CFB TV Confirmations for Week Seven - 10/11/14

The schedule so far
My guesses for Week Seven

Six day hold for five SEC games

12pm ABC: Oklahoma vs. Texas
12pm ESPN: Florida St. at Syracuse
12pm ESPN2: Illinois at Wisconsin
12pm FS1: West Virginia at Texas Tech
12pm ESPNU: Indiana at Iowa
12pm ESPNEWS: Tulsa at Temple
12pm FSN: Middle Tennessee at Marshall
12pm SEC: UL-Monroe at Kentucky
12pm BTN: Northwestern at Minnesota
12pm ACC RSNs: Cincinnati at Miami (FL)
12:30pm ACC Net: Duke at Georgia Tech
1pm ESPN3: Buffalo at Eastern Michigan
2pm ESPN3: Arkansas St. at Georgia St.
2pm ESPN3: Miami (OH) at Akron
2pm ESPN3: Bowling Green at Ohio
3pm ESPN3: New Mexico St. at Troy
3pm ESPN3: Western Michigan at Ball St.
3:30pm FOX: Oregon at UCLA
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2: Michigan St. at Purdue
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2/ESPNU: Louisville at Clemson
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2/ESPNU: TCU at Baylor
3:30pm ACC RSNs: Boston College at NC State
3:30pm ESPN3: Liberty at Appalachian St.
4pm FS1: Oklahoma St. at Kansas
4pm SEC: Chattanooga at Tennessee
5pm ESPN3: Central Michigan at Northern Illinois
6pm Pac-12: Washington at California
6pm ESPN3: Idaho at Georgia Southern
7pm ESPN2: Penn St. at Michigan
7pm ESPNU: East Carolina at USF
7pm CBSSN: Houston at Memphis
7:30pm SEC/FSN: Charleston Southern at Vanderbilt
8pm ESPNEWS: Connecticut at Tulane
10:15pm ESPNU: Air Force at Utah St.
10:30pm ESPN2: USC at Arizona

CFB TV Guesses for 10/11

Current schedule for Week Seven

* CBS has two SEC games on 10/11.  One at 12pm and one at 3:30pm.  When this happens, CBS does not have the top two choices, but they choose first and fourth.  In between, ESPN gets to choose.  I am not sure if ESPN can/will/is allowed to use either of those two picks in between to place games on SEC Network.
* It is realistic for a SEC six day pick for the Auburn-Mississippi St. & Ole Miss-Texas A&M games in my opinion.  Said that last week too though.  I would think one for the Pac-12 would be possible, but one was used for 10/4.
* FOX only has a 3:30pm window.  Game 1 of the NLCS in the evening.  I am moderately curious as to whether FOX would attempt the same ratings grab that they did last year by pushing a better matchup to FS1, in last year's case it was Oregon-Washington.
* I think FOX has the top choice of the Pac-12, based on ESPN likely choosing Texas vs. OU for ABC at 12pm as the top Big 12 choice & Washington St.-Stanford being set aside by ESPN for a Friday night game.  Kinda curious too if FOX would put Baylor at TCU on FS1 instead at 12pm instead of West Virginia at Texas Tech.  There is no exclusivity in Big 12 telecast windows, so FOX could air whatever game they want opposite ABC or ESPN's game.
* FS1 also only has windows at 12pm & 3:30pm ET due to a simulcast of NLCS Game 1 from a metrics-based perspective.
* Per the MSG & YES websites, there will be a 12pm-3:30pm ACC RSN doubleheader, plus a SEC game at 7:30pm per Bob Rathbun and other FOX RSNs.
* ABC does not have a primetime window due to NASCAR.  Games at 12pm & 3:30pm
* Penn St. at Michigan is set for a 7pm start.  Same with Indiana at Iowa at 12pm.  Network decision is the only item being decided here.
* Pac-12 Networks only has one scheduled window at 4pm ET.
* Some TV listings do not have a 2nd TV window on BTN on 10/11.  BTN.com lists a four hour TBA window at 4:30pm.  We shall see.  To make things work here, I only used one game on BTN at 12pm.

