Idle musings on America's most watched shows.

Okay, let's see if I have this right.

Ignore for a second that the Sports Business Daily has made an article available free if only briefly. This (courtesy Fang's Bites) is a list of the highest-rated programs so far this year. The only programs to get more than 24.8 million viewers are the Oscars and episodes of American Idol.

(Does anyone know of any other programs to get into that range that come later in the year that aren't sports?)

So, let's take the Super Bowl's rating of 42.0, divide it by its number of viewers (98,732,000), then multiply by the lowest number of viewers on the list to establish the cutoff, and we get a rating of 10.5.

Wait... the lowest-rated sports event on the list is the Ravens-Titans playoff game. Which got a 15.4 rating. Ravens-Dolphins should have also gotten on the list at 15.0, as should have Cardinals-Panthers, Falcons-Cardinals, the Rose Bowl, the college basketball championship game, and depending on relative positioning, the Super Bowl Pregame Show.

Okay, let's try the conference championship games. Try the AFC Title Game. That last place episode of Idol should have gotten a 13.4. That still doesn't account for the three NFL Playoff games I mentioned. The NFC title game? By those standards, the lowest rating should be 14.1. Still doesn't account for Ravens-Dolphins.

Okay, let's zip down to Ravens-Titans. Well, this makes more sense: a 15 even, evidently with more viewers than Ravens-Dolphins. Still, evidently rating/viewers is not a constant and there's a bit more that goes into the formulae... which could be a problem if I want to work with that sort of thing.

(Although at the very bottom it says the ratings are Live + Same Day. Are those not the same numbers as the final ratings? How useful is that?)

Let's look at the big picture.

First, in order to keep Extra Innings the cable companies swung a deal that gave MLB Network wide distribution, not just on the Sports Entertainment Pack.

Then, Comcast and the NFL spontaneously settled their differences out of the blue, and Comcast agreed to give the NFL Network wide distribution as well. At the same time, Comcast also finally reached an agreement with ESPNU, and that'll involve wide distribution as well.

Now, in the past week, Comcast has engaged in similar distribution-broadening with the NHL Network, and now NBATV. (Although the NBATV deal was reported on as early as March.)

That doesn't even mention the end of the impasse between Comcast and Big Ten Network last year; outside the Big Ten footprint it was placed on the Sports Entertainment Pack.

So I have to ask: Is Comcast giving up on its Sports Entertainment Pack?

What's next? Will CBS College Sports or the FCS networks get bumped up? What about the Tennis Channel? Will new channels like GOL TV get added to make up for the losses? Is ESPN Classic getting bumped down, as was rumored? Could I even have the opportunity to get the mtn. outside that conference's footprint?
(I'm certainly not complaining about the sudden jolt in options, and the ability to watch all the cool new stuff, especially on NFLN and ESPNU.)

NBA Playoffs First Round Ratings

Source: Sports Media Watch. This is an experiment. Asterisks indicate rating not reported by SMW; if there is an asterisk and no network, I couldn't determine whether it was on ESPN or NBATV. I can forgive the lack of NBATV ratings and even the one missing ESPN2 rating. But asterisked ESPN games could get over 2.0 and appear on my year-end roundup! (CLE @ DET Game 3 is most likely to do so and all the others are rather unlikely, and it might not be SMW's fault, but still.)
EASTERN CONFERENCE FIRST ROUND
DET @ CLE Game 1, ABC, 2.2
DET @ CLE Game 2, TNT, 2.4
CLE @ DET Game 3, ESPN, *
CLE @ DET Game 4, ABC, 3.5

CHI @ BOS Game 1, ESPN, 2.0
CHI @ BOS Game 2, TNT, 2.5
BOS @ CHI Game 3, TNT, 2.2
BOS @ CHI Game 4, ABC, 3.3
CHI @ BOS Game 5, TNT, 2.5
BOS @ CHI Game 6, TNT, 3.5
CHI @ BOS Game 7, TNT, 4.4

PHI @ ORL Game 1, TNT, <2.0
PHI @ ORL Game 2, NBATV, *
ORL @ PHI Game 3, ESPN2, *
ORL @ PHI Game 4, TNT, <2.0
PHI @ ORL Game 5, *
ORL @ PHI Game 6, *

MIA @ ATL Game 1, TNT, 2.2
MIA @ ATL Game 2, TNT, <2.0
ATL @ MIA Game 3, TNT, <2.0
ATL @ MIA Game 4, TNT, 1.8
MIA @ ATL Game 5, TNT, <2.0
ATL @ MIA Game 6, *
MIA @ ATL Game 7, ABC, 2.6

WESTERN CONFERENCE FIRST ROUND
UT @ LAL Game 1, ABC, 3.2
UT @ LAL Game 2, TNT, 2.3
LAL @ UT Game 3, TNT, 2.6
LAL @ UT Game 4, ESPN, 2.2
UT @ LAL Game 5, TNT, 2.4 (SMW has this game listed as Game 4)

NO @ DEN Game 1, TNT, 2.0
NO @ DEN Game 2, TNT, 2.0
DEN @ NO Game 3, ESPN, *
DEN @ NO Game 4, *
NO @ DEN Game 5, TNT, 1.9

DAL @ SA Game 1, ESPN, 1.7
DAL @ SA Game 2, TNT, 2.0
SA @ DAL Game 3, NBATV, *
SA @ DAL Game 4, TNT, <2.0
DAL @ SA Game 5, TNT, 2.2

HOU @ POR Game 1, ESPN, 2.1
HOU @ POR Game 2, NBATV, *
POR @ HOU Game 3, ESPN, *
POR @ HOU Game 4, TNT, 2.1
HOU @ POR Game 5, *
POR @ HOU Game 6, TNT, 2.5

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... another retype. I thought I made myself immune to this bullshit.

If the Super Bowl were covered the same way the NFL Draft is:

• It would last two days.
• It would be covered by TWO networks.
• It would be preceded by a five-hour pregame show. Same (or less) than now, right? Well, there would be pregame shows on both networks.
• One of the two networks would have analysis throughout the entire game on a sister channel.
• There would be cameras inside each team's locker room which each broadcast could switch to whenever they needed to, AND cameras inside the houses of players who could be called in at any moment to fly to the game and pitch in for either team.
• There would be in-game interviews with coaches and team executives, and an interview with one player after every play either early or late in the game.
• Each network's broadcast team would include an expert who has analyzed every single play each team could possibly use during the game and has drawn up a "mock game" scripting every move of the entire game (or at least the first quarter).

On another note, Al Davis is now officially certifiably insane.

Something I've been meaning to say since the news broke.

There's been a lot that's been said about John Madden's retirement, and I could repeat everything that's been said about how beloved he was (not so much in my household, but that may be because he made all the obvious things he said obvious) or his alleged man-crush on Brett Favre or his impact on football and the broadcasting profession or his retirement's impact on NBC, the NFL and its network, and the careers of Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels, and Frank Caliendo.

But let me just say this about replacement Collinsworth.

NBC was caught off guard by Madden's retirement, but they were not caught unprepared.

