Thoughts on the possible Big 12 schedule & television implications

While we wait on the Big 12 football schedule, and while I finally get around to listening to "The Whole Love" by Wilco (2LP), lets look at a few television related items for the conference:

1) One institutional game per year - With the new FOX Sports Media Group deal, each school will retain a game for them to sell to local/regional television, stream over the internet, etc.  Let's assume as well that Texas only gets one game for the Longhorn Network.  Per the teleconference when the FOX deal was announced, FOX will let the schools know which game will be returned to them before the season starts so they can plan how to distribute the game.  My guess is that it will be the FCS game on a team's schedule or their lowest rated OOC game.  So who would that be in 2012?

Baylor - Sam Houston St.
Iowa St. - Western Illinois
Kansas - South Dakota St.
Kansas St. - Missouri St.
Oklahoma - one of their 2 OOC games not contracted yet.  If the rumored UTEP road game comes to fruition (more on that later), the last OOC game will be the institutional game since the other OOC home game is Notre Dame.
Oklahoma St. - Depends on the remaining OOC game.  Could be the UL-Lafayette game
TCU -Grambling
Texas - New Mexico
Texas Tech - Northwestern St.
West Virginia - James Madison

2) Based on the math, assuming that one of the two remaining Oklahoma OOC games not scheduled will be a home game, along with Oklahoma St.'s remaining OOC game, the Big 12 has 65 games to offer television.  ABC can take as many as 18, FOX as many as 40.  With each school retaining one game, that means FOX and ABC have 55 Big 12 games to choose from.  I don't know if there is a provision where a school can forego the local game if ABC and/or FOX want to televise the maximum number of games.

3) In my opinion, if the rumored Oklahoma-UTEP series happens, FOX appears to be the matchmaker.  Here's why:

• FOX can televise both ends of the series.  As the C-USA rights holder, they get the 1st ten selections for the conference's home games.  And as the Big 12 cable rights holder, it is more likely that this game would fall to them instead of ABC.
  
• Order is important as to which game happens first.  If the often rumored MWC & C-USA merger occurs, depending on the conference formation & legal stuff, FOX isn't guaranteed to be the rightsholder of the merged conference if it is a new entity.  So while C-USA exists, it is to FOX's benefit to have the game at UTEP occur first.  FOX can pick up the 2nd half of the series in Norman as part of the Big 12's television package as that conference is more stable (can't believe I typed that) at this time.
  
• UTEP, due to location in the Mountain time zone, has better kickoff time flexibility and can kick off a game at 10pm eastern time, allowing FOX's regional affiliates to finish any MLB or regional football commitments.

4) Looking over the first three weeks of the Big 12 season, it would not stun me to see a conference game or two slipped into the schedule.  Not a lot for ABC and FOX to choose from in terms of quality.  TCU-Oklahoma St. (9/1), WVU-Baylor (9/8) and a combination of Oklahoma, TCU and Kansas (9/15) would be possibilities.  FOX and ABC did want the schedule to have non-conference games spread out in the schedule and have conference games available earlier to maximize television opportunities.  Of course, things can change and these teams could be moving around OOC games too so they don't have early season conference games.

5) Special dates - FOX can have up to five "special dates" games.  Those are:

• Friday after Thanksgiving
• Sunday of Labor Day weekend
• Up to three Thursday night game

FOX can sublicense their content to other cable networks like they have previously with TBS, ESPN and Versus/NBC Sports Network.  If they do Thursday night games, expect them on ESPN.  FOX would likely keep the Labor Day weekend game as they have in past years.  I believe the Black Friday window is new.

Who needs a game in 2012?

Realignment means games get dropped, added, cancelled & postponed.  So who needs a game in 2012 as of March 9th, 2012?

Boise St. - 13th game available

Cincinnati

Hawai'i - 13th game available
Temple

Nevada - 13th game available

Much of this information came from FBSchedules.com plus a spreadsheet that I've been compiling.  If you know that a team has filled its schedule, let me know.   Let FBSchedules.com know too.  They do great work over there.

