Mid-April CFB TV 2019 Notes

* The Big 12 signed a deal with ESPN for three football conference championship games and eight schools pledged their member-retained content for ESPN+.  A couple things not covered in my original post on the topic:

• The Big 12 didn't get the value in the market that they were expecting for the three football conference championship games.  The number quoted by Sports Business Journal was $40 million for the three games, or slightly north of $13 million per game.  FOX Sports ended their deal for paying around $20 million per game and the conference seemed to believe they would be able to get that number on the open market.  The conference previously said they had multiple suitors for the games, which would, in theory, create a bidding war for the content.
  
• I'm curious who now makes the call as to which game is designated as a school's member retained football game.  FOX Sports had that option previously & if a school elected not to utilize their own platforms, the game had to be offered back to FOX Sports.  I suppose I could see FOX Sports continuing to dictate these choices as to not adversely affect the games available to their own Big 12 content package, but I would think that ESPN now has a greater say, or all of the say, in the matter.  Maybe it will end up being a joint decision by both networks with the conference or individual school having the final say.  Could it end up being a intraconference game?  The conference said this was a possibility several years ago, but I believe there had to be extenuating circumstances for this option.
  
• For that member retained content, I have no idea how ESPN is paying that to the schools.  Each of these deals were previously negotiated with FOX or another media partner, so I don't know if those eight have agreed to pledge this content in return for a guaranteed minimum payout or some other formula is going to be applied to compensate the schools.

* NBC has set start times for their Notre Dame home games.

* Conference USA came out with a handful of start times for games, along with a few date changes.  This could end up being nearly the entire schedule of linear TV games on CBS Sports Network (all times Eastern).  Nine games are listed here and a tenth would need to be finalized

• Friday 9/6 - Wake Forest at Rice, 8pm
• Saturday 9/7 - UCF at FAU, 7pm
• Saturday 9/14 - Texas vs. Rice, 8pm
• The Mountain West only has games vs. FCS opponents that day.  East Carolina at Navy should be at 3:30pm ET.  Maybe another American Athletic Conference game at 12pm ET.
• Friday 9/20 - FIU at Louisiana Tech, 8pm
• Friday 10/18 - Marshall at FAU, 6:30pm
• Look for a potential doubleheader with the Mountain West.  Nevada at Utah St. could be scheduled for 10pm ET based on Marshall at FAU's start time
• Friday 11/15 - Louisiana Tech at Marshall, 7pm
• The Jamaica Classic is moving to a week later in the college basketball schedule, so it would not clash with this game's date
• Saturday 11/23 - Miami vs. FIU, 7pm
• Saturday 11/30 - FIU at Marshall, 12pm
• Saturday 12/7 - Conference USA Championship, 1:30pm

Two of the three CBS produced Facebook games could be Cincinnati at Marshall (9/28, 5pm) & Marshall at Middle Tennessee (10/5, 3:30pm) based on the start times & other potential CBS Sports Network conflicts.

* One last item on Conference USA.  They came out with their season preview, basically a spring prospectus (not a media guide), and beIN Sports was absent from the list of TV partners.  At the moment, I take their absence as being a strong signal that they will not be returning as a C-USA television partner.

Quick Note on Big 12 content deal for ESPN+

Breaking my own rule regarding taking April off, but I saw some comments on the Big 12 ESPN+ deal that I think will need clarification by the schools.

Per Sports Business Journal, the Big 12 and ESPN have completed an agreement for three Big 12 football championship games that would have been attached to FOX Sports (2019, 2021 and 2023).   FOX Sports still is maintaining its presence televising regular season football, women's basketball and other events not covered by the existing deal that ESPN has with the conference.

The other part of the deal involves content that the schools have retained outside of agreements with ESPN and FOX Sports.  Each school gets to keep a group of events to monetize for themselves, which includes a football game, some men's & women's basketball, baseball, softball and other sports.  Sometimes they're called third tier agreements, sometimes they are notated as member retained content.  Much of this content aired regionally, and sometimes nationally if the school was contracted to FOX Sports RSNs:

• Baylor: FOX Sports
• Iowa St: Cyclones.TV from Mediacom
• Kansas: Jayhawk TV Network (distributed to linear TV stations & ESPN+)
• Kansas St.: K-State HD TV (distributed to FOX Sports MW & ESPN3)
• Oklahoma: FOX Sports
• Oklahoma St.: FOX Sports
• TCU: FOX Sports
• Texas: Longhorn Network
• Texas Tech: FOX Sports
• West Virginia: Nexstar (distributed through AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh)

My initial thought is that the sale of the FOX Sports RSNs allowed for this mostly encompassing deal for this member retained content, while Texas will remain on Longhorn Network and Oklahoma (may?) stay with FOX Sports.

What I didn't see in this post from SBJ is whether the content will remain regionally distributed for the eight schools via linear TV and also through ESPN+ or if ESPN+ will become the exclusive distribution outlet for this content.  Hopefully that will be clarified.  I would think that since Texas maintains its linear TV presence, the other schools could be allowed to maintain theirs or continue to strike local TV deals for the content while maintaining the ESPN+ "outermarket" presence.  This would also allow for those who don't get content from a RSN affiliated with FOX Sports to be able to get this content on a regular basis.

EDIT: ESPN release says this content will be exclusive to ESPN+.  One way to look at this as a positive is that some schools didn't have a good way to get access to this content outside of their region or state.  Here's the ESPN release.

EDIT: Oklahoma's content deal with FOX Sports is a longer term deal than the other schools' deals.  It runs through 2022, so if it were to join up with other Big 12 schools in this venture, it would be at that time and not over the two year "phase-in" that is occuring for the eight schools pledging their content.

Also, Iowa St. spelled out exactly what will occur with their Cyclones.TV channel.  Live games will go to ESPN+, but the channel can continue to show press conferences and replays of live events.

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.