Details coming soon. From what I'm hearing, we are back to being involved with ESPN. I just hope we're not on the hook for a bunch of Mid-Week football games.

They'll probably be Sunday 10:30 a.m. ET kickoffs.

I will drop season tickets tomorrow if we are stuck to weeknight games.

I'm assuming they get the championship game again, and will do a simulcast of ASN games on ESPN3. Other than that I expect to be heavily involved with Fox and CBS again.

(03-22-2016 08:26 AM)Blue_Trombone Wrote:  I'm assuming they get the championship game again, and will do a simulcast of ASN games on ESPN3. Other than that I expect to be heavily involved with Fox and CBS again.

A simulcast of ASN on ESPN3 would actually be an improvement.

(03-22-2016 08:24 AM)FlyHawk98 Wrote:  I will drop season tickets tomorrow if we are stuck to weeknight games.

Will get ready then...If we are on any ESPN network besides ESPN3, we will be on a weeknight guarantee...

(03-22-2016 08:44 AM)WKUFan518 Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 08:24 AM)FlyHawk98 Wrote:  I will drop season tickets tomorrow if we are stuck to weeknight games.

Will get ready then...If we are on any ESPN network besides ESPN3, we will be on a weeknight guarantee...

If so, I will drop my 4 season tickets. Honestly doesn't even matter to me anymore.

I have already had this conversation with our AD, so they know where I stand. I doubt they care as I am not a big money donor though.

Don't mind Thursday games or maybe one Friday game. Tuesday or Wednesday games suck and would not be excited about those nights.

Modern day TV contracts are probably really hurting G5 income. No one attends games anymore, and it's hurting game day revenue terribly. I remember when September home games were always played at night at Rice Stadium. Attendance was much better than it is now, when we kick off at 11:00 am or 1:30 pm. Everyone is staying home to watch on TV. Our TV contracts are so meaningless, I wonder if it would be better if we just dropped our providers and scheduled our games whenever we wanted. Attendance would increase more than enough to make up the difference. At least we should go with providers who work with our schedule as opposed to their own.

(03-22-2016 09:29 AM)usmbacker Wrote:  Don't mind Thursday games or maybe one Friday game. Tuesday or Wednesday games suck and would not be excited about those nights.

Agreed. One Thursday or Friday home game a year wouldn't be terrible. As long as it's not the whole month of November on Tuesdays like the MAC I can live with it.

(03-22-2016 09:29 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  Modern day TV contracts are probably really hurting G5 income. No one attends games anymore, and it's hurting game day revenue terribly. I remember when September home games were always played at night at Rice Stadium. Attendance was much better than it is now, when we kick off at 11:00 am or 1:30 pm. Everyone is staying home to watch on TV. Our TV contracts are so meaningless, I wonder if it would be better if we just dropped our providers and scheduled our games whenever we wanted. Attendance would increase more than enough to make up the difference. At least we should go with providers who work with our schedule as opposed to their own.

Wonder if every school has a strong local station will carry their games? One that isn't confined by network games and can air the games when we all good and well please to play? Perhaps they can stream them, too, for the out of towners.

Truthfully this is basically what ASN is, in conglomerate form.

Selling your longtime fans out for short time TV $ seems like bad business, to me.

(03-22-2016 09:29 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  Modern day TV contracts are probably really hurting G5 income. No one attends games anymore, and it's hurting game day revenue terribly. I remember when September home games were always played at night at Rice Stadium. Attendance was much better than it is now, when we kick off at 11:00 am or 1:30 pm. Everyone is staying home to watch on TV. Our TV contracts are so meaningless, I wonder if it would be better if we just dropped our providers and scheduled our games whenever we wanted. Attendance would increase more than enough to make up the difference. At least we should go with providers who work with our schedule as opposed to their own.

I like where your head is on this. High-speed internet is so good now that streaming HD games to my TV is not a compromise. If we could all get our games streamed this way, with good production values, I would not miss FOX/ESPN/ETC at all. Then we could play when it works best for tailgating and our fans.

(03-22-2016 09:34 AM)ThunderingHerdFan Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:29 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  Modern day TV contracts are probably really hurting G5 income. No one attends games anymore, and it's hurting game day revenue terribly. I remember when September home games were always played at night at Rice Stadium. Attendance was much better than it is now, when we kick off at 11:00 am or 1:30 pm. Everyone is staying home to watch on TV. Our TV contracts are so meaningless, I wonder if it would be better if we just dropped our providers and scheduled our games whenever we wanted. Attendance would increase more than enough to make up the difference. At least we should go with providers who work with our schedule as opposed to their own.

Wonder if every school has a strong local station will carry their games? One that isn't confined by network games and can air the games when we all good and well please to play? Perhaps they can stream them, too, for the out of towners.

