A few notes on new American Athletic Conference rights agreement

A quick comparison of the number of games each season vs. the new minimums announced in the new 12 year agreement with ESPN.

Football

The conference championship game is not counted in this table below.

So the new minimum of 40 games across the four primary networks is more than each of the previous five seasons.  The even numbered seasons also had games where Navy "hosted" Notre Dame, so you could add one more to each year, then take one more Navy home game to each season started with 2015 (2014 didn't have Navy nor a conference championship game) to get a more true apples to apples comparison.

With that said, if you add in the CBS Sports Network games of around 14 games per season, you'll likely get close to the planned minimum in at least 2015 & 2016.  2017 & 2018 would be well above the minimum.  In my opinion, this is where the American would be taking advantage of some ACC content moving over to the new ACC Network.

Men's Basketball

The conference tournament games are not counted in this table below.

The first thing I would caution is that the 2018-19 season had one more week available for games to be played compared to the other four years.  Also, Wichita St. joined for the 2017-18 athletic year, which gave the conference more available games for television.

CBS Sports Network received 30 games per season via sublicense.  The minimum increasing will help out a little, but ESPN+ is more likely to be the platform receiving the bump in content as I don't see those 30 games being added to both ESPNU and ESPNEWS.

Networks in use

ESPN+ was added as a platform, but ESPNEWS, ESPN3 and CBS Sports Network were not mentioned.  I get the feeling from the language of the release that CBS Sports Network could be out, though it is not confirmed by anyone with knowledge of any of the agreements.  ESPN3 and ESPNEWS weren't mentioned either with the exception of the "About ESPN" section, so I don't know the status of using those two linear TV channels.  If anything, one could make a reasonable leap that the ESPNEWS content could be what ends up adding to the new contract minimums, and the content that was on ESPN3, CBSSN and some schools' streaming packages become the ESPN+ package.  ESPNEWS carried six football games in 2018 and 15 men's basketball games in the 2018-19 regular season.

I should also mention that ESPN allows conferences like the Ivy League, SoCon and others to regionally televise ESPN+ games, unless schools were counseled not to sign new regional television deals, such as the deal UConn has with SNY.

EDIT: A transcript of the media call announcing the agreement has details that sublicensing could continue and that ESPN would need to sit down with relevant parties to gauge their interest in continuing these arrangements.

A Guess At The Remaining Thursday & Friday Night CFB Schedules for 2019

Thursdays

ESPN (main channel) has mostly set its Thursday night schedule with the ACC & American taking up nearly every Thursday night, but there are some holes.  The holes happen to already have available games for those dates

8/29: UCLA at Cincinnati
9/5: No game (US Open tennis)
9/12: North Carolina at Wake Forest
9/19: Houston at Tulane
9/26: Navy at Memphis
10/3: Temple at East Carolina
10/10: Syracuse at NC State
10/17: No game yet
10/24: SMU at Houston
10/31: No game yet
11/7: Temple at USF
11/14: North Carolina at Pittsburgh
11/21: NC State at Georgia Tech
11/28: No game yet

Here's what I think ESPN will end up for a schedule, with additions in red.

8/29: UCLA at Cincinnati & Utah at BYU

9/5: No game (US Open tennis)

9/12: North Carolina at Wake Forest

9/19: Houston at Tulane

9/26: Navy at Memphis

10/3: Temple at East Carolina

10/10: Syracuse at NC State

10/17: UCLA at Stanford

10/24: SMU at Houston

10/31: West Virginia at Baylor

11/7: Temple at USF

11/14: North Carolina at Pittsburgh

11/21: NC State at Georgia Tech

11/28: Ole Miss at Mississippi St.

C-USA and the Mountain West hasn't yet set its weeknight schedule, which would primarily impact CBS Sports Network.  For the games currently set for Thursdays not included here & not set for television, here's where I think they'll end up:

8/29
ESPN3/+: South Carolina St. at UCF (if it remains on Thursday night), three MAC games, Alabama St. at UAB, Wagner at UConn (also probably on SNY)
CBS Sports Network: FIU at Tulane
BTN: South Dakota St. at Minnesota
MW Network: Northern Colorado at San Jose St.
Pac-12: Kent St. at Arizona St.

Fridays

Fridays should have more variance when it comes to networks.  I think you'll see the ACC Network involved for a few Fridays along with FS1 & CBSSN.

I decided to go with a table to cover all the potential networks.  Anything in red is a guess for either the network or possibly the game itself.  You'll need to click on the image to read it likely.

