Quick Hitter on the 2018 MAC Schedule Release

Some quick items on the MAC schedule release and the TV selections made

* CBS Sports Network used six of their 12 sublicense selections for non-Saturday games, two less than 2017.  I don't if that means CBSSN will choose their six Saturday games earlier in the year or if they'll pick up games that were set for Saturdays in November, which is a change from the schedule the MAC released last year where there were no Saturday intraconference games in November.

* Last year CBSSN aired four consecutive MAC Thursday games from late October to November, where this season they'll skip November 8th.  I don't if CBSSN has other plans with respect to football or men's basketball now that basketball season will start a few days earlier (more on that in a minute), but that week also has CBSSN airing the PBR World Finals, which will have its programming start with a pre-event show at 9:30pm ET on 11/8.

* With the move of the start of the men's basketball season to 11/6/18, the MAC appears to have lost one of their ESPN2 Tuesday night slots.  ESPN has the Champions Classic that evening and I assume ESPN2 will either have other college basketball or other programming.  Hence, the only MAC game that evening is on ESPNU.

* I did a doubletake when I saw a MAC Thursday night game on ESPN2 on 10/25 (maybe its how they made up for the lost Tuesday night), but it does provide some clarity on a few things.  Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech is anchored to ESPN (it probably was anyways, but the ACC said ESPN or ESPN2) and Baylor at West Virginia is now virtually certain to be in the camp of FOX Sports.

10/25 would be the 1st travel day in the 2018 World Series schedule, so its understandable that the football schedule would increase for this date.

* The network designation of the 11/20 for one game on either ESPN2 or ESPNU and the other on ESPN3, at least that's how I read it from the MAC's release, I assume is due to trying to figure out scheduling for the multiple men's basketball events that ESPN carries at the beginning of Thanksgiving week, such as the Maui Invitational, Legends Classic, CBE Classic, etc.

Way Too Early 2018 CFB TV Guesses: Week Two

Here's the post for Weeks Zero & One if you'd like to look at that first.  There are only two games, right now, set with a TV network for Week Two & only one of them has a start time (Ball St. at Notre Dame, 3:30pm NBC).

* Thursday of this particular week is the opening night of the 2018 NFL season.  While that doesn't preclude any networks from moving a game to Thursday night, ESPN does have existing commitments with the US Open taking up time.

Besides the US Open commitments on Thursday, Friday should have ESPN carrying the men's semifinals in the evening and ESPN is expected to carry the women's championship match in the afternoon on Saturday.

* For those scoring at home, I had ESPN holding the top choices in the Big Ten (Rutgers at Ohio St.) and Big 12 (UCLA at Oklahoma) and FOX Sports taking the top Pac-12 game (USC at Stanford).  Also, I have CBS sublicensing Kentucky at Florida from ESPN after ESPN selected Georgia at South Carolina & Clemson at Texas A&M.

* Following last year's example, I moved Florida St.'s ACC Network appearance to a night game as the school has requested to play at night when possible in September.

* This particular week is the first use of FS2 that I had for 2018.  I made Oklahoma St.'s game vs. Missouri St. their member retained game, so this one I figured would air on FS2 in the evening.

* I made the call to move Baylor at UTSA to Friday night.

* EDIT: The first few comments to the article on Twitter mentioned Penn St. at Pittsburgh likely not being a night game due to parking concerns with a Pirates night game, and there is precedent for Pitt playing a day game if there's a Pirates night game, such as the Michigan St. game moving to a day game in 2006 after originally being announced as a night game.  I moved Penn St. at Pittsburgh to 12pm, moved Rutgers at Ohio St. to 3:30pm and UCLA at Oklahoma to a night game.

If your game isn't listed, assume it is on a streaming platform where the home school can control the start time.