Truthfully this is basically what ASN is, in conglomerate form.

Selling your longtime fans out for short time TV $ seems like bad business, to me.

Agree. No one outside our immediate region is watching our games anyway. I know for a fact that very, very few fans outside of Houston are watching Rice games. We have a local media station who would air our games if we wanted them to. I don't know. National TV exposure is good, but it makes it too easy for fans to stay home. The empty stadiums look bad on TV and the money isn't worth it. Fans don't want to sit in the direct sunlight, in September and October, in Houston, to watch a football game. It's insane. Sometimes I wish Rice would just go independent so we could schedule nothing but regional schools who's fans travel, and so we could play our games at night.

(03-22-2016 10:13 AM)Nugget49er Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:29 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  Modern day TV contracts are probably really hurting G5 income. No one attends games anymore, and it's hurting game day revenue terribly. I remember when September home games were always played at night at Rice Stadium. Attendance was much better than it is now, when we kick off at 11:00 am or 1:30 pm. Everyone is staying home to watch on TV. Our TV contracts are so meaningless, I wonder if it would be better if we just dropped our providers and scheduled our games whenever we wanted. Attendance would increase more than enough to make up the difference. At least we should go with providers who work with our schedule as opposed to their own.

I like where your head is on this. High-speed internet is so good now that streaming HD games to my TV is not a compromise. If we could all get our games streamed this way, with good production values, I would not miss FOX/ESPN/ETC at all. Then we could play when it works best for tailgating and our fans.

Absolutely. I forgot about the live streaming on the internet. That sounds like the way to go. If someone wants to stay home and watch on the computer, have them pay $15 to watch it. Split the income between the internet provider and school. As it is, everyone is watching for free and the university makes nothing off it.

From Matt Sarzyniak:

Quote:Roundup on Rights: C-USA, ACC & Big Ten
* Credit goes to CUSABBS on this one. Southern Miss AD Bill McGillis was interviewed recently and noted that C-USA's TV partners have until April 1st to select and move any games to weeknights, and that's interesting on two fronts:

1) C-USA has TV partners for next year, which he did not name. That tells me that a deal has been completed.

2) April 1st has typically been the date where FOX Sports and CBSSN had to finalize its planned weeknight games, though who would be televising the games would be withheld.

Since the conference has yet to announce any formal plans for television next year, it is possible that they elected to go with a short term deal or extension with all partners. Also possible that any finalized weeknight games on or around April 1st will include an announcement about future TV partners.

http://mattsarzsports.blogspot.com/2016/...g-ten.html

I would be surprised if Fox totally passes on CUSA. While they did not select games for big Fox and only a few for national distribution on FS1, CUSA provided quite a bit of content for their regional nets.

OP, is the info supposed to come from a beat writer or is the conference issuing a release soon? CUSA usually tweets b/f releasing news. I haven't seen anything yet and am just wondering.

ETA: Schools releasing date changes may also give away the identity of the partners. Mid-week would likely be ESPN. T/F could be Fox/CBSSN like the current contract or ESPN.

What are your thoughts if it turns out to be ESPNU or ESPN NEWS on Thursday/Friday nights and/or Saturday afternoon on those channels? There surely will be other agreements such as FS1, CBS-CS, and ASN but my question was with ESPN networks. I agree with everyone in that midweek games will be brutal and attendance will suffer

I say **** espn and fox. They are not going to pay enough to endure the P5 love fest during our games. Scheduling mid week games is a disaster. We will lose more gate, food and beverage, hotel revenue than a few hundred thousand a year for the tv rights. If cusa entered into an agreement that destroys game day experience, then screw cusa. I won't be going to anymore games.

(03-22-2016 10:37 AM)Cscollis Wrote:  I say **** espn and fox. They are not going to pay enough to endure the P5 love fest during our games. Scheduling mid week games is a disaster. We will lose more gate, food and beverage, hotel revenue than a few hundred thousand a year for the tv rights. If cusa entered into an agreement that destroys game day experience, then screw cusa. I won't be going to anymore games.

Many here share your feelings.

(03-22-2016 10:33 AM)usm99 Wrote:  What are your thoughts if it turns out to be ESPNU or ESPN NEWS on Thursday/Friday nights and/or Saturday afternoon on those channels? There surely will be other agreements such as FS1, CBS-CS, and ASN but my question was with ESPN networks. I agree with everyone in that midweek games will be brutal and attendance will suffer

One Thursday/Friday game per season is okay if we are getting bigger TV exposure and a special opponent, but more and it will cease to work for me. Football is an all-day event, not just a game, and you cannot do that six times per year mid-week.

I don't mind a Thursday night game every now and then but I don't want to do it every weekend. I would much prefer us keep working to build stronger ties to ASN and continue to get terrestrial stations to pick up our games.