I left Black Friday off the table (day after Thanksgiving).  Keep reading for that.

Back to Black Friday, here's how I think it will go (not necessarily in the order of the games being played):

ABC: One American Athletic game, one ACC game
CBS: Missouri at Arkansas
FOX: One Pac-12 game, Iowa at Nebraska
ESPN: One Big 12 game
FS1: One Pac-12 game, one Big 12 game
ESPNU: One MAC game
CBSSN: One American Athletic game, one MAC game

A passing thought or two on WarnerMedia: Why not the Mountain West?

I want to make sure off the top that you, the reader, know that there's no informed, behind the scenes thought behind this topic.

So the wheels are turning at WarnerMedia at the executive level & my first thoughts about regular season collegiate content they could acquire stopped at one place where they have a foot in the door regionally: The Mountain West, whose rights agreements with CBS Sports & ESPN expire at the end of the 2019-20 athletic year.  The conference has had a small package of football & men's basketball games on the AT&T Sports RSNs for several years.

This got me to thinking that this could be a worthwhile partnership. The Mountain West hasn't been thrilled about some of the slotting of their games, specifically in the areas of start times. Meanwhile, the linear TV channels of TNT, TBS and TruTV have a decently open canvas on weekends for live sports.  I believe the channels also have enough subscribers to support any requirements Boise St. home football games would have as they have a slightly separate deal for themselves.

Beyond those linear channels, B/R Live has gained traction through their coverage of UEFA championships, limited live NBA games, a small set of AAF games & other niche properties. The platform did have the failure of the PPV purchasing system for the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson golf event, but the stream seemed to hold up.  The conference has experimented with current partner Stadium for events on Facebook when linear TV wasn't an option. I realize the "free vs. pay" option is another hurdle, but it has gained a level of acceptance.

Regional games on AT&T Sports & Spectrum Sports PPV could stay & use B/R Live out of market, assuming there is some location services component to protect the in-market rights.  Maybe leverage Audience Network for some additional carriage of those games on DirecTV & AT&T UVerse or partner up with AT&T's telecom resources.

One quote that got to me and also leads me to believe that WarnerMedia wouldn't need to be the sole distributor of this content comes from the head of WarnerMedia, John Stankey.  While he was talking about entertainment content, I see no reason that it couldn't apply to sports as well:

...Well, look, we invest as much in WarnerMedia as Netflix does every year. In some cases we keep it for ourselves and in some cases we license it to them. Our ability to build content of scale and quality is really second-to-none in terms of an in-house production capability. And now Bob will make the decision about how much we should hold on our own platforms and how much we should license to third-party distributors....

There's no reason to believe that they couldn't seek out other distribution partners while maintaining control of rights.

Would like to hear your thoughts.

2019 Week 3 Early Season CFB TV Guesses

So I couldn't think of any major conflicts for sports events that ESPN or FOX.  No MLB for FOX to carry as they'll carry MLB on their broadcast network on Thursday nights for a couple weeks in September, probably two weeks where NFL Network exclusively carries Thursday night NFL games if you want to track that against other sports.

Here's the deal: If the game isn't listed, assume it will be streamed by whatever the home conference's streaming arrangements are (ESPN3, ESPN+, Stadium online, etc.)

