Quick Take on LSU-Alabama for Primetime

CollegeFootballTalk @ NBCSports.com brought to light a report that the CBS really wants the LSU-Alabama game, and wants to move its 3:30pm window to primetime.  As the article notes, CBS currently gets only one primetime window a year.  When CBS does a game in primetime, it is an exclusive window and ESPN moves its SEC selections to the early afternoon timeslot (ie. 12pm ET).

It seems like a novel idea,  but I'm of the opinion that its not going to be feasible.  I posted this on the message board at the506.com/smf, so if this response looks familiar, you don't need to read any further. 

Honestly, if I'm ESPN, I play a little hardball here.  I control the nighttime selection.  I tell the schools that if you want a nighttime kick, its ESPN, not CBS.  

ESPN doesn't have a lot to work with because of the Breeders Cup and the existing glut of games on 11/5.  They don't have a standalone 3:30pm slot they could fit a game into.  

The only remaining standalone 3:30pm slot for ESPN/ESPN2 is on 11/26.  Tell CBS they can do a double header, that LSU-Alabama will be coexist because ESPN can't give up the slot and the rest of the conference shouldn't go without TV, and that CBS won't have a game on 11/26.  That would be my offer to make sure all "considerations" are handled in 2011.

CBS has risk because if LSU loses to 'Bama and both teams win out through the final weekend, the game that matters on 11/26 would be the Iron Bowl and ESPN would have it.  CBS is hedging that LSU wins and the Arkansas game decides the SEC West.

Of course, none of this matters if either team loses this weekend.

10/29 12 Day Picks

10/29 has a Big 12 evening sublicense window on ESPN/ESPN2, which kinda makes a mess of things when you add in confirmed evening games for both the Big Ten and Pac-12.  Makes the 3:30pm ABC window look really stacked.

Also a possibility of a lot of six day picks.

CBS
Georgia vs. Florida, 3:30pm (confirmed)

ABC
Michigan St. at Nebraska, 3:30pm (RM)
Clemson at Georgia Tech, 3:30pm (RM)
Oklahoma at Kansas St., 3:30pm
Stanford at USC, 8pm (confirmed)
Wisconsin at Ohio St., 8pm (time confirmed)

ESPN
Purdue at Michigan, 12pm (time confirmed)
Illinois at Penn St., 3:30pm
Missouri at Texas A&M, 7:45pm

ESPN2
Wake Forest at North Carolina, 12pm
ABC Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Arkansas at Vanderbilt, 7pm


ESPNU
NC State at Florida St., 12pm
West Virginia at Rutgers, 3:30pm
South Carolina at Tennessee, 7pm


FOX Sports
Baylor at Oklahoma St., 12pm FSN
Boston College at Maryland, 3pm ACC RSNs
Washington St. at Oregon, 3:30pm F/X
SMU at Tulsa, 3:30pm FSN (confirmed)
Iowa St. at Texas Tech, 7pm FSN
Ole Miss at Auburn, 7pm SEC RSNs
Arizona at Washington, 10:30pm FSN

BTN
Northwestern at Indiana, 12pm (time confirmed)
Iowa at Minnesota, 3:30pm

Regional & Syndication
Mississippi St. at Kentucky, 12pm SEC Network
Syracuse at Louisville, 12pm Big East Network
Virginia Tech at Duke, 12:30pm ACC Network
Oregon St. at Utah, 3:30pm ROOT Sports NW/KJZZ
California at UCLA, 4pm Prime Ticket
Colorado at Arizona St., 7pm FCS/FSAZ
Kansas at Texas, 7pm Longhorn Network/Jayhawk Network 7pm (confirmed)

Football on TV Scheduling Notes

Virtually every conference's television contract has some sort of provision to make sure that a particular team doesn't appear in the top package too many times or that the conference's syndication/regional package gets a game involving every team.  Since we're over halfway through the year in terms of TV selections, let's take a look at a few of those items.

Big Ten
The key portion of their TV deals revolves around making sure every team appears twice on BTN, with one of those appears as a conference game.  Eight of the twelve teams have already met that requirement, with Michigan St., Nebraska, Ohio St. and Wisconsin not yet on the network as part of a conference game.  As we get to November, most weeks have all Big 12 teams playing.  Since the conference doesn't schedule night games in November, expect multiple BTN games/windows each week, so it may not take long for those teams to appear on BTN.

Big 12
The understanding is that the Longhorn Network games count as part of ABC's television agreement with the conference.  With that said, according to the Big 12's television agreement with ABC, no team can appear more than six times on ABC.  Texas-Texas A&M, whether the game appears on ABC or ESPN, counts as part of the ABC agreement.