Thinking scheduling for 2012

First off, I was able to complete the programming changeover to the website.  Should run a little faster.  If you have any old links to specific seasons or have trouble with the site, please go to the main page (http://mattsarzsports.com) and refresh that page as it should update any cached links you have on your laptop/PC/tablet/phone, etc.

To other scheduling related items, looking over the ACC and its possible Labor Day matchups, five ACC teams may be available to open the season that day in conference games (Boston College, Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia Tech & Wake Forest).  Now that Florida St. has also lost the WV game, I could see them moving the Murray St. opener and being available.  I don't think its out of the question that Miami & Florida St. could find each other on Labor Day.

Now to the Big East & Big 12.  The Big 12 did submit a schedule to ABC & FOX that included "ten teams" which seems to mean West Virginia will be there.  Coupled with the news that WVU dropped Florida St., they are on the way.  What does that mean for the Big East?  I suspect they will continue to work the legal system.  For the other schools, it remains to be seen whether the Big East will release a schedule with WVU on it (some schools did release their out of conference schedules noting that WVU would be a home or road game).  If WVU is allowed to leave and I think they will be moving on, WVU may be on the hook to find a replacement game for each Big East school (possibly Florida St. too).  The Big East schools could also go with an 11 game regular season if the schools cannot find a 12th game at a late date.  Depending on how many home games each team already has, the 12th game has often been the "extra revenue" game, so the situation may not be ideal.  That scenario may also result in a temporary drop in revenue from ESPN if there are not enough games for ESPN to choose from.

As noted in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's address to the media on Friday, the NFL Network will have a package of weekly Thursday games with the exception of the opening night of the season and Thanksgiving night which remain NBC's property.  At the end of the day, ESPN is affected on multiple fronts.  First, on the NFL front, they don't have a direct competitor on the cable television front who picked up these games (Turner, NBC Sports Network, F/X, etc.).  NFL Network isn't in enough homes, so they remain the premier network for the NFL on cable.  As for how to counter program the NFL, I don't think they'll do anything different.  The Big Ten and/or SEC likely will have their Thursday night games with little NFL competition (South Carolina-Vanderbilt is before the NFL season starts), so the schedule will be the ACC, Big East & Pac-12 plus whatever FOX elects to license to ESPN from their Big 12 inventory.   I can't get too worked up about this competition unless the NFL puts marquee games on Thursdays and the indication is that the expansion of the Thursday night package is to get each team a primetime game no matter what their record is, not Patriots vs. Steelers-like matchups.

The TV worth of a CUSA/MWC merged conference

CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd has been on the MWCUSA beat lately, noting that the two conferences would have administrators meeting on Sunday 1/15 and the possibility exists that a merged conference could jump ahead of the Big East when it comes to negotiating with television partners.

My expectation is that any form of merged conference would not take place until 2013, but if they were to agree to dissolve both conferences, they would be able to take themselves to the open market immediately.  It is my understanding that for the combination of schools to be able to take themselves on the open market, they cannot simply merge under one conference's banner or the other as they would likely have to stay with existing TV partners.  I do not know if FOX, CBS Sports Network or Comcast/NBC have any provisions with their contracts if they have the ability to exclusively negotiate with any of these parties if either conference dissolves.

So what value is out there for a merged MWCUSA?  They can boast, like the Big East did after inviting five new football members, that they have the ability for television to air games in virtually any timeslot.  The television value of these members themselves is debatable and the same goes for the Big East.  Does that value include weeknight games?  Neither C-USA nor MWC wanted to play on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or most Fridays when they left ESPN.  Does that change to get ESPN involved in the bidding? It may be the only way they get involved.

These two conferences make up the bulk of CBS Sports Network's college football and basketball coverage, so I would be surprised if they weren't actively involved in any potential bidding.  I'm sure that NBC Sports Network and FOX Sports want to maintain their existing relationships, but the question will be whether the conference and either of these potential TV partners demand some form on "primary cable" exclusivity (ie.  NBCSN or FOX is the primary partner, CBSSN the secondary partner).  NBCSN might be more aggressive since they have no other major college football, save for the Ivy League, while FOX has the Big 12 to occupy slots on FSN.