That said, I have to agree with what Curt Smith had to say about Harry Kalas: "[Collinsworth] will succeed [Madden]. None will replace him."

One more sports note.

Versus has been getting rave reviews (when they've been getting reviews at all) for their IRL coverage.

Me? I can never make a judgment on how good a broadcast is unless it's egregiously bad.

So I can't get past Versus' ridiculous "Transformers" intro.

Headslap.

Headslap.

Headslap.

If you're willing to put a channel on the sports tier, why not let it be ESPNU? Or even better, why not let cable operators decide for themselves which channel to put on the sports tier? You're going to abandon Classic like that? Baby steps!

(Does this mean the end of Classic as an overflow channel?)

The post we don't want ESPN to read

Two weeks ago I did a post on the biggest sports TV ratings of 2008, which went beyond its Sports Media Watch inspiration to cover every sports rating I could find over 2.5 (well, 3.0 anyway), and a few over 2.0. I mentioned that I had found the original post to be one of the most useful references I had in the new year. How useful could such a post be? What can we learn from that post?

 

We can learn just how devastating the BCS' move to ESPN really is.

 

It should hardly be surprising to most people who are paying attention that the BCS Title Game is the biggest event on the sporting calendar outside the NFL or Olympics. It's got a full two-point margin over its biggest competition, college basketball's National Championship - but that could easily change with the distribution penalty the Title Game will take from being on cable, especially if the economy drives people to ditch cable or satellite and just go with their antennas. If the depression stretches into 2011, I have a feeling, or at least hope, that ESPN will move at least the Title Game to ABC (and keep the Rose Bowl there).

 

But if what happened to the BCS Title Game is the wave of the future - big sporting events moving to cable en masse - it becomes imperative that we find real competition to ESPN. ESPN will now not only have the biggest sports property on cable, but the top two in the BCS and Monday Night Football. You have to scroll down to 7.9 to find a cable sports rating held by anyone other than ESPN, and 5.4 to find a second (still behind an unusually strong Home Run Derby). Throw out the Red Sox-Rays series, as you undoubtedly will have to do with TBS picking up the weaker NLCS this year, and you have to go down to 4.8.

 

The future could be one where ESPN bullies its way to capturing virtually every sport imaginable, marginalizing all but the biggest to smaller channels like ESPN2, and dominating what gets said in the sports conversation. The allegations that it's guilty of an East Coast/LA bias show that a monopoly is not really something we can trust ESPN with. But no one's even daring to challenge ESPN's dominance. Versus was thought to be trying its hand at it... but last week, its president Jamie Davis, interviewed by the Washington Times, denied that ESPN was "what we want to become" and that "we are trying to serve a fan base that we believe has been underserved in the past". I'm hopeful that Versus' prior attempts to take baseball or the NFL reflect that there's more to this than meets the eye, but I'm not optimistic. Other than ESPN and sport-specific networks, the only other cable networks to even appear on this list are TBS and TNT. We're in trouble if the closest thing we have to competition for ESPN doesn't even see itself as a sports network, and the biggest non-ESPN sports network doesn't see itself as competing with ESPN.

 

Unfortunately, there are pretty slim pickings for a network looking to establish itself as a competitor to ESPN. Aside from the BCS and MNF (and ESPN won't let go of the latter without a fight with all the NFL programming it has), there's not much in the way of big events for a cable network to pick out, and before the BCS deal it may have seemed that whatever network controlled the NFL cable contract controlled the world of sports. The NCAA and the major sports are under pressure from Congress to keep their big events on broadcast; the only reason the BCS could shore up with ESPN was because it's not under the banner of the NCAA, and the non-BCS conferences have been talking about pressing antitrust charges against it anyway.

 

The only options may be those opened up by the BCS deal, namely the Masters, the Triple Crown races, some high-profile college football games like BCS conference championships and the Capitol One Bowl, and the Final Four and earlier rounds of the NCAA Tournament. I don't know what their relative commitment to broadcast is; the Masters will probably stay on broadcast for a while, and the Cap One could bolt to ESPN at any moment. But ESPN's second highest rated MNF game got an 8.7, and the above list consists of the only events I could think of that would top even the fourth highest rated game (7.9). The highest rated of the bunch is an SEC Championship at 9.3 that was an effective BCS semifinal, which you can't count on; #2 is the Cap One Bowl at 9.1. Even 80% of the 14.4 the BCS Title Game received would be an 11.5, two full ratings points ahead (almost 2.5 over the Cap One). (You might be able to throw the Daytona 500 into the mix as well, but THIS year, it fell below 10.0 if my memory serves me correctly...

 

(There's the Olympics, but the Olympics are still legitimately valuable for the broadcast networks.)

 

The prospects are even bleaker for long-term competition. ESPN has two networks, a connection with a broadcast network, the top sports news web site, a nightly sports highlight show, an international arm, a web-streaming site, a mobile deal and mobile-TV channel, a radio network, a sports news network, a classic sports network that serves as an overflow channel, a college sports network, and a Spanish-language network. To create a compelling bid for just about any sports entity and to truly be seen as an equal with ESPN, you need to be able to compete with almost all those revenue streams.

 

Fox may be the best positioned with Final Score, News Corporation's international presence, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox College Sports, and Fox Sports en Espanol. Indeed Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of most of the regional sports networks was made with creating competition for ESPN in mind, and its failure may have scared off Versus, but what was supposed to be Fox Sports Net's strength - local programming - turned into its weakness, as many regions pre-empted national programming. The Big 12 and Pac-10 tried to abandon ESPN for a time and put their top cable football games on FSN and TBS, but it only led to people making fun of them for being on FSN. Now FSN has been selling networks like there's no tomorrow - Chicago, the Bay Area, and New England have all gone from FSN markets to Comcast SportsNet markets, and that's not counting the ones sold to third parties like FSN New York (now MSG+) or the ones sold to Liberty Media in the DirecTV deal.

 

Ideally, competition for ESPN would reduce the need and demand for ESPN2, by moving some events that would be on ESPN2 to ESPN. The four major networks all have some online presence, though their streaming capacity varies, as does CNN and Time Warner with SI, USA Today, Sporting News, Yahoo Sports, and AOL Sports/Fanhouse. Yahoo in particular may already have the most popular non-ESPN sports site, so if for some unfathomable reason you don't already have such a presence, shacking up with Yahoo might be a good approach. (NBC is learning of the perils of launching your own site at too late a date.) Alternately, embracing blogs can help with marketing your brand. An international presence is one of the biggest obstacles unless you're Fox. For radio, Fox Sports Radio and Sporting News Radio are out there, and Westwood One may be an actual competitor for sports rights (which helps CBS, which owns it). CBS has a top-quality college sports network as well, while NBC would be best positioned other than Fox to launch a Spanish-language sports network alongside Telemundo. (There's a part of me that wonders if the acquisition of what's now Universal Sports was made with an eye to becoming a competitor to ESPN.)