12pm ABC: Texas vs. Oklahoma
12pm CBS: Georgia at Missouri
12pm ESPN: Illinois at Wisconsin
12pm ESPN2: Duke at Georgia Tech
12pm FS1: West Virginia at Texas Tech
12pm ESPNU: Indiana at Iowa
12pm ESPNEWS: Tulsa at Temple
12pm FSN: Middle Tennessee at Marshall
12pm SEC: UL-Monroe at Kentucky
12pm BTN: Northwestern at Minnesota
12pm ACC RSNs: Boston College at NC State
12:30pm ACC Net: Louisville at Clemson
3:30pm CBS: Auburn at Mississippi St.
3:30pm FOX: Oregon at UCLA
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2: Michigan St. at Purdue
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2: Florida St. at Syracuse
3:30pm FOX Sports 1: TCU at Baylor
3:30pm ESPNU: East Carolina at USF
3:30pm ACC RSNs: Cincinnati at Miami (FL)
4pm SEC: Charleston Southern at Vanderbilt
4pm Pac-12: USC at Arizona
6pm ESPN: Ole Miss at Texas A&M
7pm ESPN2: Penn St. at Michigan
7pm ESPNU: Oklahoma St. at Kansas
7pm CBSSN: Connecticut at Tulane
7:30pm SEC: LSU at Florida
7:30pm SEC/FSN: Chattanooga at Tennessee
8pm ESPNEWS: Houston at Memphis
9pm ESPN: Alabama at Arkansas
10:30pm ESPN2: Washington at California
10:30pm ESPNU: Air Force at Utah St.

ESPN College Gameday (Basketball Edition) Going to Flexible Schedules?

* It appears that most of ESPN's College Gameday basketball schedule, especially the final two weeks, will be flexible selections.  Looks like it starts on 1/17.  All times Eastern and all of the Gameday games are on ESPN.

• 1/17: West Virginia at Texas OR Kansas at Iowa St. at 9pm
• The other game will be shown on ESPN/ESPN2 at 6pm 
• 1/24: Michigan St. at Nebraska OR Wisconsin at Michigan at 7pm
• The other game will air at 4pm on ESPN/ESPN2 at 4pm
• Start time is earlier, presumably, due to X Games
• 1/31: North Carolina at Louisville OR Duke at Virginia at 7pm
• The other game will air at 4pm on ESPN/ESPN2 at 4pm
• Start time is earlier due to an NBA game at 9pm
• 2/7: Kentucky at Florida at 9pm
• 2/14: Connecticut at SMU at 9pm
• 2/21: UCLA at Arizona at 9pm

The games they appear to be leaning towards on 2/28 & 3/7 are both ACC games.  For 2/28, Syracuse at Duke was the only game the ACC release said was specifically going to air on ESPN.  On 3/7, Duke at North Carolina will air at 6pm or in the Gameday slot, but there was not another game that was specifically set aside to take its place.  But most of the schedule for ESPN/ESPN2 on 2/28 & 3/7 are not set in any way.

* C-USA released their FOX & CBS Sports Network MBK schedules and a few items are new.

• CBS broadcast network is truly no longer sublicensing the conference's tournament championship game from FOX.  FOX Sports 1 will carry the game instead.  CBS Sports Network, which has the rights to carry all other portions of the conference tournament, will continue to carry the semifinals.
• Why is there a gap between the C-USA final at 1:30pm and the Big East final at 8pm. NASCAR's Xfinity Series schedule says the race on 3/14 from Las Vegas will air on the broadcast network, so the only thing that could interfere is if FS1 is carrying Happy Hour practice.  Maybe FS1 will be carrying a spring training game that day.  Just not sure.
• FOX Sports 1 is only carrying three regular games and only one of those is an intraconference game (UTEP at Louisiana Tech on 2/26).  FSN will carry seven regular season games instead.
• My guess, and this is only a guess, is that FOX has guaranteed the conference a certain level of coverage for their games and that level of coverage cannot yet be met by the number of homes subscribing to FOX Sports 2.  So while there are pockets of the country not serviced by RSNs carrying FSN programming, the number of homes that do receive FSN programming still outnumber those receiving FS2.
• Of the non-conference games available, Washington St. at UTEP was not chosen.  My assumption is that neither FOX nor CBS could provide it a tip time before 10:30pm ET / 8pm MT, so they passed on it.  