All times Eastern

Friday
8pm ESPN2: TCU at SMU
8pm CBSSN: Baylor at UTSA

Saturday
12pm ABC: Penn St. at Pittsburgh
12pm FOX: Mississippi St. at Kansas St.
12pm ESPN: Georgia at South Carolina
12pm ESPN2: Western Michigan at Michigan
12pm FS1: Virginia at Indiana
12pm ESPNU: Georgia Tech at USF
12pm SEC: East Tennessee St. at Tennessee
12pm BTN: Eastern Michigan at Purdue
12pm BTN: New Mexico at Wisconsin
12pm CBSSN: Liberty at Army
12:30pm ACC RSNs: William & Mary at Virginia Tech
2pm Pac-12: San Jose St. at Washington St.
3pm AT&T Sports Pittsburgh: Youngstown St. at West Virginia
3:30pm ABC: Rutgers at Ohio St.
3:30pm CBS: Kentucky at Florida
3:30pm ESPN2: Arkansas St. at Alabama
3:30pm ESPNU: Georgia St. at NC State
3:30pm BTN: Western Illinois at Illinois
3:30pm BTN: Fresno St. at Minnesota
3:30pm CBSSN: Memphis at Navy
4pm FOX: Colorado at Nebraska
4pm SEC: Alabama St. at Auburn
4pm SEC: Southern Illinois at Ole Miss
4pm ESPNEWS: Utah at Northern Illinois
5pm Pac-12: Southern Utah at Oregon St.
7pm ESPN: Clemson at Texas A&M
7pm ESPN2: Arizona at Houston
7pm ESPNU: Wyoming at Missouri
7pm CBSSN: North Carolina at East Carolina
7pm FS2: South Alabama at Oklahoma St.
7pm ACC Network: Samford at Florida St.
7pm Stadium: Air Force at FAU

7:30pm SEC: Nevada at Vanderbilt

7:30pm SEC: Southeastern Louisiana at LSU

7:30pm BTN: Iowa St. at Iowa
7:30pm BTN: Duke at Northwestern
8pm ABC: UCLA at Oklahoma
8pm FOX: USC at Stanford
8pm Pac-12: North Dakota at Washington
8pm Longhorn: Tulsa at Texas
8pm FSN: Lamar at Texas Tech
10:15pm ESPN2: California at BYU
10:15pm ESPNU: Connecticut at Boise St.
10:30pm ESPN: Michigan St. at Arizona St.

10:30pm CBSSN: Arkansas at Colorado St.

11pm Pac-12: Portland St. at Oregon

Way Too Early 2018 CFB TV Guesses: Weeks Zero & One

This is an early, way too early, guess at how the various TV networks might slot their college football games for Weeks Zero & One of 2018.  If you click on the links for the weeks below, you'll get the existing schedule for the week and any games already set for TV.

If I didn't list your game, assume its going to be available exclusively online.

Week Zero
* I don't know of any rumored overseas games at this time.  My best guess is that any other games involving schools playing at Hawai'i (Navy, Nevada, UNLV or Utah St.) could move to this date.  Rice, who is also playing at Hawai'i, has a game vs. Prairie View A&M on this date.

Jacksonville St. is contracted to be involved in the FCS Kickoff game again and is awaiting an opponent to be announced.  Maybe a second FCS game will be moved to this date.

Saturday
Duquesne at UMass, 6pm Eleven Sports
TBD vs. Jacksonville St., 6:30pm ESPN
Wyoming at New Mexico St., 8pm AggieVision

Week One
* I accounted for the following events:

• US Open tennis airing on ESPN2 all day on Saturday 9/1
• FS1 carrying at least one MLB game on Saturday 9/1 with a game already scheduled for 4pm ET.  I'm going to assume a 7pm ET game too.

* I made the call to move Houston at Rice to Friday night so I could get that game on CBSSN.  It was either to move that game or Indiana at FIU.  Since the 2016 matchup between the Hoosiers and the Panthers was moved to a Thursday night, I figured it wasn't feasible to move it to a weeknight again.

* I really struggle with what the decision will be for Oklahoma's member retained game.  I feel that neither FAU nor Army (9/22) deserve to be shown as PPV games.  Maybe the Army game ends up on FSN nationally as the member retained game.  For the FAU game, I gave that to FOX Sports.

* For conferences where ESPN and FOX share rights, I gave the top choices for the week from the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 to FOX Sports.  For those of you scoring at home, that would mean I had FOX choose Oregon St. at Ohio St. over Texas vs. Maryland.

* I understand there's a report out there that CBS will be sublicensing West Virginia vs. Tennessee from Charlotte.  I was able to craft the schedule without the need for a CBS sublicense, but that likely depends on the ability to move multiple SEC games off of Saturday, such as what I did with a SEC Network doubleheader on Thursday.

* I am assuming existing C-USA rightsholders will remain the same.  beIN Sports was already contracted to air games in 2018.