If the Longhorn Network games indeed count towards those six appearances on ABC, then Texas is officially maxed out.  ABC did claim the Baylor game at the end of the season, but the Texas Tech (11/5), Missouri (11/12) and Kansas St. (11/19) games would be FSN or F/X selections.  Oklahoma & Oklahoma St. have had three of their games selected by ABC and don't appear to be in danger of hitting the appearance maximum.  Oklahoma also had their game vs. Iowa St. selected by F/X, so they are in good shape.

Pac-12
The Pac-12 also has an appearance maximum with ABC/ESPN of six.  USC has five appearances on ABC/ESPN currently scheduled.  Stanford, Oregon & Arizona St. each have four scheduled appearances on ABC/ESPN as of today.

November 12th could be when USC hits the max at home vs. Washington, but that same date is Oregon-Stanford.  The TV schedule notes that the UW-USC will take place at 3:30pm whether ABC or FSN/FX picks it.  I expect it to be left to FOX, so that ABC can do UO-Stanford in primetime.   The question then becomes whether ABC would avoid Oregon-Washington on 11/5 so that they could do the Stanford & Oregon St. games to finish the year.

SEC
With the LSU-Alabama game expected to be televised on CBS on 11/5, LSU fans are very upset that they will not have any conference home games kick off at night.  From research on Twitter, this will be the 1st year since 1936 that LSU will not host an SEC opponent at night.

LSU is the only SEC team that has had four scheduled for CBS and the CBS maximum for a school is six games per season, with one exception per school where they can pick up seven games (the conference championship isn't used as part of the count).  If the Alabama game will be on the network, the remainder of the Tigers' schedule that CBS can pick up (11/12 vs.Western Kentucky, 11/19 vs. Ole Miss) doesn't make it likely that CBS will have to concern them hitting the max on LSU nor using the exception.

College Basketball on non-ESPN Networks

Schedule

ESPN covers the majority of college basketball on television during the regular season, but not every conference places its games on their networks.  Because ESPN puts out a stellar press release for their offerings, we'll give a plug to the others who bring you your hoops fix, particularly CBS who brings you the NCAA tournament along with Turner Sports.

CBS will continue to span the college basketball globe, if you will, with 42 games and the majority from SEC, Big East and Big Ten arenas.  One change from prior seasons is that CBS will not have any regular season games from ACC arenas due to ESPN owning all rights to the conference and electing not to sublicense any games.  CBS will have have five conference championship games (Atlantic 10, Big Ten, Conference USA, Missouri Valley and Pac-12), though this will be the final season they will carry the Pac-12 final as that will rotate rightsholders between ESPN and FOX Sports.

Note that the C-USA final is now a FOX property that will continue to be sublicensed.  The MVC and Atlantic 10 finals are also sublicenses, but from ESPN.

CBS Sports Network will carry 75 games from the Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Mountain West and Patriot League plus three neutral site events.  The network will carry its first conference championship game as it now has the rights to the Patriot League championship.

FOX Sports Networks has at least 68 games on its docket.  56 games from the Pac-12, including the majority of the Pac-12 tournament, 10 games from Conference USA as part of their new TV contract and at least one neutral site event.  The Pac-12 will see an increased presence on Sundays in '11-'12 as they appear to have replaced the ACC Sunday Night Hoops package.  Not listed, yet, in the FSN schedule is the Paradise Jam event from the Virgin Islands which they've televised in previous years.  That one I expect to add to the schedule.

NBC Sports Network will have eight MWC games, one each Saturday at 4pm ET starting on January 14th with the exception of January 21st when CBS has a MWC game.  NBCSN will again carry the MWC final.

Addendum to College Realignment Post - Rivalries

Think about this for a few moments.  One of the rivalries that you hear that people would bring back on a regular basis is Pitt-Penn State (yes, they are playing in a few years a home-home).

Realize that with the realignment of the past month, there's a real chance these series will no longer happen.  Number of meetings between the schools, including any games in 2011, in parenthesis.

Data courtesy CFBDataWarehouse.com.  Settling bar bets since 2000.

Texas-Texas A&M (118) - Not much more to be said there.
Baylor-Texas A&M (108) - From SWC to the Big 12.  After Texas, A&M has played Baylor more than any other school
Texas Tech-Texas A&M (70) - Meeting number 70, particularly with the treatment the A&M bus received, most certainly means this one isn't happening going forward.
Pittsburgh-West Virginia (105) - With the loss in regularity of Pitt-Penn St., these two schools are each others most played opponent and the proximity of the schools just adds to the hatred.  Consider too that the majority of Backyard Brawls were played while the schools were independent.  They didn't have to play each other.
Syracuse-West Virginia (59) - Game is played for the Ben Schwartzwalder Trophy, former WVU football player and longtime head coach at Syracuse, including the 1959 national championship team.