 

Of the above, I think the most important aspect may be the sports highlight show. It may not get a lot of eyeballs, especially in the age of the Internet, but it helps further that notion that you're a major player. Even if you get the same number of eyeballs as ESPN for big events, people might not associate you with being a leader in sports. Besides, it's with time on SportsCenter that ESPN blackmails lesser leagues into joining them, or at least that's the perception. But you need something to promote. You need a reason for sports fans to come back to your network again and again.

 

Ignoring the NFL, and assuming the BCS moves back to ABC and other big events stay on broadcast, a good way to establish your presence is to have at least an even split of MLB, the NBA, and NASCAR with ESPN. All three are held by ESPN, but all three also have alternate contracts with TBS or TNT, alternate contracts that make them at least equals to ESPN in at least one respect (one LCS, one Conference Finals, and most of the biggest cable races not held at the Brickyard, like the second Daytona race). But even if the Turner networks were to start a sports highlight show and turn one of its networks into a sports hub, they wouldn't be convincing people to keep coming back again and again nearly as often as ESPN. It's college sports and other relatively lesser sports that are ESPN's real hook (not to mention shows like ATH and PTI).

 

For a network to hold up in comparison to ESPN, at least in my view, it needs to at least tie ESPN by comparison. For all practical purposes, it needs to come close to tying ESPN in the ratings. Outside of the NFL, the largest cable sports ratings in 2008 were:

• 7.9: ALCS Game 7 (TBS)
• 5.5: Home Run Derby (ESPN)
• 5.4: ALCS Game 6 (TBS)
• 4.8: Western Conference Finals Game 4 (TNT)
• 4.7: ALCS Game 5 (TBS)
• 4.6: Western Conference Finals Game 5 (TNT)
• 4.5: Champs Sports Bowl (ESPN)

There's a pretty small list of events with ratings 4.5 and above. I didn't like the move of one LCS to cable, partly because only one LCS was moving there. I might have been okay with both LCSes moving to cable, but Fox needs some sort of presence in the playoffs like ABC does, and you see above that the LCSes can be a more significant property than the NBA's conference finals. Before the BCS deal, a cable sports rating higher than 5.5 or so may have been sacrilege.

 

You also see it driven home that not only is Turner the closest thing to competition to ESPN in terms of events, the three networks combine for every cable sports rating over 3.4 in 2008. (Their high ranking may be because the closest thing they have to a connection to a broadcast network is the CW.) FSN and Versus do not even register on the chart at all, failing to break 2.0 nationally even once - but the list does provide a possible template for which sports to go after. First, they need to keep up with ESPN in the acquisition of big events that are currently on broadcast - the ones like the Masters and (what I think is likeliest) the Triple Crown races. In addition to those and the ones listed alongside them above, the US Open in golf, baseball's All-Star Game, the World Cup, and the Pro Bowl (which will be on ESPN in 2010) should all be targets.

 

On a larger scale, though, the above list of events that are already on cable provides a basic framework to go after. Simply put: NFL, MLB, NBA. More specifically, the cable NFL package (which I explicitly excluded from this list), Home Run Derby, and the baseball and NBA playoffs. Choose at least one to start building your empire. The easiest picking would probably be baseball, as ESPN is identified too much with its NFL coverage and TNT is identified too much with its NBA coverage. Pick out at least one of the ESPN weekly packages for baseball, plus the Home Run Derby, plus at least a piece of TBS' playoff coverage. TBS' Sunday afternoon games are almost a complete flop.

 

There isn't much need to go after much else, because taking something away from Turner creates a nice balance between ESPN, Turner, and what I'll call EK, for ESPN Killer. As long as you seize the Home Run Derby and, if necessary, at least one LCS, you can throw ESPN whatever's left of the bone you want. And it's very much within the grasp of Versus to follow through on this in my opinion.

 

Let's continue down the list below 4.5:

• 4.3: Spurs/Hornets Game 7 (TNT)
• 4.3: Eastern Conference Finals Game 5 (ESPN)
• 4.3: Allstate 400 at the Brickyard (ESPN)
• 4.3: Miami (FL) @ Florida (ESPN)
• 4.2: Eastern Conference Finals Game 6 (ESPN)
• 4.2: USC @ Oregon State (ESPN)
• 4.1: Western Conference Finals Game 1 (TNT)
• 4.1: Tennessee @ UCLA, Labor Day (ESPN)
• 4.1: ALCS Game 1 (TBS)
• 4.0: Eastern Conference Finals Game 4 (ESPN)
• 4.0: Emerald Bowl (ESPN)
• 3.9: Pocono 500 (TNT)
• 3.9: Alabama @ Georgia (ESPN)
• 3.9: Angels/Red Sox Game 3 (TBS)
• 3.9: Meineke Car Care Bowl (ESPN)
• 3.9: Alamo Bowl (ESPN)
• 3.9: Holiday Bowl (ESPN)
• 3.8: NBA All-Star Game (TNT)
• 3.8: Coke Zero 400 (TNT)
• 3.8: Pennsylvania 500 (ESPN)
• 3.8: ALCS Game 2 (TBS)
• 3.8: ALCS Game 4 (TBS)

Highlights of this relatively small section include the second NBA contract - the one with ESPN's half of the conference finals - plus both NASCAR contracts, the NBA All-Star Game, and both regular season and postseason college football games. Only one NASCAR contract and the NBA All-Star Game are on Turner. The rest are on cable.

 

I'll get to college football in a second. It goes without saying you want a piece of that action, preferably the top cable contract (not second fiddle like FSN and Versus get with the Big 12 and Pac-10). Throw out the regular season college football, and you want to limit ESPN to half of the second NBA contract, both NASCAR contracts, and bowl games. The bowl games can be thrown out as well, but if both LCSes move to cable, the contract that includes the second LCS comes into play here.

 

Basically, claim one, and make sure you have no less than one less of what ESPN has. As Turner's only presence is one of the NASCAR contracts, you probably have to take on ESPN directly here.

 

I'm going to start my discussion of college with the regular-season conferences, which take care of your needs in football and basketball, so the consideration of balance needs to be made with regards to both. In football, the two "weakling" conferences are the ACC and Big East. In basketball, the two "weaklings" are the Big 12 and Pac-10. Claiming one of each leads to the obvious conclusion that you need to claim one of the remaining two conferences, the SEC or Big 10.

 

It's been suggested that recent megacontracts signed with the latter two conferences will give them an edge over the field, especially in college football, so signing a deal with both the Big 12 and Pac-10 and thinking that counts just as well towards your three will lead to a perception you're signing with two runts, or positioning yourself as a "West Coast network", especially in conjunction with the Mountain West. I'm looking at you, Versus. But there are major problems going on here. ESPN doesn't want to give up the Big East because they're in Bristol near UConn, they don't want to give up the ACC because they don't want to lose Duke-UNC, they don't want to give up the Big Ten and lose Ohio State-Michigan (even though that technically airs on ABC), and you just missed the boat on a hefty 15-year deal with the SEC. Sports on TV as we know it could be dying by the time that deal ends.

 

The Big 12 and Pac-10 already play a basketball series against one another, so why not split the difference on the other two series, ACC/Big 10 and SEC/Big East? That means the other two conferences are either the SEC and ACC, or the Big 10 and Big East. Whatever you go with, you need to have the first pick of cable networks for at least one conference, and the more bones you throw ESPN the more you need to build your empire even further to compensate.

