Well here is the replacement of CSS. The "American Sports Network" by Sinclair Broadcasting to air on all the Sinclair-Owned Syndicated Stations and required to show the games on either their CW or MyTV main or sub-stations in the conference footprints of the C-USA, CAA, SoCon, Big South, and Patriot League that they signed broadcasting agreements with.

This was likely offered to the Sun-Belt as well, but they chose to go with expanded ESPN3 coverage instead either by their own choice or by influence from ESPN who has completely abandoned the syndicated TV network packages and replaced them all with ESPNews games on cable. ESPN seems to have closed down ESPN Plus and ESPN Regional TV to get everything on cable so people have to pay for it instead of using free antenna. When the Big East/AAC renegotiated with ESPN they pulled their syndicated package to ESPNews. It sounds like the new MAC TV deal will have a similar deal where our syndication package is pulled to ESPNews. Also the SEC games were pulled from their syndication and put on the new SEC Network. Only the ACC/Raycom Sports syndication package remained, but for how long?

Sinclair's American Sports Network is filling the vacuum left by CSS and all of the SEC and ESPN's syndicated time slots. Might be a great idea for these conferences.



http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sinclai...2014-07-17

http://www.bigsouthsports.com/entries/bi...ew-network

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Free TV coverage of college football continues to shrink. I think ACC has the most free TV games of any P5 conference at this point (could change if ACC ever launches a cable channel). Could be a recruiting tool for these teams, even if it [typically] brings in less money.

(07-17-2014 08:57 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  Free TV coverage of college football continues to shrink. I think ACC has the most free TV games of any P5 conference at this point (could change if ACC ever launches a cable channel). Could be a recruiting tool for these teams, even if it [typically] brings in less money.

This could be a very good thing for C-USA. The non-cable, free TV crowd has grown and is accelerating over the last few years.

There are now 65 million Americans in 30 million households who rely only on antenna TV for their viewing. With the SEC, Big Ten, Pac 12, Sun Belt, AAC all abandoning their time-slots, the few remaining sports like CUSA will be very narrow and focused.

Conference USA will air during the old SEC time-slot and have a captive audience used to watching sports at that time and will then shift to CUSA as their option. The OTA audience is narrow and focused to attract the casual viewer as they only have 12-15 channels to browse through unlike the cable audience who has 200 channels and 20 football games at anytime to choose from.

This new Sports Network could be a big hit.

The TV industry is now going through the same upheaval that the print newspapers went through. Why pay for the paper when you can get it free on the internet? They've tried very unsuccessful for years trying to get people to pay for their online newspapers they used to get delivered and failed miserably. Every time they put up a pay wall, the consumer moves to another source that is free instead.

The same is happening to a lesser degree with TV. The new free digital HD broadcasts are better quality than any cable HD broadcast because the antenna broadcast is in it's purest form and cable compresses the broadcast to transmit through cable. Why pay $100 per month especially if you are only a casual sports fan? Sinclair Broadcasting is taking advantage of the casual sports fan as ESPN and the bigger conferences try to put up their "paywall" for sports. Sure, some diehard fans will begrudgedly move to cable but many others will not and will now watch Charlotte Football instead of NC State or Southern Miss instead of Miss State.

Good move by Conference USA and Sinclair. I'd much prefer that deal than the MAC's TWC SportsChannel deal. Both pay us nothing, but one would pull in old Big Ten fans that are still on antenna (and growing) but have no sports options since the BTN launched.

Big news for C-USA. Even though the games will only be in the market of that particular C-USA school it's great for fans to be able to watch their team when games aren't picked up nationally.

I've been hoping for a syndicated network for awhile now.

Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.

No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

Marshall has 2 sinclair channels. WCHS and WVAH, so I'd question whether you're correct about other schools in our conference not having a sinclair channel on their local dial.

"Subject, among other things, to successfully securing carriage agreements with distributors in the future, the Company's plans may include potential development of new cable networks and digital platforms focused on these new content initiatives. In addition, other television broadcasters have expressed an interest in distributing the games in their markets."

Even if you don't have a Sinclair owned station in your area, it looks like another local channel could buy the rights to it.

http://www.wboy.com/story/26041965/sincl...ading-ncaa

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.

No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

The press release says non-Sinclair affiliates can pick-up the games too and likely will, just that Sinclair affiliates are mandated to.

WLFL 22 in Raleigh is a Sinclair station. That would give Charlotte good exposure in the capital city.

(07-17-2014 09:44 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.

No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

The press release says non-Sinclair affiliates can pick-up the games too and likely will, just that Sinclair affiliates are mandated to.

Their statement release also express a big interest by other broadcasters that want the be affiliates with this.

This is a game changer for the G5 conferences. I hope the MW will sign on with them next year, since they are currently tied up with Root sports.

If I had won a large lottery this was what I wanted to do. It refreshing to know that there are people who value content for OTA customers from G5 and other conferences as the P5 create their own networks where OTA and Basic cable customers don't have those channels.

