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Looks like TCU got what it asked for: Less regional and less national exposure. No weekday games. The $1.3MM per year of course, makes it all better since it is only going to 'cost' them $300k more per year to travel (of course, that hyper-deflated value was vs. the OLD CUSA, not the NEW one).

Uh-huh. Yeah, right. 90s. Sad, actually.

Well, maybe all those NYers will get College Sports Package on DirectTV and make me a liar.

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Mountain West Conference football and basketball games will move from ESPN to College Sports Television in the fall of 2006.

The seven-year, $82-million deal announced Thursday includes coverage on television, radio, satellite radio, video-on-demand and the Internet.

TCU will join the eight-team conference for the 2005-06 season.

Mountain West games have been on ESPN since the league began play in 1999.

The Mountain West is the first Division I-A football and men's basketball league to sign with College Sports Television, which went on the air in 2003.

"This partnership will provide the Mountain West Conference more exposure over a variety of mediums than any other conference," MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson said.

College Sports Television, which also runs CollegeSports.com, has agreements with Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable.

This is too funny. The MWC, the gem of the non-BCS conferences (in the eyes of those who wear purple), was getting offered less money than their old contract by ESPN, so they opted instead to go with a network that is on less than 10 Million televisions and they are pay channels at that. Perhaps they'll show up on the Fox/Comcast stations on Saturday night instead of Big XII or PAC X games (not). I guess TCU didn't add that much value in the eyes of ESPN. More travel, same money, with schools at altitude, that are not well known in North Central Texas, remember the NEW COKE.

You guys need to seriously get a clue.

The network isn't in alot of homes yet because its a NEW network. However, with the recent deal with Comcast, they will be available in 52 million homes, and will be available as part of a standard package by '06. A deal with Cox Cable is expected soon. They wouldn't have spend $77 Million if it was only going to reach 10 million homes. Thats why the deal doesn't start until '06.

The network has the financial backing of Coca-Cola, Nike, and JPMorgan Chase, just to name a few. Its top execs all came from high level positions in ESPN, CBS, NBC, etc.

In addition, these guys already have a history of starting a network, and then aligning it with a major existing network...they started ESPN Classic. Which means you can expect CSTV to align itself with NBC, Fox or CBS in the forseeable future.

You also need to get your financial amounts right. The increase in expenses was quoted at $200K, not $300K. And yes, thats the difference between the old CUSA and the MWC, because thats what the transition would be from. You can debate that or not, but spending $200 or $300K to make about $500K in extra revenues sounds like a pretty smart business move to me.

Is it a risk? Absolutely, and every MWC school would agree. They've even said so today. But, really, what's the drawback? Each school significantly increases revenues, and not only that, we won't be the red-headed stepchild of the network, and yes, thats exactly how ESPN portrays every Non-BCS conference. How much overall exposure do you get playing basketball games at midnight? Besides, with that much extra money, the schools can afford to market more anyway.

And in case you thought this means no more ESPN Radio or ESPN Regional broadcasts, TCU just renewed its contract with ESPN Regional and ESPN Radio. So don't worry, you'll still be able to hear TCU football on an FM Station for quite some time, and catch a local broadcast on TV occasionally.

you're talking out of your [deleted].


CSTV's Comcast deal is digital only, giving them a total potential of 15MM HH (that's with TW, Insight, et al). They will never maximize that number, and it will take years to roll out in the various MSO markets.

Even if they signed deals with every MSO in the country, they would still be looking at less than 30MM HH by the end of the decade.

Adding insult to injury, Fox is launching a college sports channel in '05 and it is likely that MSOs will favor this service, since it is packaged with several networks.

Frog03 wrote:
However, with the recent deal with Comcast, they will be available in 52 million homes, and will be available as part of a standard package by '06. A.

Here you go frogger...

(from MediaWeek)
CSTV, Comcast Reach Digital Carriage Pact
July 29, 2004
By Megan Larson


CSTV: College Sports Television and Comcast have reached an agreement to make the network available to its digital customers nationwide.

Comcast, which has approximately 8.1 million digital customers, is expected to begin rolling out CSTV shortly, a representative for the network said. Under the terms of the deal, Comcast will also make CSTV programming available via video-on-demand services.

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That means IF every Comcast system decides to carry CSTV on a tier (it's not required), and IF every Comcast digital customer signed up for the tier, they would have 8.1MM subs.