 

(The Mountain West could become a BCS conference soon, but the reasons they moved to Versus and the mind-boggling lack of flex scheduling suggest they don't want Versus to develop the regimentation of time slots in football ESPN has, which is probably required by having so many conferences. That could cut it out of the discussion, and the Mountain West is generally in the lower portion of the BCS conferences anyway.)

 

Non-BCS conferences are also an important part of the picture, but I'll get to that later.

 

What about bowls? FSN's not going after any, that's for sure, because of local hockey and NBA coverage. Versus doesn't want bowls because they want "total immersion" or some such malarkey, but it seems to me that the Las Vegas Bowl - top-line Mountain West against a team from another Versus conference, the Pac-10 - would be perfect for them, serving as a continuation of the "immersion" Versus already provides for those two conferences. Turner has zero presence at the bowls, meaning ESPN dominates the bowl landscape. 23 of 35 bowls, nearly two-thirds, are on ESPN (two more on ABC, the BCS Title Game to air there next year, and three more to move to ESPN in the form of the BCS, bringing the total to over 80%); ESPN is the chief beneficiary of the proliferation of bowls. Not all bowls are equal, but sadly, ESPN tends to lump in even its top bowls with bowls like the Independence Bowl or New Orleans Bowl in its "Bowl Week" promotion.

 

I averaged the 2005-6 through 2007-8 ratings of all the bowls and came up with these average ratings for the non-BCS bowls (courtesy here):

1. Capitol One (6.7)
2. Chick-fil-A (5.0)
3. Alamo (4.7)
4. Holiday (4.5)
5. Cotton (3.63)
6. Liberty (3.56)
7. Gator (3.47)
8. Emerald (3.41)
9. Outback (3.37)
10. Meineke Car Care (3.04)
11. Champs Sports (2.96)
12. Music City (2.8)
13. Independence (2.6)
14. Sun (2.4)
15. Motor City (2.32)
16. Las Vegas (2.28)
17. Armed Forces (2.10)
18. Hawaii (2.07)
19. Papajohns.com (1.97)
20. New Mexico (1.89)
21. Humanitarian (1.58)
22. GMAC (1.56)
23. Insight/New Orleans (tie) (1.55)
24. International (1.45)
25. Poinsettia (1.447)
26. Texas (1.3)

Some notes: The EagleBank and St. Petersburg bowls only started this year and aren't counted. Ratings for the Texas and Insight bowls are depressed by being on NFL Network. Ratings for the Outback Bowl are depressed by airing at 11 AM ET (8 AM PT) against many other bowls, and it deserves better ratings given its conference tie-ins and payout money. Fixing its gametime problem, either by moving to a saner hour or earlier in the week, should be a top priority for the Outback the next time its contract comes up for renewal.

 

And a shocking number of the highest-rated bowls are on cable.

 

The broadcast non-BCS bowls are the Cap One on ABC, the Gator and Sun on CBS, and the Cotton on Fox. The Chick-fil-A, Alamo, and Holiday bowls all beat all the broadcast bowls except the Cap One, and the Liberty Bowl beats both CBS bowls. The position of the Sun on broadcast despite iffy ratings is probably because of the potential of Notre Dame going there, which also explains why the Gator and Sun are on broadcast instead of better conference tie-ins. (Both bowls have their potential Big 12 tie-ins ranking behind the Holiday, and ditto for the Sun's Pac-10 #3. When the Sun picks a Big 12 team it picks behind the Alamo, and the Gator's ACC #3 pick is behind the Chick-fil-A... which itself picks its SEC pick after the Outback.)

 

Based on these ratings, the bowl payouts, and more than anything else the quality of the conference tie-ins, I came up with a ranking of the non-BCS bowls:

1. Capitol One
2. Cotton
3. Outback
4. Chick-fil-A
5. Holiday
6. Gator
7. Alamo
8. Champs Sports
9. Sun
10. Liberty
11. Music City
12. Emerald
13. Meineke Car Care
14. Insight
15. Independence
16. Las Vegas
17. Motor City
18. GMAC
19. Humanitarian
20. Hawaii
21. Poinsettia
22. Armed Forces
23. Papajohns.com
24. International
25. New Mexico
26. New Orleans
27. St. Petersburg
28. EagleBank
29. Texas

I identified several subdivisions where the comparison was closer than others. If you're running EK, you're paying attention to this list of conference tie-ins, but you're ALSO paying attention to the above list of TV ratings. The latter is what you really want, but you can turn the former into the latter if you try. Assuming the broadcast/cable status quo holds, that means, from a TV rating perspective, an emphasis on the Alamo, Chick-fil-A, and Holiday. Throw the Outback on there, since its conference tie-ins warrant it, and the Champs Sports after its gerbonkers ratings this year. I'm tempted to add the Liberty as well for its ratings and position on the tie-in list, but that's opening up a can of worms. Of the first five, claim two - and make sure at least one more is taken from ESPN if one of the bowls you claim is the Champs Sports. (Replace the Champs Sports with the Liberty if you want.)

 

So we consider the Liberty (or Champs Sports), we throw in the Emerald and the Music City to fill the gap, and throw in the Meineke Car Care bowl as well. Split them half and half? Maybe. Consider, too, though, that the Insight would probably get better ratings if it were off NFL Network. Fairness dictates you also consider the Independence and Las Vegas bowls, and may-y-ybe the Motor City Bowl. Everything else is comparatively minor and not worth worrying about, but it might still be worth going after anyway.

 

(Note that most people don't see it this way. A matchup between two BCS conferences is all they see that's valuable. The Las Vegas Bowl is valued much lower than this by most people. The Pac-10 is considered to deserve better for its fourth or fifth line. The Mountain West actually does deserve better for its first - though it would suddenly make some sense on the off chance the MWC joins the BCS. Why the Liberty Bowl ranks so highly is beyond me, but tradition probably has a lot to do with it.)

 

Look at the ratings chart. By seizing only the bowls that matter, you've pretty much guaranteed yourself that your bowl coverage will almost exclusively (maybe one exception, two if you're unlucky) get ratings large enough to make my end-of-year chart. Some bowls are better for this than others; I recommend getting bowls that align with your own conference tie-ins. If you're going the SEC/ACC route, pick up the Chick-fil-A bowl and either the Holiday, Outback, Champs Sports, or Liberty Bowl (or a combination of two of those, preferably not Champs Sports AND Liberty). The Alamo might be an option as well if you have a tie-in with the Big 12. For the second tier, pick up the Music City Bowl and one other; if you pick up the Pac-10, that one other should probably be the Emerald. If you pick up the Big 12 instead, in addition to whatever you do pick the Independence Bowl is a good investment.