Last question becomes what to do with regional TV coverage.  Comcast has it with the MWC via the mtn. and does have an agreement with CBSSN to carry some C-USA games on CSS.  FOX has the regional infrastructure, but with a common footprint with the Big 12, what ability do they have to pick up those games?

I don't know that using the Big 8-SWC merger into the Big 12 will be able to set any precedents.  Both conferences were part of the CFA group contract and went out on their own, where these two schools were already negotiating independently.

Will be interesting to see how this shakes out.  Stay tuned.

2012 Pac-12 Schedule Analysis For TV

The 2012 Pac-12 Schedule came out this week and it gave us a small glimpse of the future of Pac-12 football schedules.  Cal and Stanford were the most perturbed parties as their rivalry game ended up being moved to October.

As we know, FOX and ESPN are now shared rightsholders of the Pac-12 for 44 football games with the Pac-12 Networks picking up the remainder of the games.  The Pac-12 Networks have maintained that they will have premium football content some weeks during the season and pick ahead of FOX and ESPN.

To me, I would want my top ten football games to remain on over the air television.  We know that FOX will have eight football games and ABC will have two.  I think most of those ten games will be picked on a weekly basis.  I believe the networks will look to pick the following games before the season starts:

10/6 Washington at Oregon
10/13 USC at Washington
11/3 Oregon at USC
11/24 Notre Dame at USC

Of those I could see USC-Washington ending up on ESPN in the early evening.  The other three I could see on FOX.  I would have put USC-Washington on ABC, but the network has the NASCAR Sprint Car race from Charlotte that evening.  The goal of the new Pac-12 contract is to get games shown nationally and placing that game on ABC at 3:30 PM ET with at least a Big Ten game and possibly an ACC and/or Big 12 game doesn't reach the national distribution that the conference wants.

Eight primetime regular season games have also been set aside.  I believe nearly all will air on ESPN or ESPN2, at least all of the Thursday games plus the November 2nd Friday game.  The number of games that could air on ESPN Networks on Black Friday depend on their college basketball workload as the networks air games from the tournaments they own in Orlando & Anaheim plus the NIT Tip-Off.  It also depends on whether they elect to televise any NBA games that day.  The eight games set aside are

Thursday 9/27 Stanford at Washington
Thursday 10/4 USC at Utah
Thursday 10/11 Arizona St. at Colorado
Thursday 10/18 Oregon at Arizona St.
Friday 11/2 Washington at California
Friday 11/23 Arizona St. at Arizona
Friday 11/23 Washington at Washington St.
Friday 11/23 Utah at Colorado

Let's say that the Pac-12 Networks pick up the Apple Cup and that the other two Black Friday games are on ESPN or ESPN2.  Couple that with the USC at Washington game, ESPN would have 14 remaining selections for Saturdays.  A few could air on ESPNU (up to four) with the other ESPN/ESPN2 eight likely in the late evening (~10 PM ET).  I could see the early season OOC games being heavily weighted into the Pac-12 Networks list of games.

Note that there are some new parameters around the Pac-12 television selection order too.

Year end marker

Its the end of 2011.  As you saw in the year end piece, the year saw a lot of changes in college sports coverage.  Some positive, some negative.  2012, hopefully, will be a quieter year.  Yes there will be some alterations to the SEC contract and those probably will come out in the spring.  Big East negotiations will start towards the end of the year and who knows what type of market they'll find out there for their rights.  Whatever formation MWCUSA takes.  To AQ or not to AQ.  That is the question.

I am very appreciative of those who emailed or commented re: the site.  I am trying to find a happy medium with the TV site & blog going forward.  Have not yet found it.  Haven't started programming towards an updated site and don't intend to for a few weeks.  Suppose I'm thankful that most conferences haven't figured out how to schedule themselves for 2012.  Heck, West Virginia's home for 2012-13 will likely be decided in the court system and one of those cases won't be heard until near the end of the athletic calendar year in June.

