Notes: Mountain West National TV Schedule, Atlantic 10 on ASN, FS1 doubleheader from Pearl Harbor

* The Mountain West released its primary schedule of Saturday ESPN and CBS Sports Network telecasts on Tuesday.  Here's the link of all the Mountain West controlled games selected by both parties.  Here's a few brief notes on the games selected and other scheduling items surrounding those selections:

• Fresno St. will have a unique four week stretch of 10:30pm ET / 7:30pm PT Saturday starts on CBSSN between 9/19 and 10/10.  They'll also play a fifth straight late start vs. UNLV the following week, but on a Friday.
• The trade of Boise St. games between CBS Sports Network and ESPN was ESPN sending the Idaho St. home game to CBSSN in exchange for the road game at UNLV airing on an ESPN platform.
• Two Army games appear to have been locked into their time slots on CBSSN.  The Wake Forest game on 9/19 is locked into the 12pm ET start due to three other games already scheduled at 3:30pm, 7pm and 10:30pm ET, respectively.  The Bucknell game on 10/17 also appears to be locked into a noon start with the Air Force at Colorado St. game starting at 3:30pm.  Army has requested all of its Saturday games to kickoff at 12pm or 3:30pm with 12pm being preferential.
• There was a report a few weeks back from the Virginian-Pilot that NC State turned down a request for moving their game at Old Dominion to Friday 9/18 on CBS Sports Network.  Looking back on that and we now see the 9/19 is completely on CBSSN, so it appears that the game could revert to be a FOX selection.
• The games on 11/28 on CBSSN are somewhat uniquely scheduled.  BYU at Utah St. will start at a fairly normal start time of 3:30pm ET.  Assuming a three and a half hour telecast window, 7pm would start the next event.  What is different is the start time of the Colorado St. at Fresno St., which is 9pm ET, which leaves only two hours between the end of one game & the start of the next. What CBSSN could be trying to fit in is the championship game from a basketball event, such as the Emerald Coast Classic or the Corpus Christi Challenge.  My money would be on the Emerald Coast event, which has three teams from Power 5 conferences (Illinois, Iowa St. and Virginia Tech) and a fourth who won a game in the NCAA Tournament in '15 (UAB).  With the finish of the football game at 12:30am, again using a three and a half hour TV window, they could carry the final of the Great Alaska Shootout, maybe by moving the tip time of that game back an hour.
• I struggle nearly every year with the rightsholder for the Colorado-Colorado St. game in Denver.  Going back to 2008, the it seemed to air on the Pac-12 or Big 12 TV partner for two straight years, then revert to the Mountain West rights holder.  So I would have thought that 2015's game would have reverted to the Pac-12 and it didn't:
• 2008: FSN
• 2009: FSN (game in Boulder)
• 2010: The mtn.
• 2011: FSN
• 2012: F/X
• 2013: CBSSN
• 2014: FS1
• Since I did take a stab at parsing out which games each Mountain West TV partner would pick up, here's how I did with the national packages.  In short, not great and that's with having the ability to place Boise St.'s games with specific rightsholders: 
• CBSSN: 10 of 22
• ESPN: 8 of 22
• Potential Hawai'i PPV: Six matching games, so far.
• At the risk of sounding repetitive, Army's start times on CBSSN should be available by the end of the week.  Their agreement with CBS requires home start times to be set by May 1st.

* The Atlantic 10 have signed a enhanced agreement with Sinclair Broadcasting's American Sports Network.  Two key items in the deal with respect to men's basketball are that the syndicator will show at least 32 men's basketball games and air the two first round games in the men's basketball tournament involving seeds 11 through 14.

The two tournament games aired on Comcast RSNs in 2015 (noted with the conference logo here).  I am not sure if this package of games is replacing the SNY/Comcast regional package or the Campus Insiders package, or if this is a new package of games that will be selected out of the games that did not air on any of the national TV packages nor the regional & internet exclusive packages.  For example, Richmond has had games on local stations in recent years, Dayton has had games on Time Warner Cable & FOX Sports Ohio, Davidson on local cable, etc. and the 32 games could come from a new source.

* FOX Sports 1 will televise a MBK doubleheader from Pearl Harbor on 12/7/15.  It will include the Villanova-Oklahoma game previously discussed plus a game between Oregon and Navy.  It will be part of a four day stint that FOX will be in Hawai'i with various studio and live programming.  More on FOX's stay in Hawai'i can be found here.

Big Ten primetime games on ABC/ESPN, Paradise Jam & CBSSN's unique CFB tripleheader

* First, here's the list of all Big Ten controlled games selected for TV so far.