I wonder what the data says on what OTA-only viewers actually watch.

Speculations: Old folks watching whatever seems best out of the 3-4-5 network stations?
People who just don't watch a lot of TV period?
NFL on Sunday and that's about it?

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.
No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

I'm sure the SBC said no thanks to a ton of media pursuers. Really? More likely the ASN saw the SBC footprint and did not pursue.

http://www.conferenceusa.com/genrel/071714aaa.html

C-USA press release with the schedule of football games that will be shown.

(07-17-2014 10:02 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  I wonder what the data says on what OTA-only viewers actually watch.

Speculations: Old folks watching whatever seems best out of the 3-4-5 network stations?
People who just don't watch a lot of TV period?
NFL on Sunday and that's about it?

Although I have Uverse right now, I went 7 years without pay TV and I watched raycom ACC games because they were on/free. Pay TV subscribers have started declining for the first time ever, and with the popularity of sports programming I'm curious to see how this does.

I think of the G5 commissioners, Banowsky has to be the best one. I think this is a great move by CUSA. As I have stated multiple times, I am very impressed with what he has accomplished with the product he has to work with. I can see CUSA becoming the strongest of the MAC & SB and possibly get to the level of the MWC and AAC. I think the have the 2nd best bowl lineup next to the AAC. Especially why I thought they did the best of the G5 conferences with bowls, since they had far less to work with then the AAC and MWC. What a concept, to actually play football on Saturday and make it available to the over the air market.

(07-17-2014 10:04 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.
No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

I'm sure the SBC said no thanks to a ton of media pursuers. Really? More likely the ASN saw the SBC footprint and did not pursue.

I think it's really easy to overestimate the value of this on both sides.

But that said, I have to think that if there was a G5 conference where syndicated TV made sense, it would be the AAC with Houston, DFW, and Philadelphia (top 10), Tampa and Orlando (top 20), and Hartford and Cincinnati (top 40) plus Memphis, New Orleans and Tulsa, and whatever you get with ECU (bunch of NC TV markets) and Navy (DC, Baltimore).

If OTA/local cable syndication were a moneymaker, that sort of package, plus Louisville (top 50), New York/NJ and San Diego would have been something TV guy Aresco would have looked at as an option.

My answer is that CUSA or SBClower-FBS or FCS games may or may not be more profitable than showing Judge Joe Brown in that timeslot, but it's not going to be a big moneymaker--or a big audience-builder--for anybody.

On the other hand, it makes strategic sense for ESPN to use those games to build ESPN-News from "basically nothing" into "maybe something."

I don't think C-USA can catch the American (mainly because of basketball) but I do think they are set up for a bright future.

C-USA has teams rooted in rich recruiting areas (South Florida and Texas) and they really hit home runs (IMO) with their two of their FCS additions (UTSA & ODU).

A few years of stability and C-USA should be in good shape.

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.

No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

North Texas has four games scheduled to appear on ASN stations. Three of the four are home games. There is no way they put the Nicholls State game on for Nicholls State. I think Sinclair probably found a local Dallas station to include in this deal before they placed our games in the lineup. I'm sure they did the same for Rice too.

It seems the new SEC network has left holes in many local stations Saturday schedules. I'm sure Sinclair's ASN is providing C-USA's third tier content to those stations at a much lower price than the SEC games cost.

I believe this is a big win for C-USA.

I don't know if the Sun Belt was approached about being included. I have to think they were not. I remember having to watch games on ESPN3. I hated it. Having games air over local stations within our footprint seems like a much better deal to me, especially if other Sinclair stations around the country are also airing the games. It will be interesting to see if these games will also be streamed live on the C-USA Digital network. I'm looking forward to reading more information about this deal.

(07-17-2014 10:04 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(07-17-2014 09:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Looking at the Sinclair footprint, it is very easy to see why the Sun Belt said no thanks.
No coverage for: AState, Louisiana, ULM, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Ark-LR, Tex-Arlington and probably not Troy.

Looking at CUSA: No coverage for UNT, LaTech, USM, FIU, Charlotte and WKU and Marshall look iffy

I'm sure the SBC said no thanks to a ton of media pursuers. Really? More likely the ASN saw the SBC footprint and did not pursue.

Maybe the footprint didn't work for ASN or maybe the SBC got a better deal with ESPN. I am sure it was not media markets because the SBC is in 7 of the top 100 media markets and 10 of the top 150.

8 GSU – Atlanta GA
46 App St – Winston Salem NC
49 Texas St – Austin TX
60 USA – Mobile AL
75 Idaho – Spokane/Moscow ID
96 GS – Savannah GA
98 NMSU – El Paso/Las Cruces NM
118 Troy – Montgomery AL
123 ULL – Lafayette LA
136 ULM – Monroe LA
181 stAte – Jonesboro AR