I've read several of the MWC boards this morning since hearing of the MWC's televison deal, and the overwhelming majority of posters have been raving about how great it will be to play televised games on Saturdays instead of Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays.
Regardless of how you feel about the weeknight games, there is no arguing with the fact that the two teams featured get the whole cake instead of a small slice. All eyes are on those two teams -- if you are going to watch college football on a Thursday night, then you don't have much choice but to watch the one game on ESPN.
The MWC, on the other hand, will now lose those weeknight time slots and will have to compete with a host of other games on at least five networks at the same time as their CSTV games. ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2, Fox Sports Net, and Jefferson Pilot (CBS around here) will all be showing games at the same time. Throw in TBS, and you have at least six national networks that will all show college football games during the same time slots. And, the games they show will feature more appealing teams from conferences with larger followings. Therefore, the ratings the MWC games will get will be miniscule in comparison to the other networks with nationwide viewership, not to mention the ratings they could have during a weeknight game.
The money in the deal is attractive, but for all intents and purposes, the MWC has just sealed its fate as possibly the least visible conference nationwide. And, when CSTV can't sell advertisements (or themselves to cable providers) because their ratings are so low, they'll go belly up, and the MWC won't see the majority of that money.
I am, by no means, privy to all the information the MWC was working with when they made this deal. But at face value, it looks as if they've made one of the biggest blunders in college sports history.
They've burned their bridges with both ESPN and its parent company, ABC (Who controls the BCS), they've walked out on a limb with an upstart company that doesn't have the strength, history, or stability to insure the deal they've made. And they've assured that their national exposure will now be less than it was previously.
If the MWC had signed a similar contract with Fox Sports, I wouldnt' be saying all this -- Fox Sports Net, at least, has the corporate power behind the channels to insure a multi-million dollar deal. As of now, there's no evidence that this CSTV isn't going to be one of the other hundreds of channels that puts all its eggs in one basket and ends up going bankrupt. The executives at CSTV took a big risk with the MWC -- and if it doesn't work, they'll lose money, insure that they'll never be able to sign on other conferences, and eventually, they'll go bankrupt or be bought out by one of the larger companies. That's how business works in 21st Century America.
The MWC better pray they took a risk here that will pay off, because if it doesn't, they may not recover from the eventual consequences.
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The MWC deal looks worse every minute
