11/12 12 Day CFB Selection Guesses

CBS is scheduled to have two SEC games, one at 12pm and one at 3:30pm.  When CBS has a doubleheader involving a 12pm, they do not have the 1st two choices, but the 1st and the 4th choice.

ABC will also have a 12pm game.  No guarantee that it must be national.

ESPN2 has a 10:15pm window.  With Hawai'i-Nevada scheduled for ESPNU late, ESPN2 seems to be a likely landing spot for the Idaho-BYU game.

BTN will be able to fill all scheduling obligations provided the Wisconsin-Minnesota game is chosen by them.  The Badgers are the only Big Ten team to not appear on the network in a conference game.

The Washington-USC game is USC's homecoming and was guaranteed a 3:30pm ET kickoff.  If ABC passed on their game, and I expect that to be the case, the ABC window would move to 8pm ET and FOX Sports would assume the Washington-USC game.

My feeling is that the 8pm window will be the Oregon-Stanford game and will be national and ABC will use the 12pm window as a regional window.  Before the season started when ABC added this window, I thought the 12pm game could be Miami (FL)-Florida St., but with those teams falling short of expectations, they'll show other games.

Versus has a 10:30pm Pac-12 window.  I think that could change if the Arizona St.-Washington St. game is chosen.  Washington St. really dislikes late season night games because its very cold out for night games in Pullman.  With Colorado and Utah being MST teams, I don't think they'll want to start a game at 8:30pm local time either.  Oregon St.-California isn't ideal either, but its likely to be the only other choice if Versus isn't able to change their time slot.

CBS
Tennessee at Arkansas, 12pm
Auburn at Georgia, 3:30pm

ABC
Cincinnati at West Virginia, 12pm
Oklahoma St. at Texas Tech, 12pm
Wake Forest at Clemson, 3:30pm
Nebraska at Penn St., 3:30pm
Texas A&M at Kansas St., 3:30pm
Oregon at Stanford, 8pm

ESPN
Michigan at Illinois, 12pm
ABC Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Alabama at Mississippi St., 7:30pm


ESPN2
Michigan St. at Iowa, 12pm
Florida at South Carolina, 7pm
Idaho at BYU, 10:15pm

FOX Sports
Marshall at Tulsa, 12pm FSN
Baylor at Kansas, 12:30pm FOX College
NC State at Boston College, ACC RSNs
Washington at USC, 3:30pm F/X
Navy at SMU, 3:30pm FSN
Texas at Missouri, 7pm FSN


ESPNU
Ohio St. at Purdue, 12pm
Miami (FL) at Florida St., 3:30pm
Western Kentucky at LSU, 7pm
Hawai'i at Nevada, 10:15pm (confirmed)

Versus
Arizona St. at Washington St., 10:30pm

BTN
Rice at Northwestern, 12pm
Wisconsin at Minnesota, 3:30pm

Regional, Syndication and Web Exclusives
Kentucky at Vanderbilt, 12pm SEC Network
Pittsburgh at Louisville, 12pm Big East Network
Duke at Virginia, 12:30pm ACC Network
UL-Lafayette at Arkansas St., 1pm Sun Belt Network (confirmed)

Arizona at Colorado, 3:30pm FCS/FSAZ

Oregon St. at California, 3:30pm ROOT NW/CSNCA
UCLA at Utah, 3:30pm Prime Ticket/KJZZ
Louisiana Tech at Ole Miss, 7:30pm CSS

11/5 12 Day Selection Guesses

Obviously there is the story out there regarding moving LSU-Alabama to primetime.  That would have to be negotiated between CBS, ESPN and the SEC.  For now, I'm going to assume the timeslot for the game remains at 3:30pm ET.

Other notes:

• The Breeders Cup is on ESPN from 3:30pm to 7:15pm.  That is why ESPN cannot show a game during that time slot.
• This is also the final week that FSN will carry an SEC game regionally in 2011.   
• CSS also has two SEC selections, one at 12:30pm and again at 7:30pm.
• Advance listings at FXNetworks.com, coupled with Zap2It.com, show FX with a 4pm and 8pm window, and FSN with only 12pm and 3:30pm national games.  This differs from FOX's original release.  With that said, FOX hasn't exactly been sticking to the release.  
• Since FOX has been showing their Big 12 FX games at 12pm lately, possibly to give the ABC or ESPN games their own slot, would not surprise me to see this become a 12pm-4pm FX doubleheader
• Because of the 4pm FX game, plus because ABC currently has a 3:30pm Pac-12 window, I think the Pac-12 will have an 8pm ABC window instead.
• Versus is listed with a Pac-12 window at 10:30pm
• Having all Big East teams play each other makes a slight mess of things.  Could see a game on ABC at 3:30pm instead of a12pm ESPN/ESPN2 game, which would give the Big Ten a slot back.
• Oregon-Washington may match the two best records in the Pac-12 that day, but Oregon has four games part of the ABC/ESPN package and there's a max of six appearances in that package.  I'm assuming ABC will want both the Civil War and the Oregon-Stanford game, so F/X has one fall in its lap
• Why so many games on BTN? Ohio St., Wisconsin and Nebraska have yet to appear in a conference game on BTN.  Michigan St. has not yet either, but has a game with Indiana upcoming.  Wisconsin does as well and they could end up moving back to 12pm on ESPN/ESPN2 with a Big East game at 3:30pm on ABC instead of 12pm on ESPN2.

Would not be stunned if several time slots/games are held for six day picks.  Its a mess.


