Appearances vs. Games In Basketball Contracts

There is some confusion out there regarding the current Big East extending their contract with CBS Sports to show men's basketball games on CBS broadcast network.  Both the Big East and CBS press releases note "up to 12 appearances".  12 appearances though do not equate to 12 games.

A conference game for the purpose of the contract counts as two appearances.  Further, CBS can count a team playing in a non-conference game, regardless of where it is played, as one appearance.  CBS isn't alone in phrasing contracts for basketball as appearances vs. games.  ESPN does this too as this press release with the WCC shows (see the part re: 48 appearances).

Anyways, here's how appearances broke down for the regular season (ie. not part of a conference tournament) on CBS.  Note that CBS sublicenses games from ESPN from ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 home arenas, so that muddles the numbers even further.  This was mangled here as well.

ACC - 6
A-10 - 4
Big 12 - 8
Big East - 13
Big Ten - 18
Pac-12 - 4
SEC - 13

Note the ACC appearance number of six matches what the Sporting News articles says with respect to games.

33 regular season games, 66 appearances.

Units Earned in 2013 NCAA Tournament by Conference

Its not always about TV.  Here are the units earned by conference.

A conference or independent school earns a unit for each game they participate in for the entire tournament except the national championship game.  A unit earned this year will be worth approximately $245.5K.

EDIT: Was able to confirm from Greg Shaheen that the First Four games are treated equally when it comes to earning a unit.

@mattsarz First 4 counts the same. So, the Explorers have earned 4 units so far for the A10. Ea unit=approx $245,500 for 6 yrs

— Greg Shaheen (@gashaheen) March 26, 2013

ACC = 10
Atlantic 10 = 12
Atlantic Sun = 3
Big 12 = 8
Big East = 19
Big Ten = 20
CAA = 2
C-USA = 2
Ivy League = 2
MEAC = 2
MVC = 7
MWC = 7
Pac-12 = 10
SEC = 7
Sun Belt = 2
WCC = 4

All conferences not listed each earned one unit.

A few MWC related items from their ESPN contract

A few items about the MWC deal, at least for the 2013 football season and a basketball scheduling thought.

MWC Release

ESPN Release

Boise St. Release (because it has some BSU specific info) 

* You can call this a backpedal if you want.  When I saw that CBS Sports Network had rights for up to 22 MWC football games, that really felt like a lot for a single channel that also has to carry football games from Army, Navy, a Division II package and C-USA.  They certainly can be creative with their scheduling of C-USA and the MWC, plus the D-II package is typically Thursdays.  But I guess that NBC Sports Network could still be in the game for a portion of the MWC games, just not directly from the conference.  If CBSSN has the ability to sublicense any of their content, and they very well could, NBCSN could be a destination for some of it provided they have the room and desire to carry it around their other properties.  With that said, if I'm CBSSN, I don't sublicense my content.  I keep it, build my network and not help anyone else.  Particularly now that the MWC has a partner in ESPN who is in plenty of homes with all of their properties, even ESPN3.  

With that said, I don't think anyone in the conference would be upset if CBSSN licensed some of their games to a network which is in more homes like NBCSN.  Either way, we will probably know more in the next few weeks as the TV partners build the schedule.

* Going back to CBSSN and sublicensing, the same holds true for the football championship game, which the conference says they are negotiating with CBSSN for telecast rights.  If CBS can convince the SEC to move their start time to 6pm ET, you could probably place the MWC title game at 2pm ET / Noon MT / 11am PT / 10am Hawai'i time.  I know that isn't the best time in the world for Hawai'i to host at, but I think you have to look at them as the outlier.

* ESPN's MWC rights this year include the following Boise St. home games: Southern Miss, UT-Martin, Air Force, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming.  Colorado St., Fresno St., San Diego St. and Utah St. are the road games.  Per the agreement, ESPN can trade one BSU home with CBS Sports Network for a road game.  I'd strongly consider doing that this year and try to grab one of the road games in California or the Utah St. game and dump one of the home games.  Just don't expect CBS to be willing to do that if the home game offered up is the UT-Martin game.  Have to believe ESPN is stuck with that for ESPN3.