Friday
7pm ACCN: Kansas at Boston College
8pm ESPN: Washington St. vs. Houston

Saturday
12pm ABC: Stanford at UCF
12pm FOX: Pittsburgh at Penn St.
12pm ESPN: Kansas St. at Mississippi St.
12pm ESPN2: Florida St. at Virginia
12pm FS1: Iowa at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNU: Miami (OH) at Cincinnati
12pm SEC: Colorado St. at Arkansas
12pm SEC Alt: Chattanooga at Tennessee
12pm BTN: UNLV at Northwestern
12pm CBSSN: Maryland at Temple
12:30pm ACCN: Bethune-Cookman at Miami (FL)
2pm Pac-12: Idaho St. at Utah
3:30pm ABC: Oklahoma at UCLA
3:30pm CBS: Florida at Kentucky
3:30pm NBC: New Mexico at Notre Dame
3:30pm ESPN: TCU at Purdue
3:30pm ESPN2: USC at BYU
3:30pm FS1: Air Force at Colorado
3:30pm ESPNU: Oklahoma St. at Tulsa
3:30pm BTN: Georgia Southern at Minnesota
3:30pm CBSSN: East Carolina at Navy (network confirmed)
4pm FOX: Arizona St. at Michigan St.
4pm SEC: Southeast Missouri at Missouri
4pm SEC Alt: Southeastern Louisiana at Ole Miss
4pm ACCN: The Citadel at Georgia Tech
4pm Stadium: Duke at Middle Tennessee
5pm CBS Sports Facebook: Louisville vs. Western Kentucky
5pm Pac-12: Montana at Oregon
7pm ESPN: Alabama at South Carolina
7pm ESPN2: Arkansas St. at Georgia
7pm FS1: NC State at West Virginia
7pm ESPNU: Northwestern St. at LSU
7:30pm ABC: Ohio St. at Indiana
7:30pm FOX: Hawai'i at Washington
7:30pm SEC: Kent St. at Auburn
7:30pm SEC Alt: Lamar at Texas A&M
7:30pm BTN: Eastern Michigan at Illinois
7:30pm BTN: Northern Illinois at Nebraska
7:30pm CBSSN: Texas vs. Rice
7:30pm ACCN: Clemson at Syracuse
8pm Pac-12: North Texas at California
10:15pm ESPNU: Portland St. at Boise St.

10:30pm ESPN: Texas Tech at Arizona
11pm Pac-12: Cal Poly at Oregon St.

2019 Week 2 Early Season CFB TV Guesses

Known items for other sports that week

• ESPN will have US Open tennis Thursday & Friday night, plus Saturday afternoon covering the women's championship match in mid-afternoon.
• FS1 has two MLB games at 4pm & 7pm ET.  
• The opening night of the NFL season is Thursday night and there's been virtually no major CFB competing against that game for a few years.

Unknown

• It is unknown whether FOX broadcast network has any MLB commitments on this Saturday.  None are currently listed, but I don't know if this is a week where FOX can select a game on about ten days notice.
• Don't know when UFC would have it's September PPV and the channel for those prelims. Didn't account for a PPV this week.

Friday

7pm ACCN: William & Mary at Virginia

9pm ESPN2: Marshall at Boise St.

10pm Pac-12: Sacramento St. at Arizona St.

I moved Marshall at Boise St. over here based on what has already (not) been moved.  The Mountain West's weeknight schedule comes out in early April and a limited number of Boise St. games can move.  With ESPN being the rightsholder for Boise St. home games, to me, this seems like a logical fit.

EDIT (2/22/19): To account for the possibility of UFC PPV prelims on ESPN, I made the following changes:

• West Virginia at Missouri was moved from 9pm ESPN to 12pm SEC Network
• Murray St. at Georgia stays at 12pm, but moves to SEC Network Alternate
• BYU at Tennessee moves from 6pm ESPN to 7pm ESPN2
• San Diego St. at UCLA moves from 7pm ESPN2 to 5pm Pac-12 Networks
• Northern Colorado at Washington St. stays at 5pm, but is only shown on linear TV on Pac-12 Networks' Washington.
• California at Washington moved up 30 minutes from 10:30pm to 10pm and moves from ESPN2 to ESPN.

Here's the deal: If the game isn't listed, assume it will be streamed by whatever the home conference's streaming arrangements are (ESPN3, ESPN+, Stadium online, etc.)

Saturday

12pm ABC: Syracuse at Maryland

12pm FOX: Army at Michigan

12pm ESPN: Buffalo at Penn St.

12pm ESPN2: USF at Georgia Tech

12pm FS1: UTSA at Baylor

12pm ESPNU: Old Dominion at Virginia Tech

12pm SEC: West Virginia at Missouri
12pm SEC Alt: Murray St. at Georgia
12pm BTN: Western Michigan at Michigan St.

12pm CBSSN: UCF at FAU

12pm FSN: Coastal Carolina at Kansas

12:30pm ACCN: Ohio at Pittsburgh

2pm Pac-12: Nevada at Oregon

3:30pm ABC: Cincinnati at Ohio St.

3:30pm CBS:  Arkansas at Ole Miss

3:30pm ESPN2: New Mexico St. at Alabama

3:30pm ESPNU: Illinois at Connecticut

3:30pm CBSSN: Wake Forest at Rice

3:30pm BTN: Rutgers at Iowa
3:30pm BTN: Eastern Illinois at Indiana
4pm FOX: LSU at Texas

4pm SEC: Eastern Michigan at Kentucky
4pm SEC Alt: Charleston Southern at South Carolina

4pm ACCN: Miami (FL) at North Carolina

4pm FSN: Bowling Green at Kansas St.
5pm Pac-12: San Diego St. at UCLA
5pm Pac-12 Washington: Northern Colorado at Washington St.