* FOX put out a release for its entire college basketball schedule.  A few items on it, or missing from it, of note:

• It did not have the Iowa St. vs. South Carolina game from Barclays Center.  I'm reasonably confident this one is airing on CBS Sports Network now that the C-USA schedule for that network has been announced
• FS1 will carry one of the games from the Orange Bowl Classic (Florida vs. Wake Forest) on 12/20.  Florida St. vs. USF game will air on FSN.
• Florida vs. Wake Forest will be simulcast on either FOX Sports Florida or Sun Sports
• A game between Long Beach St. and St. John's, scheduled for 12/22 at 7:30pm, has gone missing.  I did send a note to their PR department last week noting that the game couldn't air on FS1 based on other games already set for the network, nor could it air on FS2 based on its tip time with a game on FS2 at 9pm ET.  I suspect they are working with the school to finalize a new tip time and network.
• Last year, around twenty Big 12 games, including one intraconference game, aired on FSN over multiple regions, including those outside of the Big 12 footprint.  I assume this will happen again, especially since three games were set aside for FSN to air during conference play.  I believe these will be added to the schedule at a later date.

A few notes from 10/4 CFB TV selections

* The 3:30pm ET games on ABC are not reverse mirrored.  Why is that?  The ACC & Big 12 rights agreements allow for regional ABC telecasts without corresponding pay TV coverage in areas where the games are not being shown on ABC.

So for Baylor at Texas & Wake Forest at Florida St., you will need either ESPN3 or ESPN GamePlan to watch the game not shown in your area.

* I don't know who gets to choose the remaining Pac-12 game for 10/4.  Let's say that the game not "chosen" falls to the other network.  My assumption is FOX gets to choose for three reasons:

• FOX is broadcast TV vs. ESPN is pay TV
• ESPN chose Arizona at Oregon and moved it to Thursday 10/2.  One could make the argument ESPN already chose ahead of everyone else.
• FOX's window is exclusive between the hours of 7:30pm-10:30pm ET, assuming 3.5 hours for Oregon St. at Colorado starting at 4pm ET on Pac-12 Networks

And as others have noted, this week's UCLA at Arizona St. game on Thursday night will go a long way towards determining whose game airs where.

* It is rare for both ABC and FOX to air simultaneous Big 12 games.  But it does happen on occasion before 10/4/14:

• 10/20/12 - Kansas St. at West Virginia (7pm, FOX) & Baylor at Texas (8pm, ABC)
• 11/3/12 - TCU at West Virginia (3pm, FOX) & Texas at Texas Tech (3:30pm, ABC)
• 9/13/14 - UCLA vs. Texas (8pm, FOX) & Tennessee at Oklahoma (8pm, FOX)

* Since FOX started airing games in 2012, there have been a few occurrences where all four major broadcast networks have aired games at the same time.  On 10/4/14, I believe we will see the 1st instance of all four networks with telecast windows starting at the same time with four game windows at 3:30pm ET:

• ABC: Wake Forest-Florida St./Baylor-Texas
• CBS: Alabama-Ole Miss
• FOX: Oklahoma-TCU
• NBC: Stanford-Notre Dame

Of the (now) four occasions, ABC's game was not reverse mirrored to ESPN or ESPN2 on two of the occasions: 10/20/12 & 10/4/14.  On 11/3/12, Texas at Texas Tech was reverse mirrored on ESPN2.  And with 9/13/14, Tennessee at Oklahoma was aired nationally on ABC.

* The slightly odd start time of North Texas at Indiana (2:30pm ET) makes sense, especially when put in context of the staggered starts of the 9/27 games on BTN with two 12pm ET games and Maryland at Indiana at 1:30pm ET.

The goal, I believe, is to have an hour of studio time between the early games and the evening games.  The staggered starts allow for approximately an hour of studio time from the end of the Indiana game on 9/27 before Cincinnati at Ohio St. and roughly the same amount of time before Michigan at Rutgers on 10/4.

* The Sun Belt will have select broadcasts branded as "The Sun Belt Network on ESPN3".  I'm not listing them as such, just going with the ESPN3 listing.  You can find that information if you need it in their weekly notes on their website.

CFB TV Confirmations for 10/4

I'm adding back in all available TV windows per the networks' schedules, because I have no idea what they are doing.

Will update as announcements are made.

Six day announcement on SMU-East Carolina & Memphis-Cincinnati.  Either 12pm on ESPNU/ESPNEWS or 7pm on CBSSN.

Waiting for confirmation from Pac-12 re: Utah-UCLA & Arizona St.-USC.  If its a six day pick, would either be FOX at 7:30pm or ESPN at 10:30pm.

