Year end marker

Its the end of 2011.  As you saw in the year end piece, the year saw a lot of changes in college sports coverage.  Some positive, some negative.  2012, hopefully, will be a quieter year.  Yes there will be some alterations to the SEC contract and those probably will come out in the spring.  Big East negotiations will start towards the end of the year and who knows what type of market they'll find out there for their rights.  Whatever formation MWCUSA takes.  To AQ or not to AQ.  That is the question.

I am very appreciative of those who emailed or commented re: the site.  I am trying to find a happy medium with the TV site & blog going forward.  Have not yet found it.  Haven't started programming towards an updated site and don't intend to for a few weeks.  Suppose I'm thankful that most conferences haven't figured out how to schedule themselves for 2012.  Heck, West Virginia's home for 2012-13 will likely be decided in the court system and one of those cases won't be heard until near the end of the athletic calendar year in June.

I do software development for eight hours a day.  To come home and do more doesn't strike me as something I desire to do right now.  To be quite honest with you: I would not expect a football schedule listing at my site for 2012 until at least April.  I will keep track of it as much as possible, but I make no guarantees beyond that.   The twitter and facebook pages remain active, but I've turned off being notified when a post/comment hits the account, so unless I'm looking at the site, don't expect a quick answer.

I'm going to go spin a few records now.   Vinyl has made a comeback, after cassette, 8 track, CD, DVD-Audio, SACD, DualDisc, digital download and others tried to make it irrelevant.  Sound quality still matters, and so does being unable to skip a track.

Thanks.  Happy New Year.

2011: Year In Review

Plenty of changes in sports television and coverage of colleges in 2011.  Got started fairly quickly too.

1/5/11 - Conference USA and FOX Sports announce a new media rights deal.  After months of negotiating a new deal with ESPN, C-USA elected to move on and signed a deal with FOX for double the money, double the number of football games, plus ten men's basketball games and eight women's basketball games.

Analysis: I think it worked out well for the conference.  With any deal on FSN, there were clearance/pre-emptions for local coverage of other sports, but the conference had more opportunities to be seen.  I would be curious to know if teams saw attendance increases since the number of weeknight games decreased.

1/6/11 - FOX acquires rights to the inaugural Pac-12 football championship game.

Analysis: FOX also purchased an additional six college football games and ten men's basketball games for its FSN package.  Coupled with the C-USA rights, ongoing negotiations with the Big 12 and Pac-12 plus the purchase of the first six Big Ten football championships, FOX clearly established itself as a player in college sports.

1/18/11 - The FCC makes Comcast's purchase of NBC official.

Analysis: More later, but the beginning of a competitor in the college rights / broadcasting area.

1/19/11 - ESPN announces a channel dedicated to the University of Texas

Analysis: ESPN makes a big play after FOX appeared to be the leader of the channel, paying close to five times more than what FOX intended to pay.  Created a chasm within the conference membership that would widen later in the year.

3/15/11 - The new format of broadcasting the NCAA men's basketball tournament begins as TruTV broadcasts the first of the two "First Four" doubleheaders

Analysis: I didn't catch much of the opening weekend (I attended games in Cleveland), what I saw I was impressed with.  CBS and Turner followed through on their promise of noting when close & interesting games were going on and where to find those games.  Every game was televised nationally.  Some may complain that the games weren't on CBS or that they had trouble finding TruTV right away.  My take is that it was known in advance where to find the games.  Not to mention that Turner improved on the online March Madness package.

3/28/11 - FOX announces that F/X will get into the college football business, carrying a game of the week starting in 2011.

Analysis: F/X began broadcasting sports events a month later with matches from the UEFA Champions League semifinals and this announcement formally re-entered the channel into the college sports broadcasting business after a decade out of the game.  The deal with Conference USA allowed for some games to air on FOX and F/X, and the Big 12 & Pac-12 agreed to allow some of their games from FSN to move over to F/X.  Initially F/X intended to air its games at 8pm ET, but over half the package aired at 12pm ET and in mid-afternoon.

3/30/11 - ESPN sues Conference USA over the manner in which C-USA signed their rights agreement with FOX.

Analysis: In some ways, it felt like ESPN was using C-USA as a example for those leaving ESPN (ie. don't  cross us).  In other ways, it made sense as ESPN did has rights to negotiate with C-USA before the rights could go on the open market.   ESPN felt that C-USA did not properly provide a formal counter offer during a critical point in the negotiation, where C-USA disagrees.