* 9/12 happens to be the one week that both BTN (FIU at Indiana & South Alabama at Nebraska) and an ABC/ESPN platform (Oregon at Michigan St.) will carry night games.  Looking back at 2013 & 2014, it looks like they can coexist in one primetime window per season.

* TCU at Minnesota being selected by ESPN may be a sign regarding the rest of the plans for the opening Thursday night.  An assumption is being made for ESPN2.

• ESPN: TCU at Minnesota
• ESPN2: US Open tennis
• ESPNU: Oklahoma St. at Central Michigan, maybe UTSA at Arizona too?
• SEC Network: North Carolina vs. South Carolina.  Maybe a second game?
• FS1: Michigan at Utah

* The selection of two Big Ten night games on 11/7 might be a sign that CBS and the SEC have made a choice regarding the Saturday where they will show a primetime doubleheader.  By choosing the two games, ESPN can then set aside the noon Eastern time window for at least one SEC game and show the rest of the SEC Network if they want to.

11/7 happens to be the date of LSU at Alabama game, which over the past few years has been part of the afternoon & primetime doubleheader.  There are five other SEC games that day.

* A reminder that the Big Ten primetime games don't necessarily have to be full national.  Just the 3:30pm Eastern time games.  Last year the Illinois at Ohio St. & Oklahoma St. at Kansas St. games were split national on ABC and the only other way to watch the other game was ESPN3, not ESPN or ESPN2.

* CBS Sports Network is going with a unique tripleheader on Thursday 9/3 with a pair of American Athletic Conference games at 6pm and 9:30pm, followed by Colorado at Hawai'i at 1am Eastern time Friday.  No doubt appealing to the football junkies and testing those of us who will stay up until nearly any hour to watch a game.  Then again, the Hawai'i game will be played the Friday before Labor Day weekend, so if you are going with the long weekend, this might be right up your alley.

When the Hawai'i game was set for a overnight Eastern time start, I was a bit curious to see if someone like CBSSN or ESPNU would try a 24 hour marathon of games at some point.  The filler on Friday morning & afternoon could be games from Division II, III and the Football Championship Subdivision.

* The bracket for the Paradise Jam was announced this week and when both the list of teams and the bracket were announced, both releases were missing a TV partner, something that had been announced in previous years whether the partner was CBS Sports Network or FOX College Sports, but they could be working on which games they want to show on TV. 

CBSSN is scheduled to carry the Cincinnati at USF football but has not yet set kickoff times for the game.  Last year CBSSN carried the 4pm & 6:30pm ET games followed by a football game, which could indicate a 8:30pm kickoff for the football game at the earliest.

Update on 2015 Gavitt Tipoff & MW TV rights beyond '15-'16

* The Gavitt Tipoff matchups, not yet officially announced, have been leaked.  The games will be played 11/17/15 - 11/20/15.  Here they are with a few notes:

Penn St. at DePaul
Iowa at Marquette
Rutgers at St. John's
Illinois Providence
Creighton at Indiana
Georgetown at Maryland
Xavier at Michigan
Villanova at Nebraska

• On the Big East side, Butler & Seton Hall are out.  Not a big surprise when you consider that they both will play in ESPN owned events in Puerto Rico & Charleston, SC, respectively, starting on 11/19.  I assume both would be travelling on 11/17 to their tournaments with a practice on 11/18.
• I would expect Penn St. at DePaul & Georgetown at Maryland to be played early in the week.  Georgetown plays in the 2KSports Classic on 11/20 & 11/22 in New York City and DePaul will play in the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands starting on 11/20.
• I don't believe it is set in stone that there will be one Big East & one Big Ten hosted game every night.  Two Big Ten or Big East schools could host on a particular evening.  Each of the Big East schools hosting play in arenas that also have pro sports tenants.  Of those schools, St. John's regularly plays at Carnesecca Arena and could conceivably host Rutgers there.  Rutgers played at the on campus arena in Queens last in 2011.
• Georgtown-Maryland will be a repeat matchup in 2016 with Georgetown hosting.
• The Big East hosted games are expected to air on FOX Sports 1.  The Big Ten hosted games could either appear on an ESPN platform or BTN.  Georgetown at Maryland seems like it would be worthwhile to air on ESPN.