Schedule for week six
My guesses

12pm ABC: Ohio St. at Maryland
12pm ESPN: Texas A&M at Mississippi St.
12pm ESPN2: Purdue at Illinois
12pm FS1: Iowa St. at Oklahoma St.
12pm FSN: Marshall at Old Dominion
12pm SEC: Florida at Tennessee
12pm ACC Net: Virginia Tech at North Carolina
2pm ESPN3: Eastern Michigan at Akron
2:30pm BTN: North Texas at Indiana
2:30pm ESPN3: Massachusetts at Miami (OH)
3:30pm CBS: Alabama at Ole Miss
3:30pm FOX: Oklahoma at TCU
3:30pm ABC: Baylor at Texas
3:30pm ABC: Wake Forest at Florida St.
3:30pm ESPN2: Wisconsin at Northwestern
3:30pm ESPNU: NC State at Clemson
3:30pm BCSN: Buffalo at Bowling Green
3:30pm ESPN3: Ohio at Central Michigan
4pm FSN: Kansas at West Virginia
4pm SEC: Vanderbilt at Georgia
4pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at Colorado
4pm ESPN3: UT Martin at Jacksonville St.
5pm ESPN3: Kent St. at Northern Illinois
6pm ESPN3: South Alabama at Appalachian St.
7pm ESPN: LSU at Auburn
7pm ESPNU: Texas Tech at Kansas St.
7pm ESPN3: UL-Monroe at Arkansas St.
7pm ESPN3: Idaho at Texas St.
7pm ESPN3: Georgia St. at UL-Lafayette
7pm ESPN3: Toledo at Western Michigan
7:30pm ESPN2: Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech
7:30pm SEC: South Carolina at Kentucky
7:30pm ACC RSNs: Pittsburgh at Virginia
8pm ABC: Nebraska at Michigan St.
8pm ESPNEWS: UNLV at San Jose St.
10:30pm Pac-12: California at Washington St.

CFB TV Guesses for 10/4

* I really think you could see a six day hold on CBS's selection between LSU-Auburn, Texas A&M-Mississippi St. & Alabama-Ole Miss.  For purposes of this exercise, I'm giving Alabama-Ole Miss the nod for now.
* If you are of the opinion that ABC games should carry the best games every week, I'm not sure why there are three ABC windows.   Because of this, I cut the late evening ESPN window plus the 4pm ESPNEWS window.
* By cutting out the late evening ESPN window, you could make a move of the 7pm ET ESPN window to 8pm too.
* I also cut out the 4pm ESPNEWS window.  I'm not sure there is a worthwhile game from the MAC, Sun Belt or Mountain West to fill it, though UNLV-San Jose St. was selected to air on an ESPN platform.  I think that one airs on ESPN3.
* I believe ESPN will try to spread out the SEC games where they can. LSU-Auburn, at 12pm, deserves to stay out of the way of the other games in the evening.
* Because the Pac-12 Networks do not have an evening game, I believe that FOX will carry a Pac-12 game at 7:30pm ET and that they will have a Big 12 game at 3:30pm.
* Time is already set for Nebraska-Michigan St.  Just making a decision on the network.

Games already set for 10/4

12pm ABC: Ohio St. at Maryland
12pm ESPN: LSU at Auburn
12pm ESPN2: Wisconsin at Northwestern
12pm FS1: Texas Tech at Kansas St.
12pm ESPNU: Wake Forest at Florida St.
12pm ESPNEWS: SMU at East Carolina
12pm FSN: Marshall at Old Dominion
12pm BTN: North Texas at Indiana
12pm SEC: Vanderbilt at Georgia
12pm ACC Net: NC State at Clemson
3:30pm CBS: Alabama at Ole Miss
3:30pm FOX: Oklahoma at TCU
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2: Utah at UCLA
3:30pm ABC/ESPN2: Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech
3:30pm ESPNU: Pittsburgh at Virginia
3:30pm BTN: Purdue at Illinois
4pm FSN: Kansas at West Virginia
4pm SEC: South Carolina at Kentucky
4pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at Colorado
7pm ESPN: Texas A&M at Mississippi St.
7pm ESPNU: Iowa St. at Oklahoma St.
7pm CBSSN: Memphis at Cincinnati
7:30pm FOX: Arizona St. at USC
7:30pm SEC: Florida at Tennessee
7:30pm ACC RSNs: Virginia Tech at North Carolina
8pm ABC: Nebraska at Michigan St.
8pm ESPN2: Baylor at Texas
10:30pm Pac-12: California at Washington St.

ESPN3 Exclusives
Kent St. at Northern Illinois
Ohio at Central Michigan
Toledo at Western Michigan
Massachusetts at Miami (OH)
Buffalo at Bowling Green
Eastern Michigan at Akron
UNLV at San Jose St.
UL-Monroe at Arkansas St.
Georgia St. at UL-Lafayette
Idaho at Texas St.
South Alabama at Appalachian St.

