CFB TV Selections for 10/1/16 (Week Five)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 10/1 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Four games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule for the week as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.  

All times Eastern.  

Six day holds
Arizona St. at USC, Arizona at UCLA & Oregon at Washington St. - 8:30pm ET FOX, 9:30pm Pac-12 Network, 10:30pm ESPN.

12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Texas at Oklahoma St.
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech
12pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Notre Dame vs. Syracuse
12pm FS1: Baylor at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNU: Northwestern at Iowa
12pm ESPNEWS: SMU at Temple
12pm SEC: Florida at Vanderbilt
12pm SEC Alternate: Alcorn St. at Arkansas
12pm CBSSN: UCF at East Carolina
12pm BTN: Rutgers at Ohio St.
12pm ASN:
12:30pm ACC Network: Virginia at Duke
1pm ACC Network Extra: Buffalo at Boston College
2:30pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at Colorado
2:30pm BCSN/TWC: Ohio at Miami (OH)
3:30pm CBS: Tennessee at Georgia
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Wisconsin at Michigan
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: North Carolina at Florida St.
3:30pm ABC/ESPN/ESPN2: Illinois at Nebraska
3:30pm ESPNU: Kansas St. at West Virginia
3:30pm SEC Alternate: UL-Monroe at Auburn
3:30pm BTN: Minnesota at Penn St.
3:30pm BTN: Purdue at Maryland
3:30pm ACC RSN: Wake Forest at NC State
3:30pm ASN: Northern Illinois at Ball St.
3:30pm ESPN3: Akron at Kent St.
4pm ESPNEWS:
4pm SEC: Texas A&M at South Carolina
5pm FOX: Oklahoma at TCU
6pm Pac-12: Utah at California
7pm ESPN: Kentucky at Alabama
7pm ESPN2 (if able)/ESPNU: Cincinnati at USF
7pm SEC Alternate/ESPNU/ESPN2 (if able): Memphis at Ole Miss
7pm CBSSN: Western Michigan at Central Michigan
7:30pm SEC: Missouri at LSU
7:30pm ACC RSNs: Marshall at Pittsburgh
8pm ABC: Louisville at Clemson
10:15pm ESPN2: Utah St. at Boise St.
10:15pm ESPNU: Wyoming at Colorado St.

CFB TV Guesses for 2016 Week Five (10/1/16)

Here are the games already set for television and/or webcast.  Here are the known available telecast windows.

* Several regional sports networks list an ACC RSN doubleheader with games at 3:30pm and 7:30pm.
* ESPN MediaZone lists five SEC Network games, with the 4pm and 7:30pm ET windows carrying two games each.
* Four Big Ten games are locked into their start times as homecoming games: Rutgers at Ohio St. & Northwestern at Iowa at 12pm ET and Purdue at Maryland & Illinois at Nebraska at 3:30pm ET.
* FOX's release lists two Big 12 games and one Pac-12 game to be chosen.  With just one FS1 window at 12pm likely for the Big 12, it is reasonably safe to assume that FOX will carry a Pac-12 game in a broadcast network telecast window, where they have two.  My expectation is that FOX and the Pac-12 network will carry concurrent games at 5pm ET /  2pm PT.  I do not believe there are any exclusivity rules in this telecast window where there would be at 8:30pm ET.
* The MAC and Sun Belt have ASN 12 day selections.  I believe the Sun Belt is at 12pm ET with the MAC at 3:30pm ET
* The 7pm window on ESPN2 is not available due to the potential for a 3rd game of the World Cup of Hockey finals.  I would not expect the time of the 10:15pm ESPN2 to be changed if there isn't a game since that would not be determined until the result of Game 2 on Thursday 9/29.
* Placement of Notre Dame vs. Syracuse is tough with other ACC games, especially with Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech between two 3-0 schools.  Notre Dame is a TV draw and Syracuse isn't very competitive on the field.
* As for Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech & North Carolina at Florida St., I think a case could be made to flip those games' time & TV assignments (again, Notre Dame vs. Syracuse, is a bit of a roadblock, I think its going to be on ESPN at some time).
* Louisville at Clemson seems to be the most likely game for ABC's primetime window.
* To not have SMU at Temple on ESPN3, a way to do that would be to double up on ACC Network games at 12:30pm with a split window to open up the 4pm ESPNEWS window.

All times Eastern.