* For FOX's top Pac-12 choice, I went with Cincinnati at UCLA over North Carolina at California, using the Chip Kelly curiosity factor.  For the FS1 choice, since both Arizona schools are at home and the FS1 opening I had was late evening, I assume one is one Pac-12 Networks & the other is on either FS1 or ESPN, therefore I went with BYU at Arizona.

Thursday
6pm CBSSN: UCF at Connecticut
6pm SEC: Coastal Carolina at South Carolina
8pm ESPN: Northwestern at Purdue
8pm BTN: New Mexico St. at Minnesota
8pm Pac-12: Weber St. at Utah
9pm SEC: UT Martin at Missouri
9:15pm CBSSN: Wake Forest at Tulane

Friday
8pm ESPN: Utah St. at Michigan St.
8pm FS1: Western Kentucky at Wisconsin
8pm CBSSN: Houston at Rice
10pm Pac-12: San Diego St. at Stanford

Saturday
12pm ABC: Texas vs. Maryland
12pm FOX: FAU at Oklahoma
12pm ESPN: Akron at Nebraska
12pm FS1: Appalachian St. at Penn St.
12pm FSN: Abilene Christian at Baylor
12pm ESPNU: Army at Duke
12pm SEC: Austin Peay at Georgia
12pm SEC: Eastern Illinois at Arkansas
12pm BTN: Texas St. at Rutgers
12pm CBSSN: Syracuse at Western Michigan
12:20pm ACC Network: Furman at Clemson
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Massachusetts at Boston College
2pm Pac-12: Bowling Green at Oregon
3:30pm ABC: Louisville vs. Alabama
3:30pm FOX: Oregon St. at Ohio St.
3:30pm ESPNU: Boise St. at Troy
3:30pm CBSSN: Colorado vs. Colorado St.
3:30pm BTN: Kent St. at Illinois
3:30pm FSN: Missouri St. at Oklahoma St.
4pm SEC: Stephen F. Austin at Mississippi St.
4pm SEC: Middle Tennessee at Vanderbilt
5pm Pac-12: North Carolina at California
5:30pm ESPN: Tennessee vs. West Virginia
6pm KStateHD.TV/ESPN3: South Dakota at Kansas St.
7pm CBSSN: Indiana at FIU
7pm beIN Sports: SMU at North Texas
7pm Jayhawk TV: Nicholls at Kansas
7:30pm FOX: Cincinnati at UCLA
7:30pm ESPNU: Central Michigan at Kentucky
7:30pm SEC: Northwestern St. at Texas A&M
7:30pm SEC: Charleston Southern at Florida
7:30pm BTN: Northern Illinois at Iowa
8pm ABC: Washington vs. Auburn
8pm Pac-12: UNLV at USC
8pm Cyclones.TV: South Dakota St. at Iowa St.
8pm FSN: Southern at TCU
9pm ESPN: Ole Miss vs. Texas Tech
10:15pm ESPNU: Washington St. at Wyoming
10:30pm FS1: BYU at Arizona
10:30pm CBSSN: Navy at Hawai'i
11pm Pac-12: UTSA at Arizona St.

Sunday
* At the moment, I don't have a good reason to move any game to Sunday for FOX.  There's a few reasons for this:

• I don't see FOX using three Pac-12 selections right off the bat.
• Both of the Arizona schools still set for playing on Saturday makes it tough for one of them to NOT be the FS1 late Saturday game.  Both schools strongly prefer to play in the evening in September due to heat concerns.  Because of how the Pac-12 Networks are programmed, a game airing on the national feed also airs on the regional feed, so they'd have to break the rule to show Arizona school on the national feed & another on the Pac-12 Arizona feed.
• Even if one of the Arizona schools moved off of a Saturday game date and Sunday was offered, the game moving would be UTSA at Arizona St. due to BYU's stance on Sunday competition.  In that case, you could see both BYU at Arizona (late Saturday) & UTSA at Arizona (Sunday) on Pac-12 Networks, with California at North Carolina moved over to FOX on Sunday or FS1 on Saturday.

Notes on the 2018 ACC, American & C-USA Football Schedule Releases

ACC
American
C-USA

I lumped these three together because I wanted to have enough content to write about.  To be clear, expect the majority of these to be about the first two conferences listed.

* Here's a reasonable guess of the ESPN Thursday Night Schedule based on the ACC & American taking up the majority of the schedule and accounting for the expected weeks when FOX likely couldn't take a game for FS1 due to MLB playoffs.