This week's MBK TV schedule notes

* The Pac-12 released its men's basketball schedule on Monday evening.  ESPN's key windows for the conference are typically Wednesdays at 9pm ET on ESPN2 & occasional Thursdays and Sunday evenings on ESPNU as part of a doubleheader with the ACC.

Nineteen of FOX's 22 games will air on Thursdays (nine) & Sundays (ten).  The two games airing on Saturdays are in place to air on FOX broadcast network, where either Oregon at UCLA or St. John's at Xavier will air on FOX on 2/14 with the other on FS1 & the Territorial Cup game in Tempe on 2/7 will air as part of a doubleheader with Georgetown at Villanova.

The conference will probably be paired with women's basketball from the Big 12, Big East and some men's basketball from C-USA on those days.

* An interesting question was posed re: why FOX doesn't take more non-conference men's basketball games for their Pac-12 schedule.  They've taken just one game each of the last two year (Marquette at Arizona St. last year, Ole Miss at Oregon this year).   I believe the reason is two-fold:

1) FOX only has 22 Pac-12 controlled regular season men's basketball games to show over 17-18 regular season weeks and the conference season has more value to them.  The conference season typically plays out over nine weeks, so that is roughly 2-3 games per week they can show.  In other words, they really want to make the 22 selections count.

2) As the sole rightsholder to the Big East, minus what they have sublicensed to CBS, they have more than enough men's basketball content during non-conference play, even though those games are often of a lesser quality, so they don't have as much of a need for choosing Pac-12 content in that portion of the schedule.  Earlier this year I discussed whether having that much Big East content was a good thing.

* It does look CBS Sports Network has access to non-conference games from the American Athletic Conference to complete their sublicense agreement of up to 30 men's basketball games.  They chose four games that I've been able to confirm: UCSB at SMU (12/8), Oklahoma at Tulsa (12/13), UIC at SMU (12/17) & Seton Hall at USF (12/18).  This brings their total to 29 games.

* I looked over the schedule of games for ESPNU throughout the year, specifically 2015 because that is where you typically see your back-to-back(-to-back...) schedules of games and any opening left is where several conferences like the will look to fill out the schedules.  Any Monday opening is likely to be filled by the MEAC or SWAC.  Fridays are apparently open for the Metro Atlantic, America East, Big South & MAC (maybe Thursdays for the MAC too).  The OVC for Thursdays too(?).  Saturday for the MVC(?).

So what is left exactly?

Not that much.  Here's a small list.

Monday: 1/5 7pm, 1/26 All day, 2/2 All day, 2/16 7pm, 2/23 All day
Wednesday: 2/11 9pm
Thursday: 1/8 7pm, 1/15 9pm, 1/22 7pm, 2/5 7pm & 9pm, 2/26 7pm
Friday: 1/9 7pm, 1/16 All day, 1/23 9pm, 1/29 9pm, 1/30 8pm & 10pm, 2/6 All day, 2/13 6pm & 10pm, 2/20 All day, 2/27 6pm & 8pm
Saturday: 1/11 11am, 2/21 ~7pm

* The Big Ten released their basketball schedules in two pieces this week.  The tournament semifinals on CBS will move up 30 minutes, starting at 1pm ET.  My thought is that this is related to CBS no longer sublicensing the C-USA championship game from FOX.  If they were to continue carrying the game with a 11am ET start, that would be 10am locally in Birmingham and just a 14.5 hour turnaround from the finish of the last semifinal game the day before.

FOX Sports 1 has the Big East final scheduled for an 8pm tip on March 15th.  I could see the C-USA final preceding it with a 5pm or 5:30pm ET tip, allowing for some overlap/pre & post game time.

* I'm a bit curious to see who picks up Iowa St.-South Carolina from the Barclays Center on 1/3/15.  The Barclays Center website lists the game as a 6pm tipoff.  FOX Sports 1 doesn't have the ability to take it unless they move the start of Creighton-Georgetown from 4:30pm to 4pm.  On the other hand, CBSSN has an opening at 6pm ET on 1/3/15.  Provided that C-USA does not have their TV schedule modified for TV that weekend, the game may have found a home.

I don't expect the game to air on ESPN.  They have many games set with unknown tip times for that day, presumably due to the uncertainty when ESPN would air their NFL wild card game.

Speaking of C-USA, their TV selections should be out over the next couple weeks.  Last year a TV schedule showed up on October 8th.