* Until reading a few articles from when CBS and the Mountain West restructured their rights agreement, it had slipped my mind that the agreement had not been extended in terms of the length of it and would expire after the 2015-16 athletic year, which would normally mean that it is in process of being renegotiated or potentially hitting the open market.  But I had forgotten that CBS also holds a option to tack four more years onto the deal and that would keep it in line with the length of the Mountain West's rights agreement with ESPN.  CBS, to my knowledge, retains an option for the 2015 football championship game that has not yet been officially exercised as well.

In my opinion, it would be foolish for CBS to decline the regular season option unless they had something bigger already in hand, like Big Ten rights for football, and I don't think they will be a player for those rights with respect to CBS Sports Network.  CBSSN provides the Mountain W est with a lot of air time for games and the Mountain West provides the channel with relatively cheaply priced content, especially for a network that has chosen to not be rated by Nielsen, so we're not measuring how many people are watching the games.  CBSSN also gets priority selections with respect to MW football games (they might in basketball too).

Could the Mountain West get more money from someone like FOX or NBC if CBS did decline the option and let the conference walk?  Probably a little bit more.  Neither FS1 or NBCSN is subscribed to by 90 million homes at this point, so they wouldn't qualify as major national networks for the monetary bonuses provided to MW schools for national football appearances, so at the moment it would only enhance the exposure of those games without changing the balance of revenue sharing.  FOX might ask that more football games air on FS2 with FS1 carrying a decent number of Pac-12 games, which might be less desirable than staying with CBSSN.  I think FSN would be a non-starter because while ROOT Sports is affiliated with FSN, they regularly substitute in their own programming.  NBCSN had Mountain West content through Comcast's partnership in the mtn. RSN, so they might be an option.

Also, per the term sheet linked above, I don't think it would change how Boise St. home games are distributed.  The package that CBS currently has would only contain the four road games they play against Mountain West opponents.  ESPN retains the rights to home games with the two rightsholders allowed to swap one game each between packages.

But like I mentioned, it is in CBS's best interest, in my opinion, to exercise the option to extend the current TV deal.  

When Are Game Times Going To Be Set?

The title question is a question, now that a few more kickoff times were announced this week, that I'll start receiving more and more.  And I can't give you a specific answer.  I don't work for a TV network and when I ask a conference or network about that information, I either don't get a response or the response is vague and I respect their wishes to keep that close to the vest.

But the next six to eight weeks should have what you are looking for with respect to early season kickoff times and weeknight games.  So with that in mind, here's the dates they came out last year for each conference and some notes:

Early season neutral site games - 5/21/15 for Wisconsin-Alabama, 5/28/15 for Louisville-Auburn.  Waiting on Arizona St. vs. Texas A&M, which ASU indicates will be released with other SEC games.

ACC - They are out, including nearly all weeknight games.

American - Most, but not all, early season & weeknight games have been set for TV or webcasts as of 5/27.  Penn St. at Temple on 9/5 and three games on 9/12 are awaiting placement.  I assume these games will air on traditional TV outlets.

Army - Released on 5/5/15.

Big 12 - Most announced on 6/1 as part of a FOX release.

Big Ten - Night games are out for both ABC/ESPN and BTN. Homecoming game times are out too (games listed as ESPN Networks & BTN).  7/16/14 (early season) - The reason for the early announcement of primetime games is so any stadium that needs temporary lights can make arrangements.  The date of the early season games was a bit later than usual as arrangements were being made to place games on ESPNEWS.  I would think that this would move back to a late May - early June date.

Now why did the BTN weeknight games come out before the ABC/ESPN ones?  That I'm not sure.

BYU - Weeknight & BYUtv game times have been set.  Boise St. game time will be set, probably, in late May or early June.  Others will be set around twelve days in advance.

C-USA - 6/1/15 (CBSSN & FOX Sports), 7/17/14 (American Sports Network) - The selections for CBSSN and FOX were timed to coincide with a release by FOX for their entire season's schedule of telecast windows.  Not all start times were set by FOX as some were set during the season.  The ASN games were announced right before the conference's media days but could appear earlier this year with an agreement in hand.

MAC - Times are set for early season and mid season weeknight games (ie. not Black Friday) as of 6/10.

Notre Dame - They are out as of 4/18/15.  Every game will air on NBC.

Navy - Already set.

Mountain West - Weeknight and CBSSN & ESPN Saturday selections have been made, 6/5/14 (early season ESPN start times), 6/26/14 (late ESPN & CBSSN additions), 7/1/14 (Campus Insiders MW Network & ROOT Sports) - I believe the only game ESPN could make an announcement on in early June is the San Jose St. at Air Force game for its start time and network.