8/30: Northwestern at Purdue (hey man, its what we got right now)
9/6: None. ESPN has to skip due to US Open commitments (women's semifinals)
9/13: Boston College at Wake Forest
9/20: Tulsa at Temple (pending finalized NFL schedule)
9/27: North Carolina at Miami (FL)
10/4: Tulsa at Houston
10/11: Let's assume Texas Tech at TCU with FS1 likely on MLB duty
10/18: Let's assume Stanford at Arizona St. with FS1 likely on MLB duty
10/25: Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech, which should send Baylor at West Virginia to FOX Sports
11/1: Temple at UCF
11/8: Wake Forest at NC State
11/15: Tulane at Houston
11/22: Mississippi St. at Ole Miss

For 8/30, Northwestern at Purdue doesn't feel like a likely opener for ESPN.  I could certainly see them working on another game, maybe from the SEC to relieve a potential glut of SEC Network-worthy games.

As for Baylor at West Virginia (more likely than not?) on FOX Sports on 10/25, that should be an off day within the World Series.

* I'll sketch out the Friday night schedule later in the spring once the remaining conference schedules appear, likely in early March.  There's plenty of Fridays where there's at least two games scheduled if you work through the 2018 schedule, including potential for at least some Friday night doubleheaders.  One Friday game to note is TCU at SMU on 9/7.  It is airing on the same evening as the US Open men's semifinals, which are required to air on ESPN per contract, so look for the football game on in the place it has often aired on this particular Friday: ESPN2.

* The UCF at Connecticut game on 8/30 was excluded from the list of Thursday night games airing on ESPN in the American's schedule release.  My guess is that CBS Sports Network could end up with a doubleheader of American games with the back half being Wake Forest at Tulane.

* I'm unsure what the potential plan is for ESPN in the event Tulsa at Temple has to move back to Saturday 9/22.  Temple's schedule release did not give Friday 9/21 as an option and the American has FAU at UCF scheduled for that evening.  There are two C-USA games that week involving Power 5 opponents (NC State at Marshall & Virginia Tech at Old Dominion).  I suspect they could end up wait until the Mountain West's schedule is finalized and take a game from there if needed.

I can't speak to the odds of the Eagles playing two Thursday night games in the first three weeks of the season, but I've seen recent examples of teams playing back-to-back Thursday night games, such as the Lions (2015) & Cowboys (2017) both playing on Thanksgiving and the Thursday after at home.

* Both the ACC and American released their Friday night games without TV partners, which has been par for the course with the ACC for the past few seasons, but new with the American.  I think we'll know more about any American games sent over to CBSSN around the same time the Mountain West sets their weeknight schedule.

Memphis at SMU on 11/16 might be more likely to get sent to CBSSN since ESPN Networks often has MBK events around this date and tends to take a western located football game.  CBSSN has also happened to air college football around this particular date in the past four years.

* Notice that Navy did not have any TV information next to their home games.  Their agreement with CBSSN expired.  The American does require between 80-90% of their conference controlled games to air on national TV, so there's a few things that could happen:

• ESPN and CBSSN expand their sublicensing terms for football to include a few more football games, regardless of the competing teams.
• ESPN works with the conference to allow for a few more streaming games.
• An agreement is reached to continue the previous Navy-CBSSN agreement until the end of the current rights agreement.  I suppose that would be similar to the first option listed, but this one explicitly calls out the Navy games and treats them differently since they're not a full member of the conference.

* A couple folks asked about when there would be some news about Conference USA's rights agreements, which are up for negotiation except for beIN Sports.  I don't have any information to provide.  Last time out, the agreements were announced in May.  As mentioned above, 9/22 is the date with C-USA's most valuable games, which might leave ESPN out of those and without knowing the Mountain West schedule, I can't say whether CBS Sports Network would be in play for them either if they continue as a rightsholder.

Looking Forward to the 2018-19 Collegiate Athletic Year

I rounded up a few items that I felt would be worth keeping an eye on coming into the 2018-19 college athletics year with respect to television & scheduling.  I did note a handful of items with respect to early season selections and I'll do more in-depth items on those later in the winter.

Here we go:

FOX Sports RSNs moving to Disney

For the 2018 season, I don't think you're going to see a dramatic shift in operations at least right away as the timetable for the sale of assets from 21st Century FOX to Disney appears to be at least 12-18 months, which should take the sale's completion well past the end of the season.  It could have more of a potential impact in the area of college basketball.