I do software development for eight hours a day.  To come home and do more doesn't strike me as something I desire to do right now.  To be quite honest with you: I would not expect a football schedule listing at my site for 2012 until at least April.  I will keep track of it as much as possible, but I make no guarantees beyond that.   The twitter and facebook pages remain active, but I've turned off being notified when a post/comment hits the account, so unless I'm looking at the site, don't expect a quick answer.

I'm going to go spin a few records now.   Vinyl has made a comeback, after cassette, 8 track, CD, DVD-Audio, SACD, DualDisc, digital download and others tried to make it irrelevant.  Sound quality still matters, and so does being unable to skip a track.

Thanks.  Happy New Year.

2011: Year In Review

Plenty of changes in sports television and coverage of colleges in 2011.  Got started fairly quickly too.

1/5/11 - Conference USA and FOX Sports announce a new media rights deal.  After months of negotiating a new deal with ESPN, C-USA elected to move on and signed a deal with FOX for double the money, double the number of football games, plus ten men's basketball games and eight women's basketball games.

Analysis: I think it worked out well for the conference.  With any deal on FSN, there were clearance/pre-emptions for local coverage of other sports, but the conference had more opportunities to be seen.  I would be curious to know if teams saw attendance increases since the number of weeknight games decreased.

1/6/11 - FOX acquires rights to the inaugural Pac-12 football championship game.

Analysis: FOX also purchased an additional six college football games and ten men's basketball games for its FSN package.  Coupled with the C-USA rights, ongoing negotiations with the Big 12 and Pac-12 plus the purchase of the first six Big Ten football championships, FOX clearly established itself as a player in college sports.

1/18/11 - The FCC makes Comcast's purchase of NBC official.

Analysis: More later, but the beginning of a competitor in the college rights / broadcasting area.

1/19/11 - ESPN announces a channel dedicated to the University of Texas

Analysis: ESPN makes a big play after FOX appeared to be the leader of the channel, paying close to five times more than what FOX intended to pay.  Created a chasm within the conference membership that would widen later in the year.

3/15/11 - The new format of broadcasting the NCAA men's basketball tournament begins as TruTV broadcasts the first of the two "First Four" doubleheaders

Analysis: I didn't catch much of the opening weekend (I attended games in Cleveland), what I saw I was impressed with.  CBS and Turner followed through on their promise of noting when close & interesting games were going on and where to find those games.  Every game was televised nationally.  Some may complain that the games weren't on CBS or that they had trouble finding TruTV right away.  My take is that it was known in advance where to find the games.  Not to mention that Turner improved on the online March Madness package.

3/28/11 - FOX announces that F/X will get into the college football business, carrying a game of the week starting in 2011.

Analysis: F/X began broadcasting sports events a month later with matches from the UEFA Champions League semifinals and this announcement formally re-entered the channel into the college sports broadcasting business after a decade out of the game.  The deal with Conference USA allowed for some games to air on FOX and F/X, and the Big 12 & Pac-12 agreed to allow some of their games from FSN to move over to F/X.  Initially F/X intended to air its games at 8pm ET, but over half the package aired at 12pm ET and in mid-afternoon.

3/30/11 - ESPN sues Conference USA over the manner in which C-USA signed their rights agreement with FOX.

Analysis: In some ways, it felt like ESPN was using C-USA as a example for those leaving ESPN (ie. don't  cross us).  In other ways, it made sense as ESPN did has rights to negotiate with C-USA before the rights could go on the open market.   ESPN felt that C-USA did not properly provide a formal counter offer during a critical point in the negotiation, where C-USA disagrees.

4/14/11 - The Big 12 and FOX Sports announce a new 13 year television contract for broadcast of football on cable along with other Big 12 sports.  Men's basketball was not included as it is part of ESPN's deal for football games on ABC.

Analysis: FOX paid for 40 football games and the ability to license games to other cable networks, such as the existing deal with ESPN.  The money being paid to the conference was though to be a pacifier when it came to the Longhorn Network and the conference voted to share more of its ESPN & FOX TV revenue equally.  Instead loopholes within the contract, specifically regarding institutionally controlled games, ended up being a catalyst for further changes in the landscape.