12pm ABC: Rutgers at Ohio St.
12pm ESPN: Notre Dame vs. Syracuse
12pm ESPN2: Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech
12pm FS1: Kansas St. at West Virginia
12pm ESPNU: Baylor at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNEWS: UCF at East Carolina
12pm SEC: Florida at Vanderbilt
12pm CBSSN: Western Michigan at Central Michigan
12pm BTN: Northwestern at Iowa
12pm ASN: San Diego St. at South Alabama
12:30pm ACC Network: North Carolina at Florida St.
1:30pm Pac-12: Oregon St. at Colorado
3:30pm ABC: Wisconsin at Michigan
3:30pm CBS: Tennessee at Georgia
3:30pm ESPN: Texas at Oklahoma St.
3:30pm ESPN2: Minnesota at Penn St.
3:30pm ESPNU: Illinois at Nebraska
3:30pm BTN: Purdue at Maryland
3:30pm ACC RSN: Wake Forest at NC State
3:30pm ASN: Akron at Kent St.
4pm ESPNEWS: Virginia at Duke
4pm SEC: UL-Monroe at Auburn
4pm SEC: Memphis at Ole Miss
5pm FOX: Arizona at UCLA
5pm Pac-12: Oregon at Washington St.
7pm ESPN: Texas A&M at South Carolina
7pm ESPNU: Kentucky at Alabama
7pm CBSSN: USF at Cincinnati
7:30pm SEC: Missouri at LSU
7:30pm SEC: Alcorn St. at Arkansas
7:30pm ACC RSNs: Marshall at Pittsburgh
8pm ABC: Louisville at Clemson
8pm AggieVision: UL-Lafayette at New Mexico St.
8:30pm FOX: Oklahoma at TCU
9pm Pac-12: Utah at California
10:15pm ESPN2: Utah St. at Boise St.
10:15pm ESPNU: Wyoming at Colorado St.
10:30pm ESPN: Arizona St. at USC
TBA BCSN: Eastern Michigan at Bowling Green

ESPN3/ACC Network Extra
Buffalo at Boston College
Ohio at Miami (OH)
Northern Illinois at Ball St.
SMU at Temple
Incarnate Word at Texas St.
Georgia St. at Appalachian St.
Troy at Idaho

Some brief notes on CFB TV selections for 9/24

Full schedule for Week Four

* Florida St. at USF will air on ABC & Iowa at Rutgers will air on ESPN2.  What is in flux is whether Iowa at Rutgers will be upgraded to be a reverse mirror on ABC with Florida St. at USF and that will be decided after the Week Three results.  Florida St. at USF will not be pushed to air nationally on ESPN2.  It will be on ABC for either some or all of the country.  In either case, both games will be distributed nationally on TV somewhere.  This isn't a case where both could be split regional on ABC with ESPN3 the only other way to see the game not in your area.

* Either Penn St. at Michigan or Wisconsin at Michigan St. airing at 12pm ET on BTN shouldn't be too surprising at the end of the day.  BTN can leapfrog ahead of ESPN and/or ESPN2 a few times a year and it looks like this was one of those weeks they elected to do so.  This would be one of the Big Ten's six day holds being used.

* To allow Stanford at UCLA to air on ABC at 8pm ET / 5pm PT, an adjustment had to be made to the Pac-12 Networks initial TV windows for 9/24, which included a 3pm PT window.  The Pac-12 worked with their TV partners in the offseason to allow Pac-12 Networks telecast windows to overlap into broadcast network exclusive windows, which are loosely defined as evening telecast windows on ABC and FOX.  To do this, the early window could not start later than 2:30pm local time / 5:30pm ET, which is where Colorado at Oregon was placed.  Conversely, the Pac-12 and ESPN may have worked to move the later Pac-12 Networks windows (Washington at Arizona) thirty minutes back to 10:30pm ET / 7:30pm PT, which fans in Tuscon may not mind early in the season.

* Typically hockey games on TV fall into 2.5 hour telecast windows, so it makes sense to bump up the start time of California at Arizona St. by fifteen minutes where it will follow a World Cup of Hockey game that will start at 7pm ET.

* Blah, blah, blah, yap, yap, grumble, grumble: You'll probably need to watch the start of Arkansas vs. Texas A&M on a channel other than ESPN or online with it starting at 9pm and the LSU at Auburn game at 6pm on ESPN.

* The Sun Belt will have two of their conference controlled Saturday games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU during in 2016 for the first since 2010.  In 2010 and 2006, both Saturday games aired on ESPNU.