4/14/11 - The Big 12 and FOX Sports announce a new 13 year television contract for broadcast of football on cable along with other Big 12 sports.  Men's basketball was not included as it is part of ESPN's deal for football games on ABC.

Analysis: FOX paid for 40 football games and the ability to license games to other cable networks, such as the existing deal with ESPN.  The money being paid to the conference was though to be a pacifier when it came to the Longhorn Network and the conference voted to share more of its ESPN & FOX TV revenue equally.  Instead loopholes within the contract, specifically regarding institutionally controlled games, ended up being a catalyst for further changes in the landscape.

5/3/11 - After months of major negotiations and open bidding, ESPN and FOX sign agreements with the Pac-12.

Analysis: Larry Scott became the model for a new style of conference commissioner.  One with an open mind.  After Comcast got involved and was set to sign the conference for all rights, they engaged ESPN and FOX to join together into a single bid for various pieces of rights.  ESPN became the primary rightsholder in men's basketball, while FOX gained football games for their over-the-air network.  The conference also noted that they held back a fair number of events and intended to create their own television network.

Late May - The Big East, after agreeing to basic terms of a contract extension with ESPN, elects to back away from the deal after the announcements of the Big 12 and Pac-12 rights deals

Analysis: The rumored terms were close to on par with the ACC's deal for around $13 million per team, per year for all sports members.  The initial analysis felt like this was in the Big East's best interest and suitors from Comcast were extremely interested in bidding on the conference's rights.  This move, along with other changes in the national landscape, turned out to be costly for the conference.

7/5/11 - The Longhorn Network elects to pick up Texas's football game vs. Rice.  It also announces that it intends to air a 2nd football game involving Texas and one of its Big 12 conference games.

Analysis: ESPN was able to work with FOX to get a second game for Longhorn Network (eventually selecting the 10/29 game vs. Kansas) and the rumor is that FOX was granted the ability to air a Big 12 game or two on its over-the-air network within the coming years.  Coupled with concerns regarding broadcasting of high school football on the network, this became the breaking point for Texas A&M and Missouri with the Big 12.

7/27/11 - The Pac-12, in conjunction with inDemand, announces that they will create Pac-12 Networks.  One national network and six regional networks based on the conferences' natural rivalry areas (Washington, Oregon, Arizona, NorCal, SoCal & Rocky Mountain).

Analysis: The second game changer the Pac-12 pulled off.  By engaging inDemand as a partner, the conference essentially has agreements in place with Time Warner, Comcast, Cox and Bright House.  All rights not granted to ESPN and FOX go to Pac-12 Networks.  The "TV Everywhere" concept is also included in this agreement and those cable networks will be able to show the networks' events via the internet in an authenticated manner.

8/16/11 - ESPN, C-USA resolve lawsuit.  FOX granted ESPN the rights to the C-USA football championship game for the length of the contract between the conference and FOX.

Analysis: In June, the court set the schedule for the trial between ESPN and C-USA.  The schedule meant that FOX would at least get to air all their intended games during the 2011 football season.  At that point, ESPN & FOX worked together to resolve the suit with C-USA.  Note that FOX was not a party to the suit, but wanted to help the conference resolve the suit so that all parties could move on.

Late summer & through the fall, part I - Several conferences (America East, Atlantic Sun, MAAC, MVC, SoCon, Sun Belt, WCC) sign new deals with ESPN.  Major parts of several of those deals involve exclusive   packages of games on ESPN3.

Analysis:  In some cases, the move to ESPN3 pays off because those conferences did not have many, if any, regular season games on ESPN's television networks.  In other cases, the ESPN3 packages came at the expense of cancelling the regional syndication package of games.

Late summer & through the fall, part II - A&M.  Syracuse & Pitt.  Missouri. WVU. TCU. MWCUSA. The Big East & West.  Exploring options.  Pac-??.

Analysis: The whole thing drives me batshit.  Equal parts ego bruising and conference mismanagement.  Rumors of ESPN spearheading some of these moves, thanks to the Boston College athletic director.  All in the name of chasing the almighty dollar because someone has more than someone else.

10/24/11 - CBS and ESPN are able to negotiate to allow CBS to air the LSU-Alabama game in primetime after CBS already has exhausted its single SEC primetime window earlier in the year.