With that said, FOX Sports might look to seed a few more college football & basketball games on FS2 instead of FSN where they can, potentially preparing for a RSN-less future.

Conference USA back to the negotiating table

Conference USA is heading back to the market with most of their rights as their deals with ESPN, CBS Sports Network and Stadium all expire in the spring of 2018.

John Ourand of Sports Business Daily, in his predictions for 2018, noted that the Mountain West might be the first to jump more towards streaming, but I could certainly see C-USA beating them to the punch.  The conference will have 18 men's basketball games on Facebook out of 33 games that Stadium is producing.

More breathing room on CBS Sports Network?

At the moment, Navy's home football games have reverted back to the inventory the American provides to ESPN, with the exception of the "home" game vs. Notre Dame that CBS retained an option to carry in 2018, which if CBS were to carry is virtually certain to be a night game unless they were allowed to carry the game on CBS Sports Network due to the game's location in 2018 (San Diego) and the fact that the game is the same day as Georgia vs. Florida (10/27/18), which CBS is more likely than not to carry & must be played in the afternoon.

Getting back to Navy, ESPN now holds the rights to those games, but at this moment, the sublicense of American games to CBS Sports Network has not increased in the number of games (up to 15 games per season), so CBSSN could end up doing any of the following:

1. Increase the number of American games they sublicense from ESPN
2. Take a few of the Mountain West games that typically air at 10pm or 10:30pm ET and move them to earlier time slots where appropriate
3. Offer some of those slots to Conference USA during rights negotiations
4. Use more of the sublicensed MAC games from ESPN on Saturdays instead of weeknights, though that is dependent on the MAC schedule composition.

Another place to keep an eye on at CBS & CBS Sports Network: Big East scheduling.  Their agreement with FOX Sports for the Big East ends after the 2018-19 athletic year.  The reconstruction of FOX Sports under a few less outlets could put a focus on this agreement and whether FOX will keep more of these games for their outlets (FOX, FS1, FS2) or move more games to CBS Sports Network as scheduling permits as today's agreement allows for up to 30 games total to CBS & CBSSN (up to five games on CBS).

Final season of Raycom Sports' ACC Network

Raycom's ACC sublicense ends after the 2018-19 athletic year, with most of their content expected to populate the ESPN operated ACC Network.  With the agreement with Altice for carriage of the ACC Network, look for some initial ramp-up in terms of awareness towards consumers that this content is moving elsewhere and that you'll need a new channel in 2019 to see it.

To be honest, I don't have any sense of what Raycom could invest in or stay involved with as a primary producer of college sports.  I believe they own a fair amount of production equipment and could stay involved in providing production support to regional entities and the ACC Network as needed.  Frankly, ESPN could make use of that support once they take in the FOX Sports RSNs.

Random stuff

* Oklahoma is unique out of all the Big 12 schools in that their member retained game ends up on pay-per-view.  I do wonder if either FOX Sports or ESPN will want the opener vs. FAU for their national packages while having to designate the game as member retained (I don't see this happening for the UCLA game).

FAU at Oklahoma also happens to be the only Big 12 controlled game in Week One that involves two FBS schools.

* I think ESPN will figure out how to keep all of those SEC neutral site games during Week One.  They've already moved LSU vs. Miami (FL) to Sunday.  I think they could air two each on ABC & ESPN.  With that said upfront, I think it would leave CBS without a sublicensed SEC game for this particular week and they'd end up taking one of those selections later in the season, similar to what they did in 2017.

If ESPN were to determine that they can't air one of those games, in my opinion, the Chick-Fil-A game in Atlanta, which has previously been sublicensed to CBS, or the Tennessee vs. West Virginia game in Charlotte would be targets to move.  ESPN Events has a stake in both the Advocare Texas Kickoff in Houston & the Camping World Kickoff in Orlando.  Because of those stakes, I think those are less likely to air outside of ABC or ESPN Networks.

* Both Arizona & Arizona St. are at home on 9/1, hosting BYU & UTSA, respectively.  If neither FOX nor ESPN is interested in either of those games, look for one of them to move their game to Thursday or Friday evening.  Both schools strongly prefer night games in September and the Pac-12 Networks do not have the space to provide them to be played concurrently.

* For a pair of items that rotate on a yearly basis, ESPN has the Big 12 Championship and, I believe, the top priority pick in the Pac-12, where FOX has the Pac-12 Championship and the top choice of which week they want to select first in the Big 12.