This doesn't include the longtime series that Nebraska and Colorado set aside leaving the Big 12, the rivalries that Utah & BYU let go, not to mention that the BYU series (88 meetings including 2012's) could end next year after not being renewed.  The news today that Air Force is possibly leaving the MWC to move to the Big East (assuming that the other two service academies or at least Navy follows them) is an even move for them, not counting the extra revenue the BCS brings.  They'll toss aside Colorado St. & Wyoming (50 games each, more meetings than with Army & Navy), but gain some scheduling flexibility now that those academy meetings are part of a conference.

This also doesn't include rivalries in sports like men's basketball, where Syracuse is letting go the guarantee of playing Georgetown, Villanova & Connecticut on a yearly basis.  Providence will also miss Syracuse.

The one school where realignment brings things together is for TCU, where yearly meetings with Baylor (107), Texas Tech (54) and Texas (82) will resume, along with a yearly meeting with SMU (101) that I assume will continue to occur.  Couple that with the Oklahoma schools in conference, its the one place where realignment makes sense economically and geographically.

The point is that rivalries are the fabric of college football.  The quilt is being patched together with dollar bills.

Trying to tie realignment back to TV

Now that realignment is starting to slow...alright, it isn't.

* The ACC and ESPN are going back to the negotiating table now that the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse are on the way.  At worse, $25-$27 million gets added to the total rights deal of the conference to account for those schools being added so that the other schools don't receive diluted shares of TV revenue.  With the addition of at least 12 football games and around 30 games in the TV rights package, it will be interesting to see how they add those games to the TV schedule.  Maybe an additional Thursday night game or two and a few more games for ESPN3.com seem to be where football will go, but basketball will definitely see more games.  That's where the additions have value.

* TCU is doing the right thing by negotiating with the Big 12.  Its the geographical fit for them and, theoretically, travel will be less expensive for them.  They're in process of upgrading Amon Carter Stadium and they'll get back to playing several opponents on a yearly basis who they shared longtime rivalries with them.  Not to mention that they'll be receiving a windfall in television revenue when compared to what they would have made in the Big East television contract and more appearances nationally as part of the Big 12 contract.

* The Big 12 is still the conference with the tipping point for additional realignment.  After TCU, Missouri's decision on a conference home must be made.  The Big Ten has informally turned them down and the school's rather public courting of a new home may have turned off other conferences.  If Missouri stays, the membership has to determine whether they want to return to a 12 member conference and if they want to play a conference championship game.

* Back when the Pac-12 made their decision to go with FOX and ESPN as television partners, it was though that the two entities teamed up to keep NBC/Comcast out of the major conference college sports business.   Fast forward to Big East football media day, where NBC Sports president Mark Lazarus talked about being interested in bidding on the conference's rights when they came to the open market.  Now that the conference has lost two members and an incoming member, you get the feeling that ESPN and FOX, indirectly, are working again to keep NBC/Comcast out of the market by reshuffling the deck of available conferences and schools, stripping the Big East for parts and damaging a conference before it hits the open market.  Almost daring NBC/Comcast to bid on it, in a way telling them they can come in to the market, but the product they plan on bidding on might not have the cache that it could have had.

Your thoughts? Click on the comment link below this entry.

12 Day TV Guesses for 10/21 & 10/22

Friday (8pm for both games)
West Virginia at Syracuse, ESPN
Rutgers at Louisville, ESPN2

Saturday

ABC
Nebraska at Minnesota, 3:30pm (confirmed, RM)
Texas Tech at Oklahoma, 3:30pm (RM)
Washington at Stanford, 8pm (time confirmed)
Oklahoma St. at Missouri, 8pm

CBS
Auburn at LSU, 3:30pm

ESPN
Illinois at Purdue, 12pm
ABC Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Wisconsin at Michigan St., 8pm (time confirmed)

ESPN2
Georgia Tech at Miami (FL), 12pm
North Carolina at Clemson, 3:30pm
Tennessee at Alabama, 7:45pm

ESPNU
Maryland at Florida St. 12pm
Boston College at Virginia Tech, 3:30pm
Army at Vanderbilt, 7pm

FOX Sports
Kansas St. at Kansas, 12pm FSN
NC State at Virginia, 3pm ACC RSNs
Oregon at Colorado, 3:30pm F/X
Tulsa at Rice, 3:30pm FSN
Oregon St. vs. Washington St., 3:30pm FOX College Sports/Root Sports NW
Texas A&M at Iowa St., 7pm FSN
Utah at California, 10:30pm FSN

BTN
Indiana at Iowa, 12pm (time confirmed)
Penn St. at Northwestern, 7pm (confirmed)

Regional Syndication
Arkansas at Ole Miss, 12pm SEC Network
Cincinnati at USF, 12pm Big East Network (confirmed)
Wake Forest at Duke, 12:30pm ACC Network
Jacksonville St. at Kentucky, 1pm Big Blue PPV