Analysis: The negotiation wasn't acrimonious by any means.  CBS did guarantee that the 2012 Alabama-LSU game would air in primetime on their network.  ESPN in turn gained some form of "scheduling considerations" in 2012 from CBS.  One rumor is that ESPN would be allowed to earmark a few marquee SEC games and hold them from CBS.  As for the game, 9-6 LSU in OT and CBS earned an excellent 11.5 national rating.

Here's the deal

I apologize.  I thought I had mentioned before that I was considering stepping back from the site.  Here's the deal.

1) My workload at my day job, which is not this site, has increased exponentially.  Granted in football season the updates come once a week, maybe twice, but I like to have the info on site as soon as it gets released.  Don't always have the ability to do so.  I get cranky about that, and sometimes you guys do to.  That I can understand.  Its why you've also seen less weekly blog articles.

2) I'm enjoying it less and less.  Probably watched less CFB this year than any other year.  Realignment and other legal crap has kinda sucked the enjoyment right out of it.  I'm not naive to the fact that college athletics has become a business, but at least it didn't feel as blatant as it was this past year.  That doesn't include some of the seedy stuff that has been off-field related.

3) Never been about money either.  Hosting is cheap.

4) The site over the past couple years has been more about me staying current in my profession (computer programming).  I know, if you look at the site, you might not think that.  Extremely plain.  My plan was a rewrite of the site for the 2012 football season to take advantage of new skills learned (MVC, google it, its not a college sports conference).  I'm not sure of my direction on it or if I want to spend the time, or if I can even keep the site in roughly the same format.

5) I do enjoy conversing with just about everyone, but I get the feeling that I'm "on demand" with some items.  I realize that sounds extremely whiny.  This past year, I've done site updates from Siesta Key (early season CFB selections) and Las Vegas (week 2 of CFB) while on vacation.  Via a smartphone and SQL updates to the database.   It was not fun.

The domain name will be paid for on 1/1 for the entire year of 2012.  MBK season goes on as planned.  This batteries should recharge.  But that's where my head is at.  Sorry for the alarm.

Bowl me over with projections

Bowl eligibility and game list

Keeping it short and sweet.  Here's the list of bowl eligible teams as of tonight.   Based on records & remaining games, I also am assuming that NC State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, UTEP, Marshall, Air Force, Mississippi St., Tennessee and Utah St. will be bowl eligible.

Conference champion assumptions made:

• Oklahoma St. = Big 12
• West Virginia = Big East
• Clemson = ACC
• Wisconsin = Big Ten
• LSU = SEC
• Oregon = Pac-12
• Houston will be a non-AQ top 12 team

After the slots filled by conference champs lost to the bowl games, the selection order is Fiesta, Sugar, Orange

BCS Championship: Alabama vs. LSU
Rose: Wisconsin vs. Oregon
Fiesta: Oklahoma St. vs. Stanford
Orange: Clemson vs. West Virginia
Sugar: Michigan St. vs. Houston

Now the rest:

New Mexico: San Diego St. vs. Ohio
Idaho: Temple vs. Utah St.
New Orleans: UL-Lafayette (confirmed) vs. UTEP
St. Petersburg: Pittsburgh vs. Marshall
Poinsettia: Boise St. vs. Louisiana Tech
Las Vegas: TCU vs. UCLA
Hawai'i: Tulsa vs. Nevada
Independence: NC State vs. Wyoming
Little Caesar's: Illinois vs. Toledo
Belk: North Carolina vs. Cincinnati
Military: Wake Forest vs. Iowa St.
Holiday: Texas A&M vs. Utah
Champs Sports: Virginia vs. Notre Dame
Alamo: Baylor vs. Washington
Armed Forces: BYU (confirmed) vs. SMU
Pinstripe: Missouri vs. Rutgers
Music City: Georgia Tech vs. Mississippi St.
Insight: Kansas St. vs. Ohio St.
Texas: Texas vs. Northwestern
Sun: Florida St. vs. Arizona St.
Liberty: Louisville vs. Tennessee
Kraft: California vs. Purdue
Chick-Fil-A: Virginia Tech vs. Auburn
Ticket City: Penn St. vs. Air Force
Outback: South Carolina vs. Michigan
Capital One: Nebraska vs. Georgia
Gator: Iowa vs. Florida
Cotton: Oklahoma vs. Arkansas
BBVA Compass: Southern Miss vs. FIU
GoDaddy.com:  Arkansas St. (confirmed) vs. Northern Illinois

Notes

• The Champs Sports Bowl will exercise its 1-in-4 option with Notre Dame.
• The Liberty Bowl will exercise its 1-in-4 option to choose a Big East team to assure the Big East an SEC opponent in a bowl game
• New Mexico will fill its Pac-12 slot with a MAC team
• BBVA Compass will fill its matchup as Sun Belt vs. C-USA
• Kraft Fights Hunger fills its WAC slot with an at-large team (Purdue)
• Ticket City fills its C-USA slot with an at-large team (Air Force)

As football season winds down...