I think FOX will use the top Big 12 choice on the week of the Red River Rivalry and maybe attempt to pair it with a NLDS game like they tried in 2016 (the MLB game ended up be rained out), but I look at picking 2nd on 9/15 (either USC at Texas or Ohio St. vs. TCU from Jerry's World) as valuable too.  As for the Pac-12, Notre Dame at USC looks like the most valuable non-conference game, so after that your guess is as good as any.  USC at Arizona (9/29, Khalil Tate vs. defending Pac-12 champs) & UCLA at Oregon (11/3, Chip Kelly's return to Eugene) seem like they'll have good storylines attached to them

* I'm also interested to see if ESPN is working to move one of their conference championship games to Friday night.  Will the MAC move back to Friday?  I expect the Big 12 Championship on ABC, so that would in theory leave the American on ESPN, unless a tripleheader was attempted and any tripleheader would mean a game opposite the SEC Championship on CBS.

The Sun Belt adding a championship game to the mix isn't as big of a deal though as they've had games on Championship Saturday on ESPN2 the last two seasons, so they can be worked into the mix.

And all of this math assumes a place for the C-USA Championship on ESPN or ESPN2 which I suppose isn't guaranteed.

* For games scheduled for weeknights outside of Labor Day weekend, there's a lot to be announced and those will come out as schedules appear for 2018 from the ACC, American and Mountain West.  My initial impression is that ESPN will have Texas Tech at TCU on Thursday 10/11, Arizona at Utah on Friday 10/12 & Stanford at Arizona St. on Thursday 10/18 due to FS1's MLB postseason commitments.  While FS1 could conceivable not have MLB those days, I don't think they can count on it, nor count on the possibility of weather related issues changing dates/times.

* The two new FBS independents, Liberty and New Mexico St., both have a wealth of experience when it comes to being able to produce their own telecasts in football.  Liberty has had their Liberty Flames Sports Network and New Mexico St.'s AggieVision has been around since their time in the WAC and through one independent season before they moved to the Sun Belt.  Both productions regularly made it to ESPN3 along with RSNs.  I'd expect that to continue.

Some Thoughts on FSN Content Promotion & A Reversal Of Sorts

While driving towards my holiday destination yesterday, I elected to listen to the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, because my drive was close to the length of the podcast (intelligent speed on the Podcast Addict app cut down some of the time).

And either Kyle Costner or Andrew Bucholtz (sorry, don't remember which one) made an extremely valid point regarding the sale of the FOX Sports Regional Networks to Disney.  Paraphrasing, one of them mentioned that FOX really wasn't very good at integrating them into the national business of FS1 and FOX broadcast network.

And if it wasn't foggy, I would have clapped it out for that point but I needed to hang onto the wheel.

To be clear, my frame of reference on this particular topic is from about 2004 forward, so I can't say how the national MLB package was promoted before that time, but when it came to national programming investments for FSN, I personally never felt it got the proper, or any, promotion from the big brothers.  From my own recollections, which get worse every day, the only time I can recall ever seeing any type of FSN promotion on "Big FOX" was a men's basketball tripleheader they carried where three of the top five ranked teams in the nation (#5 Duke, #2 North Carolina & #1 UCLA) would be playing on Sunday, New Year's Eve in 2006 on FSN.

That's it, and this is a network chain that had a pair of highly coveted pro tennis events for a two year stretch (Indian Wells & Miami).  Those events couldn't wait to get away from FSN fast enough and paid for time on ESPN instead.

So when it came to promoting anything on FSN, I can see where it was a bit tough for FOX to do it and four things came to mind:

• Not every RSN affiliated with FOX Sports Net was actually owned by FOX or carried the FOX Sports Net branding.  
• It isn't realistic to promote something that could conceivably not air on the RSN in your area where something could preempt the programming.  Regional pro sports typically trumped the college sports FSN carried.  In a few cases with Comcast SportsNets, they often aired their nightly news program & would join whatever live event FSN was airing in progress
• The FOX Sports branding itself didn't appear on a lot of the national programming
• ACC Sunday Night Hoops didn't always use the FSN logo on the score bar or bug and the mic flags often carried the conference's logo, which continues to this day, albeit the arrangement that FOX receives its ACC content from is a bit different
• There was a five or six year stretch where the FSN branding disappeared from content like the national college football they carried, where they went with the branding of "College Football Saturday" and "(Insert Conference Name Here) Hoops".  That branding ended right around the time Comcast RSNs elected to stop carrying FSN programming and the return of on-air FOX Sports branding.
• After Comcast RSNs stopped carrying FSN programming, the network really ceased to be national.  Arrangements have been made to carry FOX Sports Networks programming in non-FSN markets as needed (football briefly aired on local stations in San Francisco,  Boston & Washington, DC and has a few working arrangements for Big East basketball), but there was no point to try to promote what wasn't going to be available outside of FSN affiliated areas on FOX College Sports, a local station or through online means.