Not exactly 52MM.

Same deal with their DirecTV, TW and Insight deals. DirecTV has 13MM subs, so CSTV says we have the ability to reach 13MM DirecTV subscribers. But what they don't list in the release is that they are only on DirecTV's most expensive service. Hence, all 13MM subs would have to sign up for the Premier Package (which will never happen).


I already mentioned Fox... just pray ESPN doesn't change their mind about ESPN-U.

Frog03s has a grand total of ONE post on PF.com. So, is this someone who came over just to enlighten us with this breaking news on the Frog's TV deal? Seems suspicious teo me.

I wonder how "Deep Purple" and some of the more objective TCU fans who have posted on our boards in the past feel about this move? Certainly appears to be a gamble by the MWC, hoping that satellite takes off and that they are getting in on the ground floor. Time will tell, but I'm of the opinion that a move westward was a bad decision. Living over here in the east, most people have no idea who plays in the MWC or WAC. They currently recognize TCU as a program that knocked on the BCS door, but most can't tell you who they play week in, week out. PAC 10 people will tell you the "eastern bias" has hurt them for years.

Oh well, we've got our own problems to deal with.

I am sure all of the Central and East coast residence will be signing up for this NEW network just as soon as it is available in their neighborhood.

Sounds like Fred Jacoby being "enthusiastic" for the SWC about that Raycom deal over ESPN (albeit fledgling at that time)

(BTW, Froggers, CollegeSportsNetwork is NOT going to be the NEXT ESPN).

It sounds like just the play to the egos of TCU and the MWC that they would bite on. They gotta be the big fish in their own perception of reality. As froggie said, ESPN treats non-BCS conferences as second tier so the answer is the shiny new toy were they get to be the big shots.

It is sadly all to predictable and the hubris is going to require payment one day.

Bottom line is ESPN tried to stick it to the MWC just like they did to the WAC. WAC took it, MWC said stick it elsewhere...

ESPN has time slots to fill and they counted on the MWC for those late Thurs night, etc. time slots. They still need to fill those slots and C-USA is next in line. I hope you guys seriously look at CSTV though ESPN may not be as hard line since they really need C-USA on board. Either way, this helps C-USA.

MWC went with CSTV not because it is "a shiny new toy", but because they really had no choice. CSTV has very good financial backing (unlike Raycom) and very good management (unlike Raycom). Thank god they were around or else TCU would be competing against Leno every week.

HFvictory wrote:Bottom line is ESPN tried to stick it to the MWC just like they did to the WAC. WAC took it, MWC said stick it elsewhere...

ESPN has time slots to fill and they counted on the MWC for those late Thurs night, etc. time slots. They still need to fill those slots and C-USA is next in line. I hope you guys seriously look at CSTV though ESPN may not be as hard line since they really need C-USA on board. Either way, this helps C-USA.

MWC went with CSTV not because it is "a shiny new toy", but because they really had no choice. CSTV has very good financial backing (unlike Raycom) and very good management (unlike Raycom). Thank god they were around or else TCU would be competing against Leno every week.

Hey, I think the MWC did excellent financially in this deal, but this network is going nowhere fast.

Cable MSOs have one major advantage over satellite systems: the ability to bundle services. Unfortunately, their bandwidth is limited, and services like telephony, HD, VOD, et al. use a lot of that space. Hence, the MSOs have to be selective in their carriage.

When Bedol launched this network, he and his partners were hoping that they would enjoy some nice distribution growth and then sell it to ESPN or Fox – basically the same strategy he used with Classic Sports Net.

However, the market conditions are far different today. Fox is launching their own college sports network this next year, and ESPN has gone back and forth on whether or not they will launch ESPN-U.

The debate in Bristol is not “do we launch ESPN-U, or do we buy CSTV?”… but rather, if we launch ESPN-U, what are we going to air on ESPN and ESPN 2?”(in the next 10 years the NFL, MLB and NBA will all be carried on their own networks).

Also, CSTV was 40% off their first year distribution projection.

The other dilemma facing CSTV is that it is a stand-alone net. ESPN can offer a host of networks for both the basic and tiers (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN HD, ESPN Classic, ESPN News… and so can Fox (All the FSN regions, FSN World, Speed, and coming soon FSN College). With the NFL Channel, the soon to be launched MLB channel, NBA-TV, etc. the question is do these MSOs have room for CSTV on their sports tier?

