I spoke with my FoxSports contact this morning. The MAC is currently working on TV deal for football this fall with Fox. Still work in progress but it looks like it will get done, most likely for the OCT games since ESPN has so many of our NOV games already booked. It's nice to see Fox stepping up even though they know we have such strong ties with ESPN and trying to get some of our games on their regional TV. A deal should be final by August.

Any word on SportsTime Ohio?

nothing on STO

by the way Schadenfreude, send me an Email at macfootball@hotmail.com, thanks, Nick

As you indicate, the MAC will get a lot of Nov. TV from ESPN and also Sept is a good month for MAC/Big Ten.

That leaves October as a 'TV void' and a good opportunity for Fox to show games which are not national caliber games.

What I like is more and more MAC/Big Ten games during conference season. The better ones will get good TV. I assume that NIU/Iowa will get good TV coverage this Oct 28.

It is all good.

These could be the following games end up on MAC-TV:

Minnesota at Kent St.
Wisconsin vs. BGSU
Indiana at Ball St.
Louisville at Temple (I know Temple isn't MAC yet, but FSN picked up Miami vs. Temple last year)
Miami (OH) at Akron
Navy vs. E. Michigan
Clemson vs. Temple

I'd expect the MAC to move these to 12pm kickoffs, except for Minnesota-Kent St. and Clemson-Temple which are Thursday night games. FSN has already made its PAC-10 clearance windows known and a few of them are 3:30pm games because of ABC's new primetime games (FSN & ABC are not supposed to air national games at the same time).

mattsarz Wrote:These could be the following games end up on MAC-TV:

Minnesota at Kent St.
Wisconsin vs. BGSU
Indiana at Ball St.
Louisville at Temple (I know Temple isn't MAC yet, but FSN picked up Miami vs. Temple last year)
Miami (OH) at Akron
Navy vs. E. Michigan
Clemson vs. Temple

I'd expect the MAC to move these to 12pm kickoffs, except for Minnesota-Kent St. and Clemson-Temple which are Thursday night games. FSN has already made its PAC-10 clearance windows known and a few of them are 3:30pm games because of ABC's new primetime games (FSN & ABC are not supposed to air national games at the same time).

FSN is going to do our October games.......Wisconsin/BGSU is the first game of the season. Not sure about the others.

Akron at Toledo on October 28th is very likely to be one of the games if both are near the top of their divisions. This game is not currently listed for any TV. Northern Illinois at Miami on October 7th is another strong possibility, as is Miami at Akron on October 21st.

rocketfootball Wrote:

mattsarz Wrote:These could be the following games end up on MAC-TV:

Minnesota at Kent St.
Wisconsin vs. BGSU
Indiana at Ball St.
Louisville at Temple (I know Temple isn't MAC yet, but FSN picked up Miami vs. Temple last year)
Miami (OH) at Akron
Navy vs. E. Michigan
Clemson vs. Temple

I'd expect the MAC to move these to 12pm kickoffs, except for Minnesota-Kent St. and Clemson-Temple which are Thursday night games. FSN has already made its PAC-10 clearance windows known and a few of them are 3:30pm games because of ABC's new primetime games (FSN & ABC are not supposed to air national games at the same time).

FSN is going to do our October games.......Wisconsin/BGSU is the first game of the season. Not sure about the others.

Akron at Toledo on October 28th is very likely to be one of the games if both are near the top of their divisions. This game is not currently listed for any TV. Northern Illinois at Miami on October 7th is another strong possibility, as is Miami at Akron on October 21st.

I would be surprised if FSN picked up any UT games considering it's only carried on the dish here now.

Thinking about this more, is this going to be additional games to the current regional TV package, does this mean the regional games are going to air earlier in the year or is this a new set of games being purchased by FSN? The regional TV package is coordinated by ESPN Regional and the games are aired on FSN Ohio, CSN Chicago, Comcast Local, and Adelphia-Buffalo.

I've re-read Vandelay's post and Mattsarz's reply and am wondering exactly WHAT is being negotiated with FSN.

I ASSUME this is the annual negotiations where FSN clears slots for MAC games. I doubt this is easy as FSN has a LOT of slot commitments and struggles to find the MAC suitable slots. They also have to work with Comcast-Local to clear slots as well.

Are we talking more games? better time slots? Oct. games rather then Nov. games?

After all, FSN has been producing games for ESPN Regional so that isn't new. (as I understand it, ESPN Regional has the TV contract and 'sub-contracts' with FSN to produce the games we are talking about).

ONN I does Ohio and Akron games, so I guess you will see a few on that station. Basketball was pretty good showing as both teams had several games shown. Its a station that is trying to become a player on the local level.

Ohio is at Missouri, Rutgers, and Illinois. You gotta think someone would pickup one of those. Ohio just has the Akron game in Nov on TV so far.

When Kent State played at Rutgers, it was shown just on FSN NY on tape delay in the middle of the night. I, however, saw it last summer on Fox College Sports Atlantic.

I imagine the Illinois game would be shown to a few Illinois markets but probably not in Ohio unless the feed is picked up by ONN. I don't know if the Big 12 is the same as the Big 10 in that every game is shown by someone. If it is, then the Missouri game would be on Game Plan at the very least.

FSN Ohio has an early season void with no Indians. They still do have Reds in the South and West. I would love for them to capitalize on it in September, but I don't know if that will actually happen. Could they be doing a smaller Ohio-only package as a supplement like they do for basketball.

The rules for the Big 12 are as follows

1) ABC selects one or two games to air at 12pm and 3:30pm
2) FSN or TBS selects a 7pm game
3) FSN may select a regional game for 12pm or 12:30pm
4) All other games not selected cannot be televised. If they are televised, they must be done via PPV and not during a timeslot where ABC is televising a game.

The Big 12 has allowed the Fox College Sports package to air games that weren't selected for TV, usually on Tuesdays or Wednesdays after the game has been played. The games have the radio call of the home team and use the scoreboard video that is used for Big 12 instant replay.

Quote:Indiana at Ball St. ....I'd expect the MAC to move these to 12pm kickoffs.......

Game time for this one is already set for 6:30 p.m., and there's no way in hell BSU is moving it up to noon for a regional cable telecast. You're getting some bad info here...

NIU @Miami (OH) on 10/7/2006 and NIU @Western Michigan on 10/14/2006 are still two games that could be televised. I would be surprised if one or both of these games do not get picked up by someone. Does anyone know if these two are going to be televised on an Ohio or Michigan channel?

He is referring to the FSN's MAC package.

Mattsarz has it right: " does this mean the regional games are going to air earlier in the year".

Yes.

The bottom line is that instead of FSN picking up a bunch of Sat. Nov. games FSN will be doing games in Oct. (ESPN has an extensive Nov. offering).

below is a link to ESPN's most current list of NATIONAL games (doesn't include their ESPN local games. e.g., EMU @ MSU and CMU @ UofM).

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlisti...id=2043952