* CBS Sports Network gets to pick the top eight MWC games.  I don't think they are limited to a certain number of non-conference or conference games. If I were to draft eight games off the top, it would look something like this:

USC at Hawai'i

Notre Dame at Air Force (with possibility of CBS broadcast network)

Boise St. at San Diego St.

Boise St. at Fresno St.

Boise St. at Utah St.

BYU at Utah St.

Fresno St. at San Diego St.

Colorado vs. Colorado St.

I don't think that CBSSN can take both Rutgers at Fresno St. and USC at Hawai'i because of the possibility of starting one of the games in the late afternoon locally, so if I'm making the choice, I go for USC-Hawai'i.  Taking three Boise St.'s best road games is a no brainer, especially if you have to bargain with ESPN for one of their home games.  Same with Notre Dame at Air Force, and that's a game I'd look to consider for a CBS broadcast window if AFA is cool playing at 9:30am or 10am local time.  

* ESPN getting some MWC basketball games during the season will be interesting.  If the conference retains its conference scheduling format of games on either Tuesday or Wednesday plus Saturday, they could certainly slide in a weekly game on Tuesday nights on ESPNU at 11pm ET (9pm MT/8pm PT) without much trouble.  CBSSN could retain its weekly Wednesday game and they each take a game on the weekend, plus whatever they elect to choose from the non-conference portion of the schedule.

Reading tea leaves from the Big East and ESPN

ESPN Press Release
Big East Press Release

Do you think these press releases are contradictory at times and intentionally vague?  I do.  I guess we've been spoiled with shared deals from the SEC, Pac-12, C-USA and Big 12 in recent years where the number of games for national distribution was clearly spelled out.  Reads a lot more like the ACC press release in 2010, except it doesn't even feel like both releases are on the same page.

ESPN: Every conference-controlled football game will be available via a television or digital platform.
Big East: Nearly 90 percent of the games will be carried on national broadcast or national cable.

The Big East release made a point to note that this deal would have an increased minimum in terms of the number of games.  The current deal had a staggered set of minimums.  17 games on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 with at least three on ABC, plus a minimum of five games on ESPNU.  Note that when the deal was written ESPNU was in far fewer homes than it is today.  

Let's say that the deal is now for 27-28 games as a minimum on those networks and I'm basing that on 22 games over 8 teams now being 27 games over 10 teams, possibly increasing to 33 over 12 teams (note: Navy's home games remain with CBS until possibly 2018).  One thing that ESPN has done with the recent deal with the Big 12 for example is to say they have 18 games and they could air anywhere across ABC/ESPN/ESPN2.  The difference was that between FOX and ESPN was the requirement of national distribution on their various networks.

Next question is how you define the word "televise".  The ESPN release notes the use of digital platforms and it isn't mentioned with respect to football & men's basketball.  Even if you have a larger number of national television exposures on those platforms, does national distribution include ESPN3?  Most folks aren't fans of that because ESPN3 can be tied to subscribing to the right TV or ISP provider.  But I can tell you that many schools and conferences will use the word "televise" instead of "webcasted" or "webstreamed", though I think equating ESPN3 with television is disingenuous.  Most of us can't turn on our TV and find ESPN3 unless our cable provider has access to show some ESPN3 games like Time Warner does, or if you have the right infrastructure on your home network to show those games on your big screen (ie. cable from the laptop, using an XBox or software to stream to a PS3).

ESPN: Brief notes about sublicensing to national & regional networks
Big East: Sublicensing was not noted, but syndication & local games are going away.

There has been some rumors about FOX licensing content, probably football, for FOX Sports 1.  How much of that content they can pick up remains to be seen.  Let's say there are 70 football slots (5 per week, four on Saturday, one on Thursday for 14 weeks).  If C-USA continues to take 20 (no word on if this changed with the changes in membership, assuming for now it didn't), Pac-12 takes 10 & Big 12 takes up 30. That would leave the around ten slots for the Big East.