7pm ESPN2: BYU at Tennessee

7pm CBSSN: Minnesota at Fresno St.

7pm FOX PPV: South Dakota at Oklahoma

7:30pm ESPNU: Southern Miss at Mississippi St.

7:30pm SEC: Tulane at Auburn
7:30pm SEC Alt: UT Martin at Florida

7:30pm ACCN: UL-Monroe at Florida St.

7:30pm BTN: Vanderbilt at Purdue
7:30pm BTN: Central Michigan at Wisconsin
7:30pm Stadium: Western Kentucky at FIU

8pm ABC: Texas A&M at Clemson

8pm FOX: Stanford at USC

8pm Pac-12: Northern Illinois at Utah
8pm FSN: McNeese at Oklahoma St.
8pm FS2: UTEP at Texas Tech

10pm ESPN: California at Washington

10pm FS1: Nebraska at Colorado

10:30pm CBSSN: Oregon St. at Hawai'i

11pm Pac-12: Northern Arizona at Arizona

So what I don't know is whether the ACC Network will have alternate feeds for football games or not.  My assumption right now is that they will not because they allowed for streaming of games previously compared to the SEC, who did not.

2019 Week 1 Early Season CFB TV Guesses

Weeks 2 & 3 will be out in the near future. There will be game date adjustments throughout the spring. Do not take these as set in stone. Final TV announcements will happen in May & June.

Known items for other sports that week

• ESPN2 has US Open tennis all day on Saturday and should have it on Thursday & Friday nights.
• FS1 has a MLB game at 4pm ET.  The Phillies originally listed the game at 6pm ET but it has been adjusted per the MLB website.  No MLB games will air on FOX's broadcast network.
• No FIFA match window except for Labor Day.
• FOX has a Premier Boxing Champions card on Sunday.  Time of the card is not known.
• From work by FBSchedules.com requesting the game contract, the Miami vs. Florida game will start no earlier than 6pm Eastern.
• MAC games appear to remain available to air on CBS Sports Network as a couple games were scheduled to air there when the conference's schedule was announced.

Unknown at this time

• No football games have yet been moved to Sunday evening.  No game has been set aside for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, but I expect one to be.  Certainly possible for a game to air on ABC on Sunday night.
• Is CBS still sublicensing two SEC games from ESPN?  My assumption is that another agreement will be made.  Even if the games coming from ESPN to CBS aren't the top choice like they are for the weeks CBS owns their own selections, they still end up with quality games.

Week Zero

Saturday 8/24 
Midnight CBSSN: Arizona at Hawai'i

*Midnight = 6pm HT on 8/24. 

Week One

Here's the deal: If the game isn't listed, assume it will be streamed by whatever the home conference's streaming arrangements are (ESPN3, ESPN+, Stadium online, etc.)

Thursday

7pm ESPN: UCLA at Cincinnati (network confirmed)

7:30pm ACCN: Georgia Tech at Clemson (network confirmed)

7:30pm SNY: Wagner at Connecticut
8pm CBS Sports Network: FIU at Tulane

10:15pm ESPN: Utah at BYU

10:30pm Pac-12: Kent St. at Arizona St.

Friday

7pm ESPN: Wisconsin at USF (network family confirmed)

7pm CBSSN: Rice at Army (network confirmed)
7pm ACCN: Utah St. at Wake Forest

7:30pm BTN: Massachusetts at Rutgers

8pm FS1: Tulsa at Michigan St.

9pm Pac-12: Colorado St. vs. Colorado

10:15pm ESPN: Oklahoma St. at Oregon St.

Saturday

12pm ABC: FAU at Ohio St.

12pm ESPN: Georgia St. at Tennessee

12pm FS1: South Alabama at Nebraska

12pm ESPNU: Virginia at Pittsburgh

12pm SEC: Toledo at Kentucky

12pm BTN: Idaho at Penn St.