• Normally I would start compiling things for the 2012 football season, but that is virtually impossible to do at this point.  Several conferences who normally have their schedules firmed up are reconfiguring due to impending changes in membership, whether they occur in July or another year.  Lawsuits being fired back and forth will also set the official announcements back.  That also doesn't take into account schools having to cancel/move non-conference games as they move.
  
• Sent an email to Duane Lindberg of the Pac-12 with some questions regarding the new contracts the conference will begin with FOX and ESPN starting next year.  What I learned:
• In football, FOX will have some exclusivity in their time slot.  There will be some overlap, presumably during the 2nd half of games where ESPN and Pac-12 Network can kick off their games.
• Some early football selections will continue to be locked in by all TV partners, but games will continue to be determined on a twelve and six day basis during the year.
• A team can appear no more than nine times combined in the FOX and ABC/ESPN football packages. So those entities could pick a team's entire conference schedule, but by doing that they might lose out on a decent home non-conference game.  To me, this protects the Pac-12 Network, specifically for USC in the years they host Notre Dame, to make sure that USC (and Stanford too) wouldn't be shut out of appearing on the network.
• Of the 22 football games that ABC/ESPN has, I didn't realize that ESPNU will have the ability to show Pac-12 games, but it will be up to four of 22 games.
  
• Curious to know what C-USA fans thought of the change from ESPN to FSN.  I'm sure there was some grumbling because some regions did opt out of games at times, including one bad moment early in the season where SportSouth dumped the UCLA-Houston game late to start a Braves telecast on time.
  
  But the FOX deal showed more C-USA football than any other season and the schools were able to move away from nights like Tuesdays and Wednesdays that they considered undesirable.  Let me know.
  
• The Pac-12 will complete their final season of games on FSN on 11/26 with the UCLA-USC game.  The conference had 14 games on FSN this year.  Expect some of those slots to be picked up by the Big 12 and C-USA, presumably in better timeslots for both conferences.  Could see a return to games starting at 12:30pm ET in the Big 12 and C-USA, who prefer night games, to stay out of the 12pm slot when possible.  All depends on what these conferences look like.
  
• Don't expect any games from the MWC side of the CUSA-MWC football partnership on FOX networks.  Those will remain with CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network, unless plans change with the ownership of the mtn. by Comcast (Don't see that happening right now).

Rest of regular season CFB selections

The Pac-12 and Big 12 are finished with their selection process for the season, plus CBS has already made its SEC selection, so it leaves very little to predict for both 11/26 and 12/3.

11/25
11am ESPN2 - Louisville at USF
11am ESPNU - Toledo at Ball St.
2pm ESPN3 - Eastern Michigan at Northern Illinois
7pm ESPN - Pittsburgh at West Virginia

11/26

• UCLA at USC will be the last national Pac-12 telecast on FSN as the new contract that takes effect next year has all FOX Sports games on either local FOX stations or F/X.
• FOX made some adjustments to their schedule (surprise, surprise), moving the F/X game to 12pm and shifting the other Big 12 games back a time slot.  Should free up Rice-SMU to be shown nationally on FSN.
• I think there's a chance, if Virginia Tech-Virginia ends up deciding the ACC Coastal that the game, along with Virginia Tech-Virginia, could be reverse mirrored on ABC and ESPN2.
• Thought about the SEC slate after the Iron Bowl and the Palmetto State game, and its a dog.  Figured I'd put two games on ESPNU instead of a 2nd night game on ESPN2.
• There's a chance that an FCS playoff game could go into one of the ESPNU slots.  