 

If you go with the Big 10 and Big East, a lot depends on your third conference. Align with the Big 12, and the Alamo becomes a must. Even without it that and the Holiday are good choices, though the Outback is an option as well. In the second tier the Meineke Car Care bowl is almost a must-have, just to be sure you have a Big East bowl; the Big East's other non-broadcast bowl tie-ins fall below the cut line. The Champs Sports becomes a must if you're aligned with the Big 12, unless ESPN throws you an SEC or ACC bone (unless you're with Conference USA, as we'll get to later); otherwise the Emerald Bowl is also an option. Pick up the Big 12 and the Insight is a good investment, maybe even imperative (they'll certainly be begging to be taken off NFL Network), as well (the Big 10 and Big 12 have a lot of bowl tie-ins with each other). With the Big Ten, the Motor City becomes very interesting indeed.

 

A note on non-BCS conferences, because if you have just three BCS conferences ESPN can still push itself as the leader in college sports (and you can't launch a college sports channel to compete with ESPNU). Non-BCS conferences become especially important with the splitting of the BCS conferences, because they could well get more play as gap-fillers. (Especially if you launch a competitor to ESPN2.) In football, there are four non-BCS conferences that matter: the Mountain West, WAC, MAC, and Conference USA. The Sun Belt is too crappy to matter, although taking away one conference like the Mountain West to Versus arguably means we should put the Sun Belt back in to replace it. But before splitting the difference we need to consider the very different scenario in college basketball.

 

The goal in college basketball, in my view, is to render BracketBusters meaningless outside of what we might call the "low-majors" or even "minors". A comparison of four-year average RPI shows that, despite the lack of distinction I make in my annual "mid-major conference", there is a distinction between one "higher" class of mid-major conference, and most of the other conferences, not as large as the gap between the majors and the mid-majors, but significant nonetheless - and in fact there's a definite spectrum, where some conferences are fairly objectively better than others, even if the rankings of the conferences in-between are far from clear.

 

The Mountain West, mired on Versus, doesn't participate in BracketBusters. Is that because they want to see themselves as a major conference, or because ESPN is excluding a conference that doesn't have a deal with them? If someone took away enough mid-majors, you wouldn't want ESPN to put conferences into BracketBusters far ahead of the rest of the field simply because they had a deal with them, would you? That would appear to be favoritism.

 

Three conferences in particular are strong enough to occasionally approach the status of the major conferences. I dare you to find a conference since the shake-up of Conference USA to finish first among the mid-majors not named the Missouri Valley, the Mountain West, and the Atlantic 10. The Mountain West is mired on Versus and ESPN sometimes seems unnaturally obsessed with the A-10 in mid-major terms, leaving the Valley for EK - although after several years of the Valley occasionally finishing ahead of the major conferences in conference RPI, they finished behind the A-10 last year and similarly have only one serious at-large contender this year, so they may be on the decline.

 

The other true mid-majors are Conference USA, the WAC, the WCC, the CAA, the MAC, and the Horizon League. The Sun Belt is in a weird in-between state between the mid-majors and the low-majors, though they're closer to the low majors. Obviously, those six should be split half and half, but use caution. Conference USA and the WCC are both more valuable than the middle-pack teams in their league would suggest, because of the presence of major-caliber programs Memphis and Gonzaga respectively. (C-USA actually has a very slight lead over the A-10, in fact.) We've seen just how much Gonzaga adds to the value of the WCC to ESPN. Taking at least one of those is imperative, even if you otherwise discount the value of the mid-majors, and no way ESPN is letting you take both.

On the flip side, there's a danger in putting both West Coast leagues on one network, especially paired with the Mountain West (the MWC and WAC together is enough of a concern for football), and getting branded as a "West Coast" network. So: either C-USA and WAC or WCC and MAC, with the CAA and Horizon split whichever way works out (although the Horizon is on average worse than the other mid-majors, except for Butler which may be joining Memphis/Gonzaga as major programs). The remaining conferences are like minor bowls: go after them, but don't make them a priority.

(While you're at it, pick up that "College Basketball Invitational" oddity to make it stronger - they're trying to be an NIT competitor, not the third-tier tournament - and balance ESPN's coverage of the NIT.)

Those are the important parts. But there are other things you should keep in mind if you really want to create a viable competitor to ESPN:

• Golf often gets forgotten in the "major sports", with all the talk of the modern Big Four (NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR) and the two college sports, but its ratings are on par with any other, even for certain non-majors Tiger doesn't attend, and it even gets coverage on par from ESPN and others, even if it sometimes seems Tiger-centric. The whole sport has been moving to Golf Channel in recent years on all levels, increasing the importance of the majors. ESPN just claimed the entire British Open for its cable network, and the other majors could follow; even for those majors that stay on broadcast, coverage of the first two rounds is important. Split them half and half, and make sure it's not a situation where you have two first-two-rounds contracts and ESPN has two whole-tournament contracts.
• The NHL and IRL (along with tennis) are significantly ahead of most of the other detritus, like MLS and the WNBA, that make up the high-minor sports. These sorts of things are the mid-majors, and both of these two in particular are ESPN's bread and butter. But ESPN may be smarting from losing the IRL and the NHL may be smarting from losing ESPN. We can allow ESPN to reclaim one, but not both.
• Soccer has a lot of levels and competitions, and ideally there should be plenty for you. In fact true soccer connosieurs have plenty of options for their soccer palate beyond ESPN, including Fox Soccer Channel, which currently has US rights to the English Premier League and Italy's Serie A. ESPN is making a solid play for the Premier League, and it may appear that EK's best approach is the third European major league, the Spanish league. But both Spain and the German Bundesliga have their outpost on GOL TV, and those who have it, from what I've read, like it far better than Fox Soccer; the problem is it has limited distribution, and because of a bilingual gimmick is often consiged to Spanish-language packages. I don't think it's owned by a larger conglomerate at the moment, so trying to hitch your wagon to it and trying to grow its distribution might be a good idea. (ESPN was once rumored to be turning ESPN Classic into its own soccer network.) If all else (including, if need be, France or Mexico) fails, there's always MLS.
• But really, all these pale in comparison to the major soccer competitions worldwide: the World Cup, the European Championship (the title game of which, which the US has no stake in, registered on my chart, thus more than doubling almost any MLS game), and the UEFA Champions League. And all three run on ESPN. That needs to change.
• Tennis is the same as golf. ESPN just triumphantly claimed all four of tennis' Grand Slams, inheriting the US Open after USA pulled out of sports. The US Open considered an offer from Versus, which would have been great for Versus, bad for the USTA, and good for anyone looking for an ESPN competitor. (Now that we know Versus is the wrong place to look for one, it's just all bad.) As with golf, split the difference.
• Other sports: MMA? (UFC runs on Spike and sister promotion WEC runs on Versus. Various competitors keep springing up.) Horse racing? (NBC runs two Triple Crown races and ABC runs one, while ESPN runs the Breeder's Cup.) Poker? (Look up Poker on Wikipedia and, along with ESPN's World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour is credited with poker's rise in popularity. After getting placed on odd networks like the Travel Channel and GSN, it's now on once-ESPN competitor FSN.) Lacrosse? (Split between ESPN's outdoor MLL and the indoor, and barely covered stateside, NLL.) "Action sports"? Outdoor programming like fishing? Rodeo? (The PBR already runs on Versus.) Volleyball? Bowling? Cricket? Rugby? Don't forget those high minors of MLS, WNBA (probably hitched to the NBA), and Arena Football (which ESPN partially owns right now and which is collapsing anyway).

