Notes on the 2023 CFB TV Early Season & Special Date Selections

2023 Portal 

The early season and special date TV announcements have been made for the D1 NCAA college football schedule.  There's always a few surprises.  I've put together a "facts and figures" post as well that will get updated throughout the season as appearances and contractual items are being met.

Here's a few that I took note of: 

A big bet on Colorado: The Buffs, with new head coach Deion Sanders, have become must see TV for networks through the 1st three weeks, particularly by FOX who will have them to open the season as part of their marquee Big Noon slot.

Choosing them for a 10am local start for the home game vs. Nebraska raised some eyebrows too, but they've made the occasional brunch start for national TV, and this appears to fit that bill.

How to fill the Big Ten gap on ABC: The ACC has five games under their control, plus three more neutral site games that they have a participant and a non-conference road game, through the opening set of TV announcements.  The Pac-12 and Big 12 will also have a large presence on ABC this year.  I'll be curious to see if any other conference break in to the rotation.  The American is guaranteed to have at least two games (Alabama at South Florida and one game on Black Friday).  

I'm curious to see if the Sun Belt will break through, particularly since either the American or Sun Belt's title game will get the 4pm ABC slot on Championship Saturday.

Peacock gets a premium non-conference game: When the news leaked that Syracuse at Purdue would be NBC's primetime game on 9/16, a reasonable assumption was that FOX had both Penn State at Illinois and Washington at Michigan State.  We were all wrong, as Peacock picked up the non-conference game involving a likely preseason Top 10 Pac-12 school. Last summer, NBC Sports executive Rick Cordella hinted that Peacock wouldn't be treated second class by NBC when it came to game selections and this choice demonstrated that vision.

Picking up East Carolina at Michigan was a bit of a surprise to me too.  I thought it would be in the FOX camp (they chose no games for their broadcast network on Saturday for Week 1 from the Big Ten).

CBS' Big Ten appearances will be spread out over the course of the season: After getting through three games over the first two weeks (something I believe was verbalized by CBS Sports chief Sean McManus but I can't find his original quote), the remaining four games will be spread out.  One previously announced on 9/23 for Iowa at Penn State when Ohio State at Notre Dame airs at night on NBC and one on Black Friday for Iowa at Nebraska. It was assumed CBS would do a night game on 10/14 when NBC would be carrying USC at Notre Dame, but their remaining two games will be noon starts on back to back weeks in late October and early November.

Which leads into....

Those Big Ten broadcast windows aren't as exclusive as you may have thought: At least through the mostly non-conference portion of the schedule.  The broadcast network windows look like they'll be mostly exclusive (I do wonder if this means that FOX isn't carrying Big Ten games at 12pm on 10/28 & 11/4 when CBS is), but FS1 carrying games while other broadcast networks have their windows isn't quite surprising and BTN carrying games throughout the day should be expected.

Frankly, games will need to be carried throughout the day, so if FS1 is earmarked for a Big Ten game, its likely to come at some point during the day.

Why Charlotte at Maryland for NBC in Week 2?: Got a lot of questions on this one, but there's a couple things to remember:

1) NBC seems to want a game every week

2) The games available from the Big Ten for this particular week, with respect to games vs. FBS opponents, aren't that great.

UNLV at Michigan

Charlotte at Maryland

UTEP at Northwestern

Temple at Rutgers

Eastern Michigan at Minnesota

No slam dunks there.  Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan State had games vs. FCS opponents.  I saw a few opine that Youngstown State at Ohio State would have been NBC's choice, and I look at that and say "no" when you consider that either this one or the WKU game the following week helps fill a BTN requirement.  If the YSU game were to air on NBC and the WKU game remains on FOX, it pushes a 2nd game vs. a Big Ten school for OSU on to BTN.

Charlotte at Maryland may be a bad looking game for NBC to select, but their options were limited.

There's still a decent amount of TBAs for the first three weeks, particularly Week 2: More than I expected, and they fall into two categories.

1) If its an ACC home game, there's still a debate happening whether the RSN package that has mostly aired on Bally Sports RSNs for the past few years still exists.  If you've followed any sports media news, a fan of the San Diego Padres, or an avid bankruptcy court consumer, you're keenly aware of the decision Diamond Sports Group has made to declare bankruptcy and either make partial payments to several MLB clubs for TV rights or in the case of the Padres, relinquish them.  

Raycom Sports, who manages the regional TV contract for the ACC via a sublicense from ESPN, is one of Diamond's creditors.  It is certainly possible, now that a bankruptcy court has ruled in favor of four MLB teams who have been paid less than their contracts require, that Raycom could get in line asking for their money.  

While I can't get into any specifics, I'm told that the RSN package is in a holding pattern, but that Raycom is working on plans for a package of games and that some of the TBA games will be part of that.

2) There's a couple open slots on ESPN networks during Week 2, but its unclear is those will be filled by, say, a expanded telecast of Texas at Alabama or other programming.  Friday night on ESPN2 and ESPNU are open at the moment.  Illinois at Kansas may have been moved to Friday.  Houston at Rice was initially an option to be moved to Friday too.

The early Boise State start time for 9/16: 10am local is outside of the allowed start times for the Mountain West on FOX, so I have to assume that Boise State OK'ed this.  Maybe the Mountain West did too.  Back when the rights agreement started in 2020, the Broncos had a home game scheduled with Florida State that it was expected to be a 10am local / Big Noon Saturday selection for FOX.  While not nearly the prestige, this seems to fall into the same arena of working with Boise State to get the game on FS1 instead of FS2, possibly.

FOX didn't take as many Mountain West games compared to 2022 or 2021: In prior seasons, FOX Sports was closer to its maximum allowed number of 23 regular season games but in 2022, its closer to the minimum.  I have two theories on this:

1) There's a potential desire to have less or no games on FS2.  In prior seasons, six games per year ended up on FS2.  Remove those and you have the same number of games FOX Sports selected overall for 2023.

2) Because of the increase in members for the Big 12 for 2023 (from 10 to 14), FOX Sports also may have an increased expectation to carry more Big 12 games compared to prior seasons.  I have questions out to several parties to understand how Big 12 minimum and maximum game requirements have changed for the upcoming season.

Both CBS and FOX can take up to four MW controlled Hawai'i games and they only took two, leaving nine games for Hawai'i's Spectrum PPV package to take on.  After that, 20 games remain for local & regional broadcasters along with the MW Network to produce.

Mountain West in primetime on CBS: This one doesn't surprise me as much as it did some of you.  The conference gets three games on CBS during the regular season, one of them on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, but the other two will be in primetime after Big Ten games in Weeks 1 and 2.

I think there's still some affinity to the use of the primetime television slot as it being marquee and for the weeks the MW was used here, I don't think that's the case and there's some strategy behind it, particularly with the Big Ten and the desire to have broadcast networks not step on each others' time slots:

1) For Texas Tech at Wyoming, its the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  Its not necessarily meant to be a big TV viewing weekend and with less marquee games over the week on Saturday, its a nice soft spot to get rid of a required game

2) With UCLA at San Diego State, the 2nd week of the season, it is placed against Texas at Alabama and I think its another place to help complete a requirement.