CBS
Alabama at Auburn, 3:30pm (confirmed)

ABC
Ohio St. at Michigan, 12pm
Oregon St. at Oregon, 3:30pm (confirmed)
Michigan St. at Northwestern, 3:30pm
Notre Dame at Stanford, 8pm (confirmed)

ESPN
Cincinnati at Syracuse, 12pm
ABC Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Clemson at South Carolina, 7:45pm

ESPN2
Penn St. at Wisconsin, 12pm
Georgia at Georgia Tech, 3:30pm
Virginia Tech at Virginia, 7:45pm

ESPNU
Tennessee at Kentucky, 12pm
Maryland at NC State, 3:30pm
Florida St. at Florida, 7pm

FOX Sports
Iowa St. at Oklahoma, 12pm F/X (confirmed)
Rice at SMU, 12pm FSN (semi-confirmed)
Kansas vs. Missouri, 3:30pm FSN (confirmed)
Vanderbilt at Wake Forest, 3:30pm ACC RSNs
Texas Tech vs. Baylor, 7pm FSN (confirmed)
UCLA at USC, 10pm FSN (confirmed)

Versus
Washington St. at Washington, 7:30pm (confirmed)

BTN
Purdue at Indiana, 12pm
Illinois at Minnesota, 3:30pm

Regional and Syndication
Ole Miss at Mississippi St., 12pm SEC Network
Rutgers at Connecticut, 12pm Big East Network
Duke at North Carolina, 12:30pm ACC Network
UL-Lafayette at Arizona, 7pm ArizonaWildcats.com
FIU at Middle Tennessee, 7:30pm Sun Belt Network

12/3

I'll be honest: the Big East slate that day is not worth it, unless Cincy has to win to close out a BCS berth, which is entirely possible.  But, if Southern Miss-Houston ends up being the C-USA title game and Houston remains undefeated, it deserves ABC treatment over either of those two games.  Even though ESPN put out a press release saying the C-USA title game would be on ESPN2 at 12pm, plans change and this is worth it.

ABC 12pm - Conference USA Championship
ESPN 12pm - Connecticut at Cincinnati
ESPN2 12pm - Syracuse at Pittsburgh
ABC 3:30pm - Texas at Baylor
CBS 4pm - SEC Championship (confirmed)
Sun Belt 4:30pm - Troy at Arkansas St.
ESPN2 7:30pm - BYU at Hawai'i (confirmed)
ABC 8pm - Oklahoma at Oklahoma St.
FOX 8pm - Big Ten Championship (confirmed)
ESPN 8pm - ACC Championship: TBA vs. Clemson (confirmed)

11/19 12 Day Selection Guesses

Note that ESPNU will not have a mid-afternoon game as they'll be televising college basketball instead.

11/19 will be the final week of selections for the Big 12.  11/26 and 12/3 had their television selections completed before the season started.

I'm assuming that Longhorn Network games count towards the ABC selection count for the Big 12.  That's why Kansas St.-Texas ends up on F/X.

There could be some six day picks for this week too.  Possibly w/Cincy-Rutgers.


CBS
LSU at Ole Miss, 3:30pm

ABC
Nebraska at Michigan, 3:30pm (RM)
Clemson at NC State, 3:30pm
Texas Tech at Missouri, 3:30pm
California at Stanford, 3:30pm (RM)
Oklahoma at Baylor, 8pm
USC at Oregon, 8pm (confirmed)

ESPN
Penn St. at Ohio St., 12pm
ESPN Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Mississippi St. at Arkansas, 7pm

ESPN2
Wisconsin at Illinois, 12pm
Virginia at Florida St., 7:30pm


ESPNU
Cincinnati at Rutgers, 12pm
Miami (FL) at USF, 3:30pm
Kentucky at Georgia, 7pm

FOX Sports
Kansas St. at Texas, 12pm F/X
Kansas at Texas A&M, 12pm FSN
Maryland at Wake Forest, 3pm ACC RSNs
SMU at Houston, 3:30pm FSN
UCF at East Carolina, 7pm FSN

Versus
Washington at Oregon St., 7:30pm

BTN
Iowa at Purdue, 12pm
Indiana at Michigan St., 12pm
Minnesota at Northwestern, 3:30pm

Regional, Internet and Syndication
Tennessee at Vanderbilt, 12pm SEC Network
Louisville at Connecticut, 12pm Big East Network
The Citadel at South Carolina, 12pm Gamecocks PPV (confirmed)
Georgia Tech at Duke, 12:30pm ACC Network
Furman at Florida, 1pm Sun Sports PPV (confirmed)
Samford at Auburn, 1pm CSS PPV (confirmed)
Georgia Southern at Alabama, 2pm Crimson Tide PPV (confirmed)
Arizona at Arizona St., 7pm FSAZ
Colorado at UCLA, 7pm Prime/FCS
Utah at Washington St., 7pm ROOT NW/KJZZ
Western Kentucky at North Texas, 7:30pm Sun Belt Network