This is really more important than any other consideration right now: it's even harder to rise up to the level of ESPN right now. ESPN will stumble through the recession like any other business, but to try and start a competitor from scratch may be suicide. In retrospect, the last glimmer of a window for at least several years, maybe ever, for a competitor to ESPN may have closed this past fall with the SEC and BCS deals; for there to not even be a network on the rise, the closest things being FSN and Versus (and Turner if they wanted to become a full-fledged sports destination), does not bode well for any real challenger to ESPN to show up anytime soon. The one saving grace is that an ESPN stumbling through recession is an ESPN with less money to spend on rights fees, but chances are a potential ESPN competitor is hemmoraging money as well, or doesn't have any and is finding it hard to get any starting capital. Although it'll claim it's not a monopoly because of the existence of the broadcast networks and competing sports sites, all things considered, it's ESPN's world and we're all just paying the rent, and realistically, that's not changing in the near future.

A simple game of connect-the-dots.

How was it possible that despite a far less compelling matchup than last year, including the until-recently laughable Arizona Cardinals, the Super Bowl still drew a bigger audience than last year?

Amidst people crowing "when it's the Super Bowl the teams are irrelevant", I was wondering why more attention wasn't paid to the surprisingly large female audience - which seemed to explain the large audience but gave me more questions than answers. Where did all these women come from all of a sudden?

I may have a partial answer, at least. (Courtesy Fang's Bites.)

Something everyone missed in the BCS-ESPN thing...

I can't tell you how many articles I've read about how cable networks have the advantage of subscriber fees, which have driven rights fees to the point where most sports are loss leaders for broadcast networks anymore...

...wait, Fox actually turned a profit on the BCS? Why does this get a single sentence in a single story?

I'm actually tempted to find the e-mail address of a BCS commissioner and e-mail this to them.

The major news of the past week in sports arguably had nothing to do with any game that was actually played, or any athlete. It was ESPN making a bid for the rights to the BCS that would have put all five games - including the Rose Bowl they already have a contract through 2014 for - on ESPN, not ABC. It may be too late to do anything about it even if Da Blog had some audience, as Fox's deadline is already up today and they aren't matching the offer. Only serving as a backdrop to that news is ESPN signing up for British Open rights and NASCAR's Heidi Game. I didn't have much to say on the subject for Da Blog last week, so this post will largely serve as a commentary to the commentary already posted on Sports Media Watch and Fang's Bites. And Eye on Sports Media, but only the part about the NASCAR "AFHV Race" has been posted yet.

But I do have some original thoughts on the matter:

This is the exact opposite of what should be happening.

Yet any observer should have seen it coming from a mile away, just not this soon.

Before I begin, let me just make a note: This post has nothing to do with your opinion on a college football playoff, or whether moving the BCS to ESPN helps or hurts the playoff cause. As much as the BCS may stink, it's the system we have, and it's in everyone's best interest to make sure it's as strong as possible except when it comes to a playoff, because when the BCS is strong college football is strong.

Remember back in August, when I got all hot and bothered about the digital transition and talked about how antennas are still around and better than ever, and conscientious consumers who have no need for cable channels had no reason to keep subscribing to cable or satellite? And how the digital transition made it possible for broadcast television and its multitude of subchannels to potentially give cable a run for its money?

Ideally we'd be seeing already a depowering of cable and a bulking up of broadcast's muscle. The BCS should be scared to death of the potential lost audience and stature brought by moving to ESPN, if not by the potential ridiculousness of most of the major college football games and - for the moment - four non-BCS bowls airing on broadcast but the biggest bowls of them all airing on pay TV, where about 10% of the audience now (and that number, while it will shrink in the short term, is only going to grow) won't be able to see them. And 10% is not trivial; the National Championship and Rose Bowl are the only two bowls that regularly draw that much of the total audience between broadcast and cable.

But in that same post, I also mentioned that no one has an interest in telling you to ditch cable and/or the dish. The cable companies don't have an interest, the providers are too small, peripheral, and one-time to have a credible interest, the regulatory agencies have had eight years of not having an interest, even TV stations themselves have no interest even as they advertise the transition, advertisements that are mostly about not losing the customers they have.

That last point might not necessarily be the case, certainly for the broadcast networks (unless they nip a piece of their stations' retransmission-consent deals), because this might be for their very survival.

Really, the only reason ESPN airs any sports bigger than the WNBA is because they have an unfair natural advantage over broadcast networks. They collect a piece of subscriber fees from cable companies and broadcast networks do not. These days, almost all sports is little more than a loss leader for the Big Four networks (except maybe the Super Bowl and Olympics), there only to serve as a platform to promote other programming. (For this reason, there may come a day where to stay on broadcast, a sporting event would need to rate higher than primetime programming. For that reason, there's a part of me that's wondering what the chances are/would have been for the CW or My Network TV, two networks that struggle even to break 2 ratings with their best programming, to swoop to the rescue here.) Judging by a comment on the SMW post, that might not even be because of production costs (although other than news, sports is the only thing networks produce themselves), but simply because the rise of cable channels like ESPN has hiked rights fees to the moon. (If broadcast networks want to keep doing sports, they might want to do what I suggested in the last paragraph and take a piece of stations' retransmission-consent deals.)

(In my opinion, neither ABC nor especially Fox really gave the BCS enough of a big-event feel to serve its promotional purpose. Except in years like the one when USC and Texas met, March Madness feels bigger than the BCS, even when the BCS National Championship is consistently higher rated. I suggest the BCS Championship Game be moved to a weekend to allow for a semi-lengthy pregame show. Of course, part of the problem is also that there's no playoff to build anticipation to the championship game.)

Sports Media Watch considers a world in which just about every major sporting event could potentially move to cable. If this goes through, it would have to be only a matter of time before the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs moved exclusively to Versus or ESPN in the United States, and the MLS Cup would probably also make such a move. Those are the boneheaded, obvious moves. Had the IRL made its recent deal with Versus after the BCS made their move, they might not have blinked twice about moving the Indy 500 to cable as well. Tennis' majors might, for the most part, become cable-exclusive. Those are still boneheadedly obvious considered in the context of the British Open deal.

No, SMW raises a boogeyman that - whether Paulsen realizes it or not - has been around virtually since the instant ESPN landed its first NFL deal: the prospect of people having to pay to watch the Super Bowl. It hasn't happened yet, but paying to watch the BCS is surely a giant step. With everything the BCS is higher rated than, this creates the very plausible scenario of the World Series, NBA Finals, March Madness, Daytona 500, horse racing's Triple Crown, and the other three golf majors - and maybe even early rounds of the NFL playoffs - moving to cable as well. Leagues that have to worry about losing an antitrust exemption from Congress, such as the NFL and MLB, might reluctantly turn down such an offer, but the BCS is only five bowls so it doesn't have to worry about such a thing. You might think the NCAA would be thinking of their students but an inexorable drive to ESPN has been happening there as well (the Women's Final Four was on CBS not that long ago). I don't even know if the NBA has an exemption to worry about.