5/3/11 - After months of major negotiations and open bidding, ESPN and FOX sign agreements with the Pac-12.

Analysis: Larry Scott became the model for a new style of conference commissioner.  One with an open mind.  After Comcast got involved and was set to sign the conference for all rights, they engaged ESPN and FOX to join together into a single bid for various pieces of rights.  ESPN became the primary rightsholder in men's basketball, while FOX gained football games for their over-the-air network.  The conference also noted that they held back a fair number of events and intended to create their own television network.

Late May - The Big East, after agreeing to basic terms of a contract extension with ESPN, elects to back away from the deal after the announcements of the Big 12 and Pac-12 rights deals

Analysis: The rumored terms were close to on par with the ACC's deal for around $13 million per team, per year for all sports members.  The initial analysis felt like this was in the Big East's best interest and suitors from Comcast were extremely interested in bidding on the conference's rights.  This move, along with other changes in the national landscape, turned out to be costly for the conference.

7/5/11 - The Longhorn Network elects to pick up Texas's football game vs. Rice.  It also announces that it intends to air a 2nd football game involving Texas and one of its Big 12 conference games.

Analysis: ESPN was able to work with FOX to get a second game for Longhorn Network (eventually selecting the 10/29 game vs. Kansas) and the rumor is that FOX was granted the ability to air a Big 12 game or two on its over-the-air network within the coming years.  Coupled with concerns regarding broadcasting of high school football on the network, this became the breaking point for Texas A&M and Missouri with the Big 12.

7/27/11 - The Pac-12, in conjunction with inDemand, announces that they will create Pac-12 Networks.  One national network and six regional networks based on the conferences' natural rivalry areas (Washington, Oregon, Arizona, NorCal, SoCal & Rocky Mountain).

Analysis: The second game changer the Pac-12 pulled off.  By engaging inDemand as a partner, the conference essentially has agreements in place with Time Warner, Comcast, Cox and Bright House.  All rights not granted to ESPN and FOX go to Pac-12 Networks.  The "TV Everywhere" concept is also included in this agreement and those cable networks will be able to show the networks' events via the internet in an authenticated manner.

8/16/11 - ESPN, C-USA resolve lawsuit.  FOX granted ESPN the rights to the C-USA football championship game for the length of the contract between the conference and FOX.

Analysis: In June, the court set the schedule for the trial between ESPN and C-USA.  The schedule meant that FOX would at least get to air all their intended games during the 2011 football season.  At that point, ESPN & FOX worked together to resolve the suit with C-USA.  Note that FOX was not a party to the suit, but wanted to help the conference resolve the suit so that all parties could move on.

Late summer & through the fall, part I - Several conferences (America East, Atlantic Sun, MAAC, MVC, SoCon, Sun Belt, WCC) sign new deals with ESPN.  Major parts of several of those deals involve exclusive   packages of games on ESPN3.

Analysis:  In some cases, the move to ESPN3 pays off because those conferences did not have many, if any, regular season games on ESPN's television networks.  In other cases, the ESPN3 packages came at the expense of cancelling the regional syndication package of games.

Late summer & through the fall, part II - A&M.  Syracuse & Pitt.  Missouri. WVU. TCU. MWCUSA. The Big East & West.  Exploring options.  Pac-??.

Analysis: The whole thing drives me batshit.  Equal parts ego bruising and conference mismanagement.  Rumors of ESPN spearheading some of these moves, thanks to the Boston College athletic director.  All in the name of chasing the almighty dollar because someone has more than someone else.

10/24/11 - CBS and ESPN are able to negotiate to allow CBS to air the LSU-Alabama game in primetime after CBS already has exhausted its single SEC primetime window earlier in the year.

Analysis: The negotiation wasn't acrimonious by any means.  CBS did guarantee that the 2012 Alabama-LSU game would air in primetime on their network.  ESPN in turn gained some form of "scheduling considerations" in 2012 from CBS.  One rumor is that ESPN would be allowed to earmark a few marquee SEC games and hold them from CBS.  As for the game, 9-6 LSU in OT and CBS earned an excellent 11.5 national rating.