Pac-12 - Released on 6/1/15 along with other conferences associated with FOX Sports.

SEC - 5/1/14 (early season SEC Network), 5/30/14 (rest of early season & special dates) - Note that the SEC Network games were released early last year as ESPN was negotiating for carriage of the network.  Now that nearly every major carrier is on board, those games could be held back.  For your sanity and mind, lets hope they don't wait until the conference's media days like they used to for several years.

Sun Belt - Set on 6/8/15.

Notes on 2015 Mountain West Weeknight CFB Schedule & Other Weeknight Games

Mountain West TV schedule so far

* Two things that stuck out to me:

• CBS Sports Network, as part of their trade with ESPN for a Boise St. home game, was "stuck" with the game vs. Idaho St.  Based on today's announcement, it isn't clear which Boise St. MW road game CBSSN gave up for this honor.  It would either be the Colorado St. game on 10/10 or the UNLV game on 10/31.
  
  A report came out this week that NC State denied a request from CBSSN and Old Dominion to move their game to Friday 9/18, so I'm not sure if the ISU at BSU would have been part of a doubleheader or not.
• Colorado at Hawai'i stayed with the start time of 7pm local Thursday / 1am Friday.  Thought that it would be moved up one hour or 90 minutes, but maybe UH did not want a start time of 5:30pm or 6pm on a weeknight.  I really don't know.  I will be curious to see how this game will be paired with Duke at Tulane and if CBSSN three games into the evening.  Maybe it would something like this:
• 6pm ET: A east coast DII game
• 9pm ET: Duke at Tulane
• 1am ET: Hawai'i at Colorado

* Boise St. has apparently agreed to play four five Friday night and one Friday afternoon game.  Two on ESPN through their MW television contract, one on ESPN through the ACC's TV deal and two three more on CBSSN through their MW rights agreement. (Edited to correct CBSSN count)

* Here's a look at how some other previously scheduled weeknight games could be affected:

• On 9/4, either Baylor at SMU or, potentially, Michigan St. at Western Michigan will start at 7pm on ESPN leading into Washington at Boise St.
• Assuming this BYU poster schedule is accurate, and it is with respect to the date change for the San Jose St. game, the Cougars home game vs. Cincinnati on is now on 10/16 alongside Houston at Tulane and UNLV at Fresno St., the latter being announced as starting at 10:30pm ET.  Potential options for Houston at Tulane were ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.  Note that 10/16 could potentially be "Midnight Madness" practice night for the 2015-16 MBK season using the 2014 date, so here's a few ways to schedule that assuming it is indeed Midnight Madness night (in my opinion, option #2 is likely):
• One game each on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.  With UNLV at Fresno St. on ESPN2, Houston at Tulane & Cincinnati at BYU would be looking at options on ESPN and ESPNU.
• A doubleheader on ESPN2 of Houston at Tulane at 7pm ET and UNLV at Fresno St. following it with Cincinnati at BYU on ESPN 
• A doubleheader on ESPN of Houston at Tulane at 7pm ET with Cincinnati at BYU following it.
• 10/31 has Louisville at Wake Forest on ESPN or ESPN2 and Wyoming at Utah St. on ESPN2 at 10:15pm.  Seems convenient to have a game at 10:15pm paired with a 7pm ET start.  ESPN could end up televising a NBA preseason game by this time.
• Air Force at Boise St. on 11/20 was scheduled at 9:30pm with several MBK events in mind as ESPN owned events from Puerto Rico & Charleston, SC, plus the 2K Sports Classic, are scheduled to be played on this date.
• On 11/5 ESPN potentially has five games to offer on this Thursday night:  A couple different ways to schedule them.  I tend to favor option #1.
• ESPN: Mississippi St. at Missouri; ESPN2: Ball St. at Western Michigan or Buffalo at Kent St. followed by Nevada at Fresno St.; ESPNU: Arkansas St. at Appalachian St.; either ESPN3, ESPNEWS or a sublicense for whichever MAC game doesn't air on ESPN2.  
• Same as above, except move Mississippi St. at Missouri over to SEC Network and show Baylor at Kansas St. on ESPN.
• Rice at UTEP was scheduled for a national television outlet on 11/6, which I thought was a shoe-in for CBSSN because FS1 has a NASCAR truck series race at 8:30pm ET.  BYU at San Jose St. was scheduled for CBSSN at 10:30pm 11:30pm ET.  After talking it over with the Twitter account for BlazerTalk.com, wanted to provide our exchange because the person running their account made some decent points:
  

  .@BlazerTalk Yep, possible now that we're talking through it. Using MT, trucks start @ 6:30pm, assume over by 8:30pm, start game @ 8:45pm?
  — Matt Sarzyniak (@mattsarz) April 15, 2015

  
  

  @mattsarz 8:45 to 9. Broadcast made just for night owls and west coasters.
  — BlazerTalk.com (@BlazerTalk) April 15, 2015

 Your thoughts? 