CFB TV Selections for 9/24/16 (Week Four)

This post will be updated as announcements come out for start times for 9/24 from the twelve day selection process that most TV networks adhere to.  Please understand that games can be held until next Sunday if a broadcaster wants to wait on the results of the Week Three games.  Most conferences have the possibility of having all or part of their games held for a six day hold of the start time.

The list of available TV windows are based on media websites, TV listings and press releases.  They can change based on the needs of the broadcaster or the conference.

Here's what I guessed based on the available openings (they'll prove to be incorrect) and here is the current schedule as several FBS games do have their time & television/webcast assignments already accounted for.  

All times Eastern.  

Six day holds (12pm BTN or 3:30pm ABC, I think)

Wisconsin at Michigan St.
Penn St. at Michigan 

12pm ABC (and/or ESPN2 ??): Florida St. at USF
12pm ESPN: Georgia at Ole Miss
12pm ABC/ESPN2: Iowa at Rutgers
12pm ESPNU: Colorado St. at Minnesota
12pm ESPNEWS: Nevada at Purdue
12pm SEC: Kent St. at Alabama
12:30pm ACC Network: East Carolina at Virginia Tech
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Central Michigan at Virginia
1pm CBSSN: Syracuse at Connecticut
1pm ACC Extra: Wagner at Boston College
2pm ESPN3: Gardner-Webb at Ohio
3:30pm CBS: Florida at Tennessee
3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU: BYU vs. West Virginia
3:30pm ESPN2/ESPNU: Pittsburgh at North Carolina
3:30pm FS1: Boise St. at Oregon St.
3:30pm BTN: Wake Forest at Indiana
3:30pm ESPNEWS: Miami (OH) at Cincinnati
3:30pm ESPN3: Western Illinois at Northern Illinois
4pm SEC: Delaware St. at Missouri
5:30pm Pac-12: Colorado at Oregon
6pm ESPN: LSU at Auburn
7pm ESPNU: Houston at Texas St.
7pm ESPN3: Army at Buffalo
7pm ESPN3: Georgia Southern at Western Michigan
7pm ESPN3: Central Arkansas at Arkansas St.
7pm ESPN3: Nicholls at South Alabama
7pm ESPN3: New Mexico St. at Troy
7:30pm FOX: Oklahoma St. at Baylor
7:30pm SEC: South Carolina at Kentucky
8pm ABC: Stanford at UCLA
8pm ESPNEWS: Bowling Green at Memphis
9pm ESPN: Arkansas vs. Texas A&M
10pm ESPN2: Calfornia at Arizona St.

10:15pm ESPNU: Air Force at Utah St.

10:30pm Pac-12: Washington at Arizona

CFB TV Guesses for 2016 Week Four (9/24/16)

Here are the games already set for television and/or webcast.  Here are the known available telecast windows.

* I have Florida St. at USF in the 8pm ABC slot for now.  UCLA at Stanford could certainly go there, maybe Washington at Arizona too.  The Pac-12 has adjusted some rules regarding when a Pac-12 Networks game can start and overlap an exclusive TV window on ABC or FOX.  Right now, based on game locations, the existing Pac-12 Networks telecast windows would need a slight adjustment, such as maybe moving the 6pm window to 5:30pm ET (2:30pm PT), and that's why I don't have a Pac-12 game at 8pm on ABC and have Florida St. at USF.
* A decent case could be make to flip the networks of the Arkansas vs. Texas A&M and Florida at Tennessee games.
* Per a FOX Sports release, they will have two Big 12 games and one Pac-12 game.  Taking into account the the San Jose St. at Iowa St. game on FSN at 12pm ET, that leaves a game from each conference for the two remaining slots (3:30pm FS1 & 7:30pm FOX).
* A page at the FOX television network website listed the Oklahoma St. at Baylor game as their choice on 9/24, so let's assume that is accurate for now.
* The reason for the missing ESPN2 window at 7pm is due to the World Cup of Hockey.
* Advance Pac-12 Network schedules hinted at the 6pm game coming from Oregon and the 10pm game from Arizona, which makes sense as the Arizona schools prefer to play night games throughout the month of September if at all possible.

All times Eastern.  