Paulsen ends with: "While sporting events on broadcast still draw the highest ratings, the relative success of Monday Night Football and baseball's League Championship Series on cable is evidence that the majority of the television audience can find marquee events on any network. At this point, broadcast television no longer needs sports, and vice versa."

Um, no, sports does still need broadcast television thank you very much. If the BCS moves to ESPN, it's only one step in a long-running expensivization of sports, from rising ticket prices (and evidence that if sports teams charged market rate prices would be WAY higher) to the rise of ESPN and beyond. If sports keeps raising the price of admission for everything as far as it will go, especially in poor, blue-collar areas like Detroit, it will lose its soul. It will stop being a point of civic pride for people of all means and become a form of entertainment for the rich. If the BCS moves to cable it will surely dilute ratings for the entire season (the next two seasons' MLB ratings on Fox may be a referendum on this, given the drama that played out in the ALCS on TBS); why follow the play for free when you can't afford to see the climax?

And broadcast television still needs sports, if not for its own sake as a vehicle for advertising other programming then symbolically. The death of sports on broadcast is the death of broadcast, period. One need only see the role of the NFL in the rise of Fox to see the impact sports can have - or more ominously, the decline of NBC between losing the NBA and gaining the NFL (a decline that admittedly may or may not have anything to do with those two events). But more practically, if broadcast can't compete with cable for sports rights, who's to say it can compete with cable for anything else? Already news divisions at the Big Three are in decline from competition from cable and the Internet. If sports follows suit, could entertainment be far behind? Could better-heeled (and less-censored) cable networks like USA and TBS and especially HBO and Showtime lure away top talent and prized shows? If broadcast television's only financial advantage is to the consumer, soon it might not be worth that much. As they say, it's all about money.

I should note that unlike Fang's Bites, I don't believe ESPN is trying to actively kill sports on ABC. When Fang wonders how much Disney prized MNF as a property for ABC that it let it go to ESPN, he conveniently swallows the ESPN propaganda and ignores that what ESPN is airing now isn't really the inheritor of the MNF legacy. The NFL wanted to move the main primetime package to Sunday nights and ABC wasn't willing to give up its Desperate Housewives-Grey's Anatomy one-two punch on Sundays it had at the time. The MNF on ESPN now is really a continuation of ESPN's prior Sunday night package, not the legacy of Frank, Howard and Dandy Don, which now lives on NBC with Al Michaels. (As a commenter on Fang's post points out, for ESPN to have lost the NFL entirely would mean losing a significant part of its value and thus the decision had little to do with MNF's value to ABC - which would have been diluted tremendously - and everything to do with its value to ESPN.) If ABC were not part of the same family as ESPN they may well have made the same decision.

And keep in mind that ABC added NASCAR racing, Heidi Race or no, after losing MNF, and although it never has any shot to run the Daytona 500 in any given year it does air the entire Chase for the Sprint Cup, something NBC wasn't doing. And for all that Saturday is a wasteland, it was also after losing MNF that ABC gave up whatever it could have made by programming even the old "Wonderful World of Disney" in that time slot to air college football, succeeding well enough (and incidentially, according enough of a big-event feel) that some people want other networks and other sports to follow suit (where before it would have just been me). ABC has given up the British Open and ESPN isn't giving it a return to the BCS, but in the latter case Fox is giving up on the BCS as well, and it's telling that CBS and NBC aren't stepping in.

But here's the thing: the departure of sports from broadcast affects you even if you're a cable subscriber. Right now, ESPN charges cable operators more than any other network. The top ten cable networks in terms of price charged to cable operators are also populated primarily by sports networks, and this is a big hang-up in the NFL Network's dealings with cable operators. Those costs get passed on to you, and they are attributable to the value of sports in so many manifold ways to so many people, but especially the NFL. Your cable bill could shoot to the moon if ESPN acquires a property potentially bigger even than MNF.

And in this, there may be a silver lining - as well as a warning to the BCS and something of a duty. The FCC has been pushing for the institution of "a la carte" selection for cable channels, on the grounds that people should not pay for channels they don't watch. Small cable channels have been pushing back against such a requirement, arguing they couldn't survive in such an environment, but they barely survive anyway and they could gain some new viewers who were not willing to pay for large packages or whose cable operators can now add more channels because they don't have to pay for every subscriber, watching or not, for each one. The real losers could be the larger cable channels like ESPN, which lose the services of people who aren't watching them and can't substantially raise prices or they'll just lose more people. That will mean less money and less resources to provide better sports coverage, but perhaps more to the point, it will mean less money to spend towards rights fees (and less of an audience if some people decide they won't get ESPN for the sake of one or two games). ESPN could still have some natural advantage, but broadcast networks will be able to play on a more level playing field - and that's when everyone will be able to win again.

Very interesting. (To me at least.)

I noticed that the logo on at least the first couple of FSN college football broadcasts included a new logo... and regionalized games were shown as "FS Arizona" or "FS Big 12".

Now it seems that the Oklahoma City Thunder will play on a renaming of FSN Southwest to... "FS Oklahoma". Not FSN Oklahoma. Just plain FS Oklahoma.

I smell similar changes coming to other markets and maybe even the linewide update of FSN graphics I didn't think was strictly implied, or necessarily possible.

One more quick opinion

Why, exactly, is there a controversy over ESPN's Chris Berman using profanity off-air? Gee, it turns out that the people we trust to give us the news each day are - gasp! - actually human beings who do human being things! Whoda thunk it? (Apparently Katie Couric is being subjcted to similar videos, which just proves my point.)

Wild and Crazy Speculation on the Future of the Olympics on TV in the US

ESPN may be gunning for NBC's Olympics rights starting in 2014.

The sports blogosphere generally hates ESPN and so what reaction I've seen has been negative. But on the plus side, between ABC Sp... er, ESPN on ABC, ESPN1, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, and maybe ABC Family and ESPNU (not to mention ESPN Deportes), they have no lack of platforms to put events on (which I'm not as certain of with CBS or Fox), and they might have more by 2014. And you know they'll stream lots of events on ESPN360.

If they do get it, though... well, you see what happened when NBC overextended for Olympics rights - it led to the NFL and NBA leaving and killed NBC Sports until last year. If ESPN isn't careful getting the Olympics would be the peak - and would start a long march downhill that could really help places like Versus. (Hear that, NBA on ESPN/ABC bashers? There might be a pretty good chance you'll get what you want in 2016!)

Some sports musings

Couple of things:

*I'm seeing an international pool-play game in the Little League World Series on ESPN while Major League Baseball, a game between two playoff contenders, is on ESPN2. Please don't tell me the former outdraws the latter.

*The NFL Network is going to put its "Total Access" program on "My Network TV" Saturday nights starting in September. Which means it will now be on a "network" that as many people watch as the NFL Network reaches.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Preseason

(In case you haven't noticed, it's the dog days of summer. Normally, I would hold off on this until closer to the actual start of the season, but college football is still several weeks away from being useful, if I were to do TV ratings reports I would want to hold off on them until mid-September, and no one's voting on any of my polls. Basically, there's nothing to do, but I haven't had any hits all day, so...)

