Do we have more ESPN games than we did last year in FB? Last I heard, the ESPN schedule for the 2006 WAC is yet to be negotiated and released. Is this still true?
I'm curious to know if we're increasing our ESPN exposure, staying steady, or moving backwards.
WAC would have more games and the exposures would be better. IMO, WAC deserves better than what ESPN is willing to give.
ejm - One thing for sure is...the WAC has more games scheduled "prior" to the start of the season now, than we've had in the past. The WAC would normally have between 7 to 9 games scheduled by this time...and games would be added during the season.
We'll have to wait till the end of the season to see how many games total the WAC picked up on ESPN/ESPN2.
...but my guess is it will be between 12 and 14.
The initial WAC ESPN schedule came out a couple of months ago. Since then, a revision was posted to include the Boise vs. NMSU Sunday game and the SJSU vs Nevada ABC game.
We'll likely see more revisions to the schedule.
ESPN has schedule about the same number of ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 games in advance as they did last year. They had 11 games in advance announced this year coming into media day, and last year they had 10 WAC games. ESPN added one WAC games during last season (FSU at Nevada).
Actually, if you take into account that three or four ESPNU games were known at this time last year, the WAC has actually had a few less games announced this year from last year.
ESPN typically schedules in this fashion
1) Work with the non-BCS conferences and pick their best games (through February and March)
2) Pick the weeknight Big East games and Thursday night games (April-May)
3) Starting scheduling for the first three Saturdays with the BCS conferences. (beginning of June).