12pm ABC: Wisconsin at Michigan St.
12pm ESPN: Georgia at Ole Miss
12pm ESPN2: BYU vs. West Virginia
12pm ESPNU: Iowa at Rutgers
12pm ESPNEWS: Miami (OH) at Cincinnati
12pm SEC: Delaware St. at Missouri
12pm BTN: Nevada at Purdue
12:30pm ACC Network: East Carolina at Virginia Tech
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Central Michigan at Virginia
1pm CBSSN: Syracuse at Connecticut
3:30pm CBS: Florida at Tennessee
3:30pm ABC: Penn St. at Michigan
3:30pm ESPN2: Pittsburgh at North Carolina
3:30pm FS1: Stanford at UCLA
3:30pm ESPNU: Wake Forest at Indiana
3:30pm BTN: Colorado St. at Minnesota
4pm ESPNEWS: Air Force at Utah St.
4pm SEC: Kent St. at Alabama
6pm ESPN: Arkansas vs. Texas A&M
6pm Pac-12: Colorado at Oregon
7pm ESPNU: Houston at Texas St.
7:30pm FOX: Oklahoma St. at Baylor
7:30pm SEC: South Carolina at Kentucky
8pm ABC: Florida St. at USF
8pm ESPNEWS: Bowling Green at Memphis
9pm ESPN: LSU at Auburn
10pm Pac-12: Washington at Arizona
10:15pm ESPN2: California at Arizona St.

10:15pm ESPNU: Boise St. at Oregon St.

ESPN3
Wagner at Boston College
Army at Buffalo
Georgia Southern at Western Michigan
Gardner-Webb at Ohio
Western Illinois at Northern Illinois
Central Arkansas at Arkansas St.
Nicholls at South Alabama
UL-Lafayette at Tulane
New Mexico St. at Troy

Why wasn't Hawai'i's home game available online?

While I was out tonight, the Mountain West provided the following statement on Twitter regarding the online availability of the UT Martin at Hawai'i football game (Thanks to Pigskin Press for passing along):

Regarding Hawai‘i's football game this evening: #mwfb pic.twitter.com/RlY8GDYrw1

— Mountain West (@MountainWest) September 11, 2016

Over the past few years, Hawai'i's home games have been available online through Campus Insiders and the Mountain West Network to mainland consumers where Oceanic Cable continues to own the rights to the games in the state of Hawai'i, distributing them via pay-per-view.

So why aren't they continuing to stream the games online?

To accomplish an online blackout in Hawai'i, Campus Insiders requires the geographic location of the consumer to approve or deny viewing of the game.  They do this today for Mountain West games airing on ROOT Sports.  You might have to turn on location services on your smartphone or enable the passing of your geolocation through your browser before viewing the game.  My suspicion is that consumers in Hawai'i had found a way around the geolocation requirement and that many viewers in the state were getting games for free when they should not have been based on existing agreements in place.  Because the online providers appear to have not been able to guarantee that only mainland viewers could see the stream, it appears that the stream has been cut off for everyone.

As MWConnection has previously reported, Hawai'i does not participate in the Mountain West's TV deals.  Instead, their television revenue is realized through the Oceanic Cable contract, so it does make sense for the school to protect its revenue source and for Oceanic Cable to recoup their investment.

Dan Ormsby noted that Oceanic Cable had stopped streaming other Hawai'i content to BigWest.TV in March.  While most of those sports aren't on pay-per-view, they are part of Oceanic Cable's OC Sports channel and providing those games free to BigWest.TV, possibly without geographic restrictions, could have been a sticking point between the school, television provider and possibly the Big West.  That is speculation on my part.

Content from ESPN3 and MLB.TV, for example, has blackout restrictions for specific markets and with BAMTech and Campus Insiders coming together, maybe a solution can be found in the near future,

Additional edit: The Mountain West statement makes the following clear, but it is something I glossed over: The online option is unavailable regardless of where you live.  Those living in Hawai'i who don't have Oceanic Cable or Hawaiian Telcom as a television provider, such as those using a larger dish for DirecTV or Dish service or those not subscribing to pay television service, are also unable to view the football games live if they want to.  The online option was also available in Hawai'i for a fee in previous seasons and it may have been a lower fee per game than the television package was, but I'm struggling to find data on it.  In any case, not having the stream around in the state of Hawai'i, since it was a pay-per-view stream, also hits Hawai'i and Oceanic Cable in the pocketbook and, for now, it appears Oceanic Cable believes that the best way to control the viewing of the games is to limit its distribution to television as a platform.