NBC's Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

Last year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. CBS and Fox were able to protect one game every week each but had to leave one week each unprotected and had to submit their protections after only four weeks.

Now, NBC lists the game it "tentatively" schedules for each night, and by all appearances, CBS and Fox can't protect anything. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site:

• Begins Sunday of Week 11
• In effect during Weeks 11-17
• Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
• The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
• The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
• No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
• The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
• Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
• The NBC Sunday night time slot in "flex" weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
• Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
• NFL schedules all games.
• Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.

Throughout the season, I'm going to make predictions on what the NFL will do each week in the flexible scheduling scheme. Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games:

Week 11 (November 18): Chicago @ Seattle
Week 12 (November 25): Philadelphia @ New England
Week 13 (December 2): Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
Week 14 (December 9): Indianapolis @ Baltimore
Week 15 (December 16): Washington @ NY Giants
Week 16 (December 23): Tampa Bay @ San Francisco
Week 17 (December 30): Kansas City @ NY Jets

I will start putting up watches every week starting after Week 3 or 4. The Week 17 spot will double as a playoff watch. I will be paying close attention to what you think; I could extend the playoff watch concept to other pro sports if you do.

NBC Extends Wimbledon Contract

NBC has signed a "long term extention" with the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for coverage of the Championships, Wimbledon.

More is hopefully forthcoming, as linked article does not provide exact duration.

UPDATE: The "long term deal" is for only four years. ESPN is also close to a deal that could include the Tennis Channel, according to sources.

NBA Re-ups with ABC, ESPN, TNT

This is a little late; blame NBA.com's tardiness putting up the story, but the NBA will stay on ABC, ESPN, and TNT through 2016, well after just about all other leagues will have to renew their agreements. So far as people watching TV will be able to tell, it will be status quo, unless they happen to watch NBA TV try to become as close to the NFL Network as the NBA is to the NFL.

TNT will show 52 regular season games a year and up to that number of playoff games. ABC will show a minimum of 15 regular-season and the same number of playoff games, including the Finals; the ESPN family will show up to 75 regular season games and 29 playoff games.

More info at the linked article.

15 playoff games mean even with a 7-game Finals, ABC will have to show 8 playoff games, more games than Finals games. This represents a larger playoff commitment on the part of both ABC and ESPN. This and more analysis on Sports Media Watch.

NBC probably had the most successful run of any NBA TV partner, but this deal will give ABC rights for longer than NBC. Many NBA fans on the Internet have been critical of the NBA on ABC - and with gimmicks like bringing in the Pussycat Dolls to do songs for the opener, ABC makes an easy target - but the NBA and others have stated repeatedly that NBC, CBS, and Fox did not make a sufficient offer to compete, and it's absurd to blame the NBA's broadcast ratings woes to the presentation of games on ABC. If the games are good, people will turn in in spite of the presentation.

Durations of sports television contracts

Info from Wikipedia and research through various sources. This info is incomplete and may contain inaccuracies. Your input is welcomed if you can point me to sources to fill in absent or unknown info.

College football contracts - basketball and other sports generally through following year:
ACC thru 2010
Big 12, ABC thru 2015, FSN thru 2011
Big East thru 2013
Big 10 thru 2016
Pac-10 thru 2011
SEC, CBS and ESPN thru 2023, CSS thru 2013
MWC thru 2016 or 2020
C-USA thru 2010
MAC thru 2016
WAC thru 2016
Sun Belt thru 2011
Notre Dame thru 2015
Army thru 2014, Navy thru 2009

College basketball only:
MVC thru 2011
WCC thru 2011
Horizon League thru 2010
MAAC thru 2010
Atlantic 10 thru 2010
Patriot League thru 2008

Professional and other leagues:
NHL thru 2011
Horse Racing, Belmont Stakes on ABC at least thru 2008, NBC thru 2010
MLS, FSC thru 2010, ESPN and Univision/Telefutura thru 2014
MISL, FSC thru 2009
NIT thru 2010
US Open Cup thru 2010
AFL, ESPN thru 2011
French Open, Tennis Channel and ESPN thru 2011
Australian Open thru 2011
Wimbledon, NBC thru 2011, ESPN thru 2013
NFL, NBC thru 2012, CBS, FOX and ESPN thru 2014
PGA, NBC and CBS thru 2012, Golf Channel thru 2022
UEFA Champions League thru 2012
Olympics thru 2012
IndyCar, ABC thru 2012, Versus thru 2018
MLB thru 2013
NCAA Tournament (men's and women's, plus other ESPN and CBS champs) thru 2013
BCS thru 2014
NASCAR thru 2014
LLWS thru 2014
US Open (golf), ESPN thru 2014
US Open (Tennis) thru 2014
MLL thru 2016
NBA, WNBA thru 2016
British Open thru 2017
LPGA, Golf Channel thru 2019

Last Updated: July 24, 2009

The most pivotal day in "Versus" history?

Versus will televise Big 12 and Pac-10 football games as part of a new agreement with FSN, a rehash of FSN's prior deal with TBS. I'd be more impressed if FSN hadn't already let Pac-10 games go to ESPN and made another agreement with ESPN for Big 12 games.

This is great news for Versus and terrible news for fans of those conferences who have longed for them to get off FSN. TBS to Versus is a big step down. On the other hand, while Versus isn't likely to get The Game That Will Determine The National Championship (between ABC and FSN), this is exactly what Versus needs to do to establish its bona fides as a major sports power before the Big Three contracts come up for renewal again in the mid-2010's. Versus' limited distribution and the fact that it counted on major sports to establish its reputation, instead of making sure they had one going in, helped kill their shots at NFL and MLB rights (though Versus' best shot at the mighty NFL, especially considering their distribution, was probably always the package the NFL relegated to the NFL Network for reasons not concerning the individual drawbacks of any network).

Getting the sort of sports that characterized the early days of ESPN and ESPN2 is also a must. Versus has already gotten a head start on that with NLL and MISL coverage, and dipped its toe into Arena Football coverage last season. Jumping into more mid-major sports, like MLS and the WNBA, would seem to be a logical next step, but MLS and AFL rights are locked up into the next decade, and WNBA (and NBA) rights are pretty much too far into negotiations at this point, with the pens practically already sitting by the contract.

The Big 12 has already re-upped with ABC and FSN, a deal that starts in 2008. Versus might be able to interject itself in SEC negotiations, which are up for renegotiation soon for a new deal starting 2009. Both football and basketball are shown on CBS and ESPN, but ESPN's coverage of the SEC is rather limited, with lesser games (including the basketball semifinals, a bit of notoriety shared by no other Big Six conference) relegated to regional syndication.

Versus probably overestimated the cache of the NHL today in trying to line up deals for better sports. Now they have to hope that even mid-level Big 12 and Pac-10 games will draw enough eyeballs to stop itself from being a joke for any league over the NHL line. I can't exactly say the battle of Iowa is a good sign of what's to come, but at least now they might edge just a little bit higher.