If a regional package does remain, or we see a blended version of regional/national exposure, FSN works quite well, especially if the SEC Network starts up in 2014-15 because those RSNs will lose some football content, in addition to whatever they lose when FOX Sports 1 starts up in August.  Nearly every market is covered via FSN or an affiliate of their network

Tulane, SMU, Houston = FOX Sports SW & the New Orleans sub-feed
UCF & USF = FOX Sports Florida & Sun Sports
East Carolina & Memphis = FOX Sports South & SportSouth (though SportSouth is limited in eastern NC)
UConn = MSG & MSG Plus (as affiliate of FSN)
Cincinnati = FOX Sports Ohio

Only Temple is out of luck when it comes to FSN either with an affiliate or a FOX owned RSN.  Comcast SportsNet does license ACC games from Raycom using a FOX-like production (maybe FOX sells the games to RSNs for Raycom??).  Last year, FSN games were infrequently cleared WMCN (channel 44) in the area.

ESPN: Discussion that 170 men's basketball games will be aired across various platforms
Big East: At least 107 men's basketball games will be televised on national broadcast or national cable

Goes back to the football discussion.  Which is it?  The 107 number seems rights when you multiple 170 * .63, so what happens to the rest?  Also with the conference tournament, the conference release says the entire thing will be on national TV.  The ESPN release doesn't have that info, but both releases mention that the championship game will be on ESPN or ABC.

By the way, in the ESPN press release, they note that CBS will have a men's basketball package.  On the media conference call, Mike Aresco sidestepped the question, but noted that his former employer has been a good partner and they would have an announcement with a broadcast network next week.

I'll be a little fair now.  After finishing the conference call, it is abundantly clear there are details to be fleshed out.  That doesn't necessarily surprise me.  I remember emailing Pac-12 officials after their media rights deals were signed and received replies that included the words "We haven't decided that yet", "Still working on TV", "Our partners will be discussing that with the conference soon".  I hope they are positives for the conference and its members.

Seeding guesses for 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

My guesses on seedings for tonight's selection show.   Looked over top 50 wins, RPI, BPI, Ken Pomeroy's rankings and made a few adjustments here or there.  This is what I'm going with.  I'm not assigning anyone to a site or a particular game.  Too many rules and I have a headache.

The first four games I have are:

James Madison vs. LIU Brooklyn - 16 seed
North Carolina A&T vs. Liberty - 16 seed
Illinois vs. California -12 seed
LaSalle vs. Southern Miss - 12 seed

The way I initially ranked the teams on the 12 line would have had LaSalle facing Temple.  I'm guessing the tournament selection committee would not attempt to place teams from the same conference in the First Four, so Temple got a pass.

Bold = Automatic qualifiers

1 - Louisville, Indiana, Kansas, Gonzaga
2 - Duke, Florida, Miami (FL), Ohio St.
3 - New Mexico, Michigan St., Michigan, Georgetown
4 - Arizona, Saint Louis, Oklahoma St., Marquette
5 - Memphis, VCU, Creighton, Wisconsin
6 - Syracuse, Colorado St., UNLV, Kansas St.
7 - Butler, North Carolina, UCLA, Pittsburgh
8 - NC State, San Diego St., Missouri, Wichita St.
9 - Belmont, Oregon, St. Mary's, Notre Dame
10 - Middle Tennessee, Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa St.
11 - Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Boise St.
12 - Akron, Temple, LaSalle/Southern Miss, Illinois/California
13 - Bucknell, Valparaiso, New Mexico St., Davidson
14 - South Dakota St., Iona, Northwestern St., Harvard
15 - Montana, Pacific, Florida Gulf Coast, Albany
16 - Western Kentucky, Southern, James Madison/LIU Brooklyn, North Carolina A&T/Liberty 

Provisionally listing Saint Louis, Miami (FL), Florida & Ohio St. as winning their conference tournaments.  Shouldn't affect seeding if they lose in my opinion

Under consideration: Kentucky, Villanova, Baylor, Stanford, Tennessee, Maryland, Denver, Alabama, Iowa, Virginia.