My night of viewing CFB using smartphone apps, Twitter & a Google Cast, plus MBK notes

For those of you who have followed me on Twitter long enough, you might know that my sport of choice is baseball & not necessarily college sports.  As a displaced Yankee fan, I've been either a MLB Extra Innings or MLB.TV subscriber for several years, and now as an AT&T U-Verse TV subscriber, MLB.TV is my option as MLBEI is not available.

Frankly, that's not a big deal for me to not have EI as MLB.TV, via Baseball Advanced Media's technology, has really moved forward with the quality of the stream provided, going as far as 60 frames per second, which is the quality you would get typically from a pay TV subscription feed of ESPN or FS1 for example.  Its really good and you wouldn't notice the difference when the internet feed is right.  Yes, your internet speed does matter here.  I think the minimums for 60fps with MLB.TV is around 6Mbps.  I have U-Verse at 18, which is less than a lot of cable TV providers, but fast enough for me.  

BAMTech also provides the stream for ESPN's linear TV channels, and after reading this piece from SBNation yesterday on how to watch as much college football legally through cord cutting, I figured it was time to try out watching an entire night of college football with smartphone apps via my 2nd generation Google Cast, coupled with Campus Insiders' initial Twitter-cast, even though I am not a cord cutter.  Call this an experiment regarding how to get away with not having a pay TV receiver on a TV.  

FOX Sports Go, NBC Sports & beIN Sports Connect apps were not utilized by me last night.  FOX Sports Go was supposed to be available for Google Cast tonight and it is, working both to natively cast through the full Chrome browser and on the app.  NBC Sports and beIN Sports Connect also have Google Cast in their apps natively, but I encounter a lot of crashes & hangups with the app.  beIN Sports Connect's website option also, comically, is only usable in older browsers and Firefox as the video stream uses Microsoft Silverlight, an ActiveX technology that Microsoft has stopped updating and will stop supporting in 2021 completely (I'm sure by that point beIN Sports will use a supported video stream).

Here's the apps & sites I engaged with on my Samsung Galaxy S5 along with the games:

WatchESPN (app) - Charlotte at Louisville (in some areas, FOX Sports Go was the app for this game), Appalachian St. at Tennessee, Tulane at Wake Forest, Maine at UConn, Indiana at FIU, Montana St. at Idaho 

BTN2Go (app) - Oregon St. at Minnesota

Pac-12 Now (app) - Southern Utah at Utah

Campus Insiders (website) - Weber St. at Utah St., South Dakota at New Mexico

OVC Digital Nework (website) - Western Illinois at Eastern Illinois

Southland Digital Network (website) - Houston Baptist at Central Arkansas

All played relatively flawlessly.  My notes:

• WatchESPN got up to speed very quickly with high quality video.  Other apps, seemed to take a little longer to warm up to get the best possible video.
• Website casting was a bit hit-or-miss on the quality of the video, even from the same site, which may come down to the quality of the originating equipment.  For example, with the exception of some video stuttering, Weber St. at Utah St. looked sharp from the start.  South Dakota at New Mexico had more noticeable pixelation.
• South Dakota at New Mexico required my location services to be turned on for my phone.  Even then, it seemed like I had to force my Chrome browser to provide CI with my location to view the game as in-market ROOT Sports viewers cannot stream the game.
• I viewed Weber St. at Utah St. on Twitter on my laptop and it held up pretty well.  It looked like the feed on Twitter was ahead of the Campus Insiders website by about ten seconds when comparing my phone vs. my laptop.  I did not see how the stream looked on my phone through Twitter, but the social aspect was clearly laid out as it has been for other sporting & political events.

I did miss out on the ability to view Rice at Western Kentucky as part of this experiment as CBS Sports Network's stream is limited to three TV providers plus (possibly?) CBS All-Access subs though I receive the channel as part of my TV subscription.  But I had the ability to catch a lot of games and didn't have to switch the video input on my TV to go from my receiver to my HDMI2.

* The Big 12 released its men's basketball conference TV schedule.  After taking into account the televised non-conference games that were announced by the schools, plus removing the three Longhorn Network intraconference games (those games are part of Texas's member retained package), ESPN has, so far, selected about 112 Big 12 games, which includes the conference tournament.

Per Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, the Big East schedule is coming out late next week.  As of yesterday, only Villanova had not officially posted their non-conference schedule.

* "COUGH" Marathon (more coming) "COUGH"