Not the games that ended up being cancelled due to weather or other issues.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

TV = linear TV channel
FB = Facebook stream produced by CBS or Stadium

Conference USA has four primary partners so I've combined together the CBSSN games into one bucket, the Stadium games into a second and the ESPN digital games into a third.

Another way to uniquely slice Conference USA's data is linear TV vs. free digital streaming vs. pay digital streaming.  I believe ESPN3 is still included with a handful of telcos internet service independent of having ESPN as a linear TV channel, so I'm throwing those games under free streaming. 

Linear TV = CBSSN, Stadium or beIN Sports
Free streaming = Facebook exclusives (CBSSN or Stadium) or ESPN3
Pay streaming = ESPN+

Some statistical notes (maybe more commentary than notes)

* Data for C-USA is static throughout the season. All the network groups made their choices in the spring. So schools like UAB & Middle Tennessee making a combined six linear TV appearances while FAU appears in the same number of games isn't a surprise. They're just capitalizing on their 2017 success and what was expected in 2018. FAU & North Texas were the division winners in the preseason media poll.

* The number of regular season games that aired on linear TV nationally decreased from 35 in 2017 to 27 in 2018, while the number of Facebook exclusives increased from six in 2017 to ten in 2018. The addition of CBSSN produced Facebook games does impact that increase.

* Particularly with the selections CBS Sports Network produced for their Facebook games, it feels like they had at least the top 5-10 selections from the conference over the course of the season, particularly when you look over the choices they made for non-conference games.

* To my knowledge, the games that aired on ESPN digital platforms weren't selected by them. They were the inventory after the three linear TV partners made their choices. Where ESPN I believe had a some control was the decision to place a game on ESPN3 or ESPN+.
* This was beIN Sports final season of C-USA football under a three year agreement. I have no idea if the conference intends to continue with the network.

2018 Big Ten TV Facts & Figures

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, I counted the games that were played, with one exception that is noted below.  This also does not include the network placement of any conference championship game.

Here's the games that were counted

With the Big Ten being a conference that has a pair of TV partners on relatively equal footing, I also broke down the conference's TV data by the network group and over-the-air broadcast vs. pay TV.  Pay TV for this discussion included ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and FS1 since BTN isn't as widely available as the other four.

Broadcast vs. Pay TV

ESPN vs. FOX Sports.  Both ESPN and FOX Sports have a maximum of 27 telecast windows.  BTN is covered under a separate TV deal, so even though it is majority owned by...New FOX? 21st Century? FOX FOX?....anyways, its not part of the same contract that FOX Sports has with the Big Ten.

Some statistical items
* Why does Nebraska have 13 appearances under the Big Ten deal when they only played 12 games?  The Akron game on FOX, unlike nearly all other weather cancellations, occurred during the telecast window.  FOX spent the time filling while waiting out storms that never stopped.  So I counted that as a Big Ten exposure for FOX and it looks like it was budgeted for in their final counts.  When Nebraska found Bethune-Cookman as a replacement opponent, that game was played on BTN.
* Half of the conference had their entire schedule controlled by the Big Ten's TV partners.  All 12 games for seven schools, which astounds me but at the same time feels like smart scheduling (EDIT: See the first user comment to this post as to why this occurred).
* The 45 games on BTN were played over 31 telecast windows.
* The combined number of regular season primetime games played or intended to air on broadcast television was five, down from seven in 2017.
* Over two seasons, Illinois is the only Big Ten school not to play on FOX.  All FOX Sports appearances have been on FS1.
* Rutgers had ten appearances on BTN for the 2nd straight year.  They have not appeared on an ESPN platform as part of the current contract structure.  Their last appearances on each ESPN channel:

• ABC: vs. Ohio St., 10/24/15
• ESPN: vs. Wisconsin, 11/1/14
• ESPN2: vs. Michigan, 10/8/16
• ESPNU: at Minnesota, 10/22/16
• ESPNEWS: at Maryland, 11/24/16

* Number of regular season night games per network, including weeknight games.  6pm ET was used as the earliest start time for a night game:

• ABC: 3
• FOX: 2
• Includes the Akron at Nebraska game.
• ESPN: 3
• FS1: 3
• BTN: 9
• 6 telecast windows