Even if one of the four provisional champions lost today, it would not affect the field.

Multiple bid conferences (19 single bid conferences)
ACC - 4
Atlantic 10 - 5
Big 12 - 5
Big Ten - 7
Big East - 7
C-USA - 2
MVC - 2
MWC - 5
Pac-12 - 5
SEC - 3
Sun Belt - 2
WCC - 2

Hawai'i not part of MWC TV deals?

This is culled from a series of tweets.  You may have already read some of these.

A few days ago I wrote about the forthcoming MWC TV deal with ESPN and that we needed to see some finalized details before any judgments could be made whether a school like Boise St. would benefit more than 11 other schools.

Let's knock that down to ten other schools.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that Hawai'i will not share in this new TV deal as they are not a full member of the conference.  SBNation's MWCConnection provides a synopsis of the S-A's article.  And for the moment, let's not go down the road of whether they desire to be a full member nor whether they MWC wants them to be one.  Leave realignment out of this for the moment.  Fact is, Hawai'i and the MWC have a "quid pro quo" relationship.  Under the new playoff rules, the highest ranked conference champion for the "group of five" will play in an access bowl, so the MWC provides UH a place to win a conference.  On the flipside, UH provides the conference a 12th member, which is still the magic number of members needed to hold a conference championship game in football, which the MWC will hold in '13 and monetizing as part of their TV deal.

Instead of being part of the monetary portion of the TV deal (apparently UH will remain a participant with respect to providing their games), UH will continue its pay-per-view package with Oceanic Time Warner cable.  By not sharing in the conference TV contract, more money could be left behind in the shared pool of revenue if UH is not participating, particularly if UH has any of their games which would have qualified for the TV bonuses of playing on a national network.

The school requested four MWC games.  The MWCConnection article states that UH already has two non-conference games for the PPV package, but I honestly can't figure out where that comes from.  Of the four non-conference games:

• UH controls TV rights to two games.  I can't see the USC game being on PPV.  The Army game I think is a possibility.
• The road games at Oregon St. and Navy are on broadly distributed networks.   I'm assuming that Oceanic has access to both the Pac-12 Networks and CBS Sports Network.

UH may be continuing to work towards adding a 13th game against an FCS team.  That could be a 2nd non-conference PPV game.

If UH is asking for four MWC games to be made available for PPV, that leads me to believe that the MWC could be done with negotiations for national TV partners and that a regional package could be on the horizon.  When CBS adjusted their TV contract with the conference, they allowed for two packages to be sold.  I don't know how the packages were defined (ie. if CBS or the conference agreed that a package was 10 games in size) or if what ESPN bought was both packages or a single package.  If it was a single package, the regional package could still be in play for someone to step up, produce & syndication to various networks.

The UH football schedule should be finalized with the remaining MWC games in April.  My guess is that until all TV partners are finalized, they don't want to release a schedule where game dates could change.  The UH PPV package usually includes multiple football games along with some women's volleyball matches and a few men & women's basketball games.  Many UH events, including the bulk of the men's basketball home schedule, are also locally broadcast on Oceanic's Channel 16.

A few items re: MWC TV & Thursday nights

* The terms of the ESPN contract with the MWC have not come out yet.  Lets take a breath here.