Another thing to clarify… just because a network signs a deal with an MSO, doesn’t mean they automatically roll out on all the local systems. Now CSTV’s ND&S team will have to march around the country and cut deals with the local Comcast folks to get carriage in the individual Comcast markets… and then they have to hope that the 8.1MM digital subscribers order the sports tier.

Again, this was a great deal for MWC financially, but the notion that they are going to be in 50MM HH is ridiculous. They have all digital/premier tier deals, which means they would be doing excellent if they reach 25% of the total subscriber base for their MSO partners.

HFvictory - what, are you an appologist for TCU or the MWC or CSTV? What is your axe to grind? I thought throwing smack at TCU was part of the purpose of this forum.

My point is that whatever the dubios business reasons, this decision was typical of the psychology of all concerned and I stand by that.

The PonyGrad wrote:HFvictory - what, are you an appologist for TCU or the MWC or CSTV? What is your axe to grind? I thought throwing smack at TCU was part of the purpose of this forum.

My point is that whatever the dubios business reasons, this decision was typical of the psychology of all concerned and I stand by that.

Psst--I thnk the HF stands for horned frog. Just a thought.

Southland wrote:

HFvictory wrote:Bottom line is ESPN tried to stick it to the MWC just like they did to the WAC. WAC took it, MWC said stick it elsewhere...

ESPN has time slots to fill and they counted on the MWC for those late Thurs night, etc. time slots. They still need to fill those slots and C-USA is next in line. I hope you guys seriously look at CSTV though ESPN may not be as hard line since they really need C-USA on board. Either way, this helps C-USA.

MWC went with CSTV not because it is "a shiny new toy", but because they really had no choice. CSTV has very good financial backing (unlike Raycom) and very good management (unlike Raycom). Thank god they were around or else TCU would be competing against Leno every week.

Hey, I think the MWC did excellent financially in this deal, but this network is going nowhere fast.

Cable MSOs have one major advantage over satellite systems: the ability to bundle services. Unfortunately, their bandwidth is limited, and services like telephony, HD, VOD, et al. use a lot of that space. Hence, the MSOs have to be selective in their carriage.

When Bedol launched this network, he and his partners were hoping that they would enjoy some nice distribution growth and then sell it to ESPN or Fox – basically the same strategy he used with Classic Sports Net.

However, the market conditions are far different today. Fox is launching their own college sports network this next year, and ESPN has gone back and forth on whether or not they will launch ESPN-U.

The debate in Bristol is not “do we launch ESPN-U, or do we buy CSTV?”… but rather, if we launch ESPN-U, what are we going to air on ESPN and ESPN 2?”(in the next 10 years the NFL, MLB and NBA will all be carried on their own networks).

Also, CSTV was 40% off their first year distribution projection.

The other dilemma facing CSTV is that it is a stand-alone net. ESPN can offer a host of networks for both the basic and tiers (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN HD, ESPN Classic, ESPN News… and so can Fox (All the FSN regions, FSN World, Speed, and coming soon FSN College). With the NFL Channel, the soon to be launched MLB channel, NBA-TV, etc. the question is do these MSOs have room for CSTV on their sports tier?

Another thing to clarify… just because a network signs a deal with an MSO, doesn’t mean they automatically roll out on all the local systems. Now CSTV’s ND&S team will have to march around the country and cut deals with the local Comcast folks to get carriage in the individual Comcast markets… and then they have to hope that the 8.1MM digital subscribers order the sports tier.

Again, this was a great deal for MWC financially, but the notion that they are going to be in 50MM HH is ridiculous. They have all digital/premier tier deals, which means they would be doing excellent if they reach 25% of the total subscriber base for their MSO partners.

Exactly. Is is a step up in revenue (of course, a step up in Expenses for TCU as well), but in the end, hurts the froggers.

jtstang wrote:

The PonyGrad wrote:HFvictory - what, are you an appologist for TCU or the MWC or CSTV? What is your axe to grind? I thought throwing smack at TCU was part of the purpose of this forum.

My point is that whatever the dubios business reasons, this decision was typical of the psychology of all concerned and I stand by that.

Psst--I thnk the HF stands for horned frog. Just a thought.

Oh.. well.. that explains it, thanks...