Now here comes a reversal of what I believed earlier when it comes to content from the Big East & Big 12 "national" contracts that they showed on FSN: While they don't own those regional networks anymore, they might find it easier to distribute that content.  They might have to go back to being a bit nameless or faceless when it comes to the branding (ie. "Big 12 Football", or something similar to the RSNs airing WCC basketball), but it could be easier to be a distributor of those games to AT&T, ESPN, Comcast & other independent RSNs, if they don't want to keep them for themselves to add to FS1 or FS2.  They can put those games out for bid if they want.  They aren't having to make a deal with Comcast for backdrop programming on the NBC Sports RSNs, they're just selling a two hour window for a college basketball game or a three hour, 30 minute window for a football game, which they do now for Big East basketball as mentioned above.  Work out the digital distribution to keep it within FOX Sports Go and figure something out if an RSN group wants to stream it (they probably will).

And the promotion of these events on RSNs, which FOX wasn't really good at, isn't something they need to worry about.  They just need to distribute as widely as possible.

Any thoughts on this?  I'd be curious to hear what you think.  Happy Holidays!

Implications on College Sports Content if FOX Were to Sell Their RSNs

If you've not heard, 21st Century FOX is working on a sale of assets to Disney.  Some of those assets include portions of FOX Sports, specifically their regional sports network group.  A few things that came up with respect to college sports content that airs there.

* Some content is contracted directly to the individual regional sports networks.  Think of things like Saint Louis men's basketball on FOX Sports Midwest & Big West sports on the group of RSNs in southern California.  Assuming the RSNs are sold, I would think that those contracts would be included in the sale.

One place where this affects FOX Sports' national college sports portfolio is the Big 12.  Five schools have contracts with FOX Sports RSNs to air at least one football game per season and other content that the school elects to produce for television:

FOX Sports Southwest or Oklahoma
Baylor
Oklahoma
Oklahoma St.
TCU
Texas Tech

FOX Sports gets to define the member retained football game for all ten schools each year, which is a bit interesting because they're defining the game that would currently air on RSNs.  If they don't own those contracts (at that point, FOX Sports would not own 3rd tier rights to any Big 12 schools while ESPN could own those five plus Texas through Longhorn Network⁺), would FOX Sports be able to call the shots on what games were defined as 3rd tier?

⁺Kansas St. & Kansas also have existing working arrangements with ESPN3, with some content airing locally on linear TV through partnerships with other networks and outside the defined local area on ESPN3.

* The ACC maintains a big presence on FOX RSNs through a sublicense from Raycom, as Raycom own rights to both a regional cable package & over the air syndication package, but that content will move to the ESPN-owned ACC Network in the late summer of 2019.

* Some content on FOX Sports RSNs are tied to national TV contracts with FOX Sports.  Most likely this content would not move with these RSNs to ESPN, unless ESPN were to come to an agreement to have FOX provide this content to them.  This content is as follows:

• Big 12 women's basketball
• Some Big 12 women's basketball airing on RSNs comes from the 3rd tier school packages.
• A package of "Olympic" / non-revenue sports from the Big 12, including championships in baseball, softball, etc.
• Big East sports, particularly men's basketball

Where would this content go to is anyone's guess, assuming it doesn't follow the RSNs.  It could end up on FS1 or FS2.  Maybe there's a push for this content to move exclusively to FOX Sports Go.  CBS Sports has a sublicense for Big East basketball that calls for 20-30 games.  So far, the number has been at 20 each year.

* Where does BTN fall in this equation?  I believe it is managed separately from the FOX Sports RSNs.  FOX Sports Media Group defines BTN as its own entity, separate from the RSNs, FS1, FS2, etc..  Doesn't mean it couldn't be part of the sale though.

* FOX College Sports is listed under the FOX Sports umbrella, but if they sold the RSNs & the underlying content to ESPN, there would be very little for that suite of channels to air.