Quick MBK notes on Villanova-Oklahoma & Gavitt Tipoff

* CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reports that Villanova & Oklahoma will face each other in Hawai'i on Monday 12/7/14.  I understand the significance of the day (Pearl Harbor Day), though I'm curious on the logistics and potential television outlets for the game.  Rothstein's report did not mention who was organizing the game and with it being on a Monday, it is likely going to be an afternoon game in Hawai'i to be a nighttime game on the east coast.

With Rothstein being the first to report, that might be a clue that CBS is organizing the game to air on CBS Sports Network.  As far as I can tell, he was the first to report that Iowa St. and South Carolina would be facing off at Barclays Center last year and that game ended up on CBSSN.

* In late February, I went through some scheduling items with respect to the Gavitt Tipoff games between the Big East and Big Ten.  After going the press releases a few times, plus asking around, there are a couple other items to note:

• Nothing is spelled out saying that the Big East & Big Ten would host one game each per night.
• It is possible, due to facility related issues, that the confines of a single week could be relaxed

I had to re-read the press releases a few times and nowhere did it state that a school from each conference would host one game per night.  So it is possible that an evening could be a doubleheader on ESPN, BTN, ESPN/BTN (splitting two Big Ten games) or FS1.  I'm assuming CBSSN is not going to get access to any of the Big East games.

One matchup has apparently been leaked, again by Rothstein: Nebraska at Villanova

Some of the Big East schools play in arenas with at least one professional team as a tenant.  While schools like St. John's and Villanova could conceivably host a game in their smaller on-campus arena, there could be a situation where a game has to move to the following week, or maybe stretch the event into a full week long event to get every game in based on the hosts.

The plan was to release the pairings in the spring and with the leaked matchup, we could see the pairings & dates very soon..

Quick Notes on 2015 BTN Night Game Schedule

Big Ten schedule

* Compared to previous years, no game times were set with today's schedule release.  My assumption is that these will be coming later in the spring, possibly at the time when the conference's early season television schedule is set.

* Two schools were not part of this schedule: Ohio St. and Purdue.  Purdue, a school without permanent lights, has maintained that they would prefer not to play any night games on BTN at this time as the schools are on the hook for the bill for temporary lights, where Ohio St. now has permanent lights and should be a top five team entering the year.  I would expect the Buckeyes to have at least one home night game on ABC or ESPN.

* A notable game that was not part of this release, but one that will be a night game: TCU at Minnesota on Thursday 9/3.  There are two reasons the game may not be part of this release:

• BTN was trying to differentiate between non-Saturday and Saturday night games
• The game is going to air on ESPN

In my opinion, I believe the game is going to be on ESPN with TCU potentially a top five team coming into the season.

* Usually BTN and ABC/ESPN try, when possible, to not have night games on the same date.  Last year there was one date where both sides had a night game (10/4/14).  There are currently seven Saturdays that do not have night games on BTN (9/5, 10/17 - 11/7, 11/21 & 11/28).

I would not expect a Big Ten night game on 9/5 nor on 11/28 on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.  If I were to guess six night games that they would select and not conflict with an existing BTN night game, here's what I think they'll pick up:

10/17: Penn St. at Ohio St.
10/24: Penn St. vs. Maryland (at M&T Bank Stadium)
10/31: Rutgers at Wisconsin
11/7: Rutgers at Michigan & Michigan St. at Nebraska
11/21: Michigan St. at Ohio St.

* Besides ABC/ESPN's night game schedule and the early season schedule, the Big Ten is unique that they also set their game times for homecoming games.  TV networks aren't necessarily set for the games, just the time.  Here are twelve of the fourteen homecoming games as I wasn't able to find homecoming dates for Maryland and Rutgers.

9/26
Ohio at Minnesota
Southern Miss at Nebraska
Kansas at Rutgers

10/3
Purdue at Michigan St.

10/10
Illinois at Iowa
Northwestern at Michigan
Maryland at Ohio St.
Indiana at Penn St.

10/17
Rutgers at Indiana
Iowa at Northwestern
Purdue at Wisconsin

10/24
Wisconsin at Illinois

11/7
Illinois at Purdue