12pm FSN: UAPB at TCU

12:30pm ACCN: Virginia Tech at Boston College

1pm AT&T SN Pitt: James Madison at West Virginia

2pm Pac-12: Eastern Washington at Washington

3:30pm ABC: Duke vs. Alabama

3:30pm CBS: North Carolina vs. South Carolina

3:30pm FOX: Middle Tennessee at Michigan
3:30pm ESPN: Georgia at Vanderbilt

3:30pm ESPNU: Akron at Illinois

3:30pm CBSSN: Holy Cross at Navy (network confirmed)

3:30pm BTN: Howard at Maryland

4pm ACCN: East Carolina at NC State

4pm SEC: Portland St. at Arkansas

4pm FSN: Stephen F. Austin at Baylor

5:30pm Pac-12: UC Davis at California

7pm ESPN: Miami (FL) vs. Florida

7pm FS1: Northwestern at Stanford

7pm ESPNU: Georgia Southern at LSU

7pm CBSSN: Ole Miss at Memphis

7pm JayhawkTV: Indiana St. at Kansas

7pm KStateHD.TV/ESPN3: Nicholls at Kansas St.

7:30pm FOX: Houston at Oklahoma

7:30pm ACCN: Boise St. vs. Florida St.

7:30pm SEC: Texas St. at Texas A&M

7:30pm BTN: Miami (OH) at Iowa

8pm ABC: Oregon vs. Auburn

8pm Longhorn: Louisiana Tech at Texas

8pm FSN: Montana St. at Texas Tech

8pm CyclonesTV: Northern Iowa at Iowa St.

9pm Pac-12: New Mexico St. at Washington St.

10:15pm ESPNU: Missouri at Wyoming

10:30pm CBSSN: Purdue at Nevada
10:30pm ESPN: Fresno St. at USC

Sunday
12pm ESPN2: Jackson St. vs. Bethune-Cookman

Monday
8pm ESPN: Notre Dame at Louisville

Quick Notes on Weeknight 2019 ACC Football Games & Other Topics

* It was previously announced that the Clemson at Georgia Tech game would lead off the ACC Network football schedule.  For the other Friday night games, I do wonder if the ACC Network will show a few of them instead of airing them on ESPN or ESPN2.

If ACC Network does carry any Friday night games, candidates for that network could be Utah St. at Wake Forest on August 30th, William & Mary at Virginia on September 7th and Pittsburgh at Syracuse on October 18th.  The reason for including the last game is because of my belief that Ohio St. at Northwestern would be on ESPN on that evening as FS1 would be in the middle of their MLB postseason coverage and FOX has WWE programming.

Once the American's schedule is released, this could become clearer.

The other Friday night game that may have had its network accounted for is Penn St. at Maryland on September 27th.  FS1 has aired a Friday night Big Ten game in late September each of the past two seasons and this assumes that the Duke at Virginia Tech game, scheduled for the same evening, airs on ESPN.

* There's something up with Eleven Sports, the smaller sports network that took over the placement of One World Sports in the US a few years ago.  Eleven is the rightsholder for UMass athletics (primary for some sports like football, secondary for men's basketball) along with Big Sky & Southland conferences.  They also simulcast AggieVision telecasts from New Mexico St.

Over the past month, Eleven has been slowly cancelling men's basketball productions from the Big Sky and Southland on a rolling two week basis.  Last week, UMass announced that the remaining productions that were scheduled to air on Eleven Sports, with regional coverage in New England on NESN, would shift exclusively to NESN.

Production/scheduling issues arose. Brought production in-house so we could maintain originally scheduled TV dates. Hope to resolve in near future. Appreciate @NESN working with us.

— John Sinnett (@john_sinnett) January 11, 2019

There's plenty of coverage of Eleven's international carriage issues & loss of rights.  CNBC has info on losing exclusive UFC rights in the UK and have been vocal about the possibility of pirated content with respect to the Italian Super Cup.

My own experience with Eleven has not been fruitful in terms of getting any questions answered about the channel, so whatever you see online is no different that what I end up finding online.  The long term prospects of the channel don't seem positive though.

* As first reported by Sports Business Journal, the Big 12 football championship will not be carried by FOX this year or future odd numbered years.  I wrote a short piece on it earlier this week & encourage you to seek out SBJ's work on the subject.

* The MEAC has reached an agreement with FloSports to carry several sports, including a handful of men's basketball games plus their conference basketball tournament, except for the championship game on ESPN's linear TV platforms.  In prior seasons, ESPN3 carried the conference tournament games that FloSports is picking up.

* Two more items:

• One is from Steve Dittmore, who wrote this piece for Athletic Director U on the value of the SEC's media deal with CBS and why that bargain today shouldn't be one in the future.
• The other is from Jon Wilner, who interviewed a media markets expert on the Pac-12's media strategy, now & in the future