• It is for "up to" 22 games, so they is probably some minimum number of games that ESPN has to carry across their networks.  It will include Boise St. home games.
• Until we see the terms of the agreements in a press release or have details leak out, let's not assume that every game is on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.  The bonus pool, as indicated in the term sheet leaked to the Idaho Statesmen, narrowly defined the bonus pool towards six networks that were in 90 million homes.  ESPNU is in 73 million homes and not part of the bonus pool.  There's time to fill in the late Saturdays evenings most weeks on ESPNU and many Thursdays & Fridays. In short, until a schedule comes out, I don't know that we can assume that every Boise St. home game is going to put them in the bonus.
• The biggest bonus provided with the pool is a Saturday game on one of the six networks ($500K).  A smaller bonus of $300K is paid for weeknight games on those networks.  Again, lets see a schedule.  We should be able to quickly figure out from there whether Boise St. makes out like a bandit or not.
• I think the bigger key is the "up to" 25 men's basketball games.  The MWC has improved as a basketball conference over the past few years, in some ways out of the spotlight.  That spotlight should return and can only benefit the conference when it comes to recruiting.
• I'll need it explained to me how CBS is still the "primary" rightsholder if their games are on CBS Sports Network and appear to be paying less money than ESPN.  Only thing I can come up with is that CBS is paying for only a handful of games and ESPN is getting more games, but not necessarily top tier.  No, not every Boise St. home game is a top tier game.  Going to be hard to get "bonus" money out of the UT-Martin game.
• They still need to hash out getting paid for non-conference games outside of the TV deal.  I'm having a hard time figuring out how they can get paid for games their contract has no control over.

* The news of the MWC signing the ESPN deal wasn't completely surprising because it was the goal to sign a deal with a network that the conference could use to pay out the bonus money.  And that meant NBC Sports Network was going to be left behind with it only at 78 million homes.  The MWC still has a package of games to sell.  The next package could end up as a regional network package, and if that happens, it would leave NBC Sports Network/Versus without FBS football for the 1st time since 2005, when it was OLN.

I feel conflicted about that.  MWC fans don't have any love for the folks at Comcast but believed things would be different with the NBC branding.  They went after the Pac-12 extremely hard, but were beat out by the ESPN & FOX dual bid.  Never had a chance with the Big 12 as those rights never went to the open market.  Seemed to be in it to win it when it came to the Big East, but the moving parts of realignment may have given them pause in regards to how much they were willing to offer.  They're left with the CAA & Ivy League, plus will have Saturdays filled with the English Premier League & MLS, plus open wheel racing programming from Formula One & the IRL.  They've become the alternative at this point.  Not the worst thing in the world.

* When FOX said that FOX Sports 1 would have regular Thursday night, they weren't messing around.  With respect to the Big 12, Pac-12 & C-USA, we won't know who will be televising those teams Thursday night games.  In the case of the former two, ESPN & FOX and for C-USA, CBS Sports Network or FOX.  I do think its interesting that when the NFL started their regular Thursday night series that it would kill off scheduling top games on Thursday nights.  If anything, ESPN and FOX are doubling down.

8/28: North Carolina-South Carolina & Ole Miss-Vanderbilt (ESPN), ??? (FS1)
9/7: ??? (ESPN & FS1, I think Sacramento St.-Arizona St. ends up with the Pac-12 Network)
9/14: TCU-Texas Tech (ESPN or FS1)
9/21: Clemson-NC State (ESPN), ??? (FS1)
9/28: Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech (ESPN), Iowa St.-Tulsa (FS1 or CBSSN)
10/3: UCLA-Utah & Texas-Iowa St. (ESPN or FS1)
10/10: Rutgers-Louisville (ESPN), Arizona-USC (ESPN ?? or FS1)
10/17: Miami (FL)-North Carolina (ESPN), ??? (FS1)
10/24: Kentucky-Mississippi St. (ESPN), Marshall-Middle Tennessee (FS1 or CBSSN)
10/31: USF-Houston (ESPN), Arizona St.-Washington St. (ESPN ?? or FS1)
11/7: Oregon-Stanford & Oklahoma-Baylor (ESPN or FS1)
11/14: Georgia Tech-Clemson (ESPN), Marshall-Tulsa (FS1 or CBSSN)
11/21: Rutgers-UCF (ESPN), ??? (FS1)
11/28: Texas Tech at TCU & ??? (ESPN or FS1)
12/5: Louisville at Cincinnati (ESPN), ??? (FS1)

In the case of most of the Pac-12 games on Thursdays, I'm not expecting the Pac-12 Network to be carrying those games.