(01-10-2010 05:27 PM)Airport KC Wrote: I don't know but for comparison purposes in men's basketball powers were willing to schedule Gonzaga once playing them began to mean a National TV appearance. Its a lot easier in men's basketball where 50% of the schedule is non conference to schedule yourself into national power status.
It also helps when to back the program up in league play the conference is solid and made for TV (WCC, A10). The MWC and WAC to a degree have this quality.
Boise State's best long term move is to get into a BCS conference where they'll have that status to acknowledge their program.
I'm not sure what kind of "Made for TV" the WCC and A10 have, but I do know what the WAC has (12 games on the ESPN Family of