CBS
LSU at Alabama, 3:30pm

ABC
Michigan at Iowa, 3:30pm (RM)
Texas A&M at Oklahoma, 3:30pm (RM)
Stanford at Oregon St., 8pm
Kansas St. at Oklahoma St., 8pm

ESPN
Minnesota at Michigan St., 12pm
South Carolina at Arkansas, 7:45pm

ESPN2
Syracuse at Connecticut, 12pm
ABC Reverse Mirror, 3:30pm
Notre Dame at Wake Forest, 7:45pm

Versus
Arizona St. at UCLA, 10:30pm

ESPNU
Louisville at West Virginia, 12pm
USF at Rutgers, 3:30pm
Vanderbilt at Florida, 7pm
Louisiana Tech at Fresno St., 10:15pm (confirmed)

FOX Sports
Missouri at Baylor, 12pm FSN
Kansas at Iowa St., 12:30pm FOX College Sports
NC State at North Carolina, 3pm ACC RSNs
UTEP at Rice, 3:30pm FSN
Oregon at Washington, 4pm F/X
New Mexico St. at Georgia, 7pm SEC RSNs
Texas Tech at Texas, 8pm F/X

BTN
Indiana at Ohio St., 12pm
Purdue at Wisconsin, 3:30pm
Northwestern at Nebraska, 3:30pm

Regional, Web Exclusive & Syndication
Ole Miss at Kentucky, 12pm SEC Network
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, 12pm Big East Network
Virginia at Maryland, 12:30pm ACC Network
Middle Tennessee at Tennessee, 12:30pm CSS
Duke at Miami (FL), 1pm ESPN3.com
Washington St. at California, 7pm ROOT NW/CSNCA
Utah at Arizona, 7pm FSAZ/KJZZ
UT-Martin at Mississippi St., 7:30pm CSS

TV implications of the new CFA (aka MWC-CUSA-Big East-WAC)

A week ago the MWC and Conference USA announced that they would be combining forces in football for a super conference of sorts.   And I tweeted the following

I had no idea John Marinatto would take it to heart.

Now the Boston Globe is reporting that a scenario being considered is that the Big East and part of the WAC could join up with the MWC/C-USA partnership to create a single conference/alliance with the Big East's automatic BCS berth.

To me, its not a far fetched idea.  Right now, the plan assumes that West Virginia would replace Missouri in the Big 12.  Of course, Louisville could be substituted in.  The plan assumes that the Big 12 would be a ten team conference.  It also appears to assume that BYU will remain an independent.

Right now, there's a mishmash of TV rights involving all of the potential parties involved.  ESPN has the WAC rights for a few more years, C-USA has deals with FOX Sports and CBS Sports Network, the MWC with CBS Sports Network and Comcast/NBC and the Big East with ESPN.

To me, it looks like a slimmed down version of the CFA, the negotiating body for several conferences' TV rights from the mid-80s through the mid-90s.  Another coincidence: Chuck Neinas, who ran the Big 8 as commissioner along with the CFA, happens to have been the point person for the C-USA/MWC merger.

Questions come up with how a merger of this size goes about divvying up their TV rights and other money:

• Single group or by division?
• How many layers/entities will be involved (network, cable, syndication, conference-run TV)?
• TV rights money: appearance based or shared equally?
• Bowl games: do they get negotiated by division or within the group as a whole, and how does that money get split?

I'm sure there are other considerations too.  What are your thoughts about this setup?  How would you set this conglomeration up?

Breakdown of ESPN Networks' MBK Coverage

With the release of ESPN Networks' men's basketball coverage for the 2011-12 season, I wanted to take a look and see what the breakdown was for all conferences that ESPN will air games for.  Networks that were part of the count were ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN/ESPN2 flex games and ESPN3.com exclusives.  Games that are part of a conference's championship tournament are included in the count.  Rights belong to the "home" team when it comes to non-conference games in the count.

NOTE:  All games that are part of an exempt tournament/event, even if played on a team's home court, have been excluded from these counts.

Breakdown

* The Big East and ACC are the clear leaders when it comes to the bulk of college basketball that ESPN Networks carry with nearly 40% of MBK games where ESPN holds conference-level rights as part of these two conference's packages.  There's a few reasons why the number is so high.

1. ESPN took all ACC rights over from Raycom and has increased the number of ESPNU and ESPN3 exclusives, particularly for non-conference games where those games were often retained by the school and licensed to various regional networks.

2. ESPN is limited in the contracts of the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC on how many games they can take.  In the case of the Big Ten, BTN picks up the majority of the games, particularly in the non-conference portion of the schedule.  With the Big 12 and SEC, schools can create their own rights packages after a specific number of non-conference games are selected.

* The five "Power" conferences that ESPN has contracts with make up 2/3rd of all games ESPN has for conference rights.  The percentage remains consistent when removing ESPN3 games from the equation.

* Three conferences have only their conference championship on ESPN Networks and no other regular season games: Atlantic Sun, Big Sky & Southland.

* The non "Power" conference with the most games on ESPN Networks is the Metro Atlantic, but 2/3rd of those games are ESPN3.com exclusives.  The non "Power" conference with the most televised games is the WCC.  The WCC is also the non "Power" conference with the most games on ESPN & ESPN2.

* Six conferences will have at least one regular season game on ESPNU and/or ESPN3.com, but their lone ESPN/ESPN2 appearance will be the conference championship: America East, Big South, MEAC, NEC, OVC & Summit.

* Two conferences will have all their televised games on ESPNU: the Ivy League and the SWAC.  The SWAC will have their conference championship on ESPNU, the Ivies are the lone holdout when it comes to a conference championship tournament.

* An additional 143 games are part of exempt & neutral site events and ESPN Bracketbusters.

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.