College Football Realignment Could Be Huge For NBC Sports Network

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http://puckthemedia.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/college-football-realignment-could-be-huge-for-nbc-sports-network/

OCTOBER 15, 2011 BY STEVE LEPORE

NOTE: In the four years that I’ve been doing this site, I don’t think
anything ticks off my readers more than talking about VERSUS’ other
sports properties, so I figured this would be a good weekend post.
Enjoy, you ingrates.

We’ve all been discussing realignment in the NHL this week, and that
has certainly caused a lot of debate and anger and conspiracy
theories. A lot of it (i.e. the Red Wings moving) could affect
television coverage on NBC and NBC Sports Network. People feel that
NBC ignores the Western Conference beyond Chicago and Detroit as it is
How would a hockey league go on having one of it’s conferences
featuring only one regularly televised team on their national outlet?
There’s a lot of rabble-rousing that’ll need to be solved at a later
date.

That said, thank goodness our sport isn’t as wacky as college
football, who’s realignment saga gets more and more tedious by the
day, if not the hour. Big East falling apart, mid-majors getting
raided, this southern team moves to another southern conference. It is
nothing if not nauseating at times. That said, it does bring VERSUS/
NBC Sports Network a huge opportunity, and as I’ve said for years,
what is good for VERSUS is good for the NHL.

Last night, the Mountain West Conference and Conference-USA announced
that they would be forming a (barring teams potentially bolting) 22-
team mega-conference in football only. NBC Sports Group has a
partnership with the Mountain West Conference to televise football, as
well as their men’s and women’s basketball championships. The Group
currently airs eight games a season under the College Football on
VERSUS banner. The joint press release mentions NBC/Comcast and FOX
(the C-USA television partner) as well as CBS, which holds
partnerships with both leagues (The Mountain West also has it’s own
television network, which Comcast has a stake in).

Now, with a 22-team league (17 at fewest, and only if all the rumors
of the two leagues being raided come to fruition) that will mean
anywhere from 10-20 games every Saturday, all of which will need to be
televised under NBC, FOX and CBS banners. Now, the teams involved
(aside from Boise State) don’t have much television cache, but a
doubleheader from the new league every Saturday on NBCSN, plus
alternating years of airing a potential championship game. Of course,
that becomes even more complicated, given the fact that ESPN was
awarded Conference USA’s football championship game through 2015 as
part of a settlement in August after a dispute regarding C-USA TV
rights bidding. Thank goodness I don’t write about college football on
TV.

So at worst, NBCSN stands to gain some college football, and hopefully
enough to replace the Pac-12 games they’ll be losing out to FOX and
ESPN next year. But another potential suitor is out there: the Big
East. The floundering league plans to raid the aforementioned merging
Conference USA and Mountain West to maintain it’s BCS standing after
it was rumored that ESPN influenced the defection of both Pittsburgh
and Syracuse. Even if it is just rumor, the ESPN and Big East are
clearly not on the best of terms after the league rejected ESPN’s new
TV deal earlier in the year. It would seem likely that FOX or CBS or
NBC Sports Group, and not ESPN, would have a better shot. How good
would it look for NBCSN to have a BCS conference – albeit the weakest
of the bunch – on it’s resume? It’d give them programming on Saturdays
from September-December. Plus, don’t forget what a valuable basketball
property – conference play and tournament – the Big East is. It could
be a huge score for the network.

College football news moves fast, so one would think we’ll see an
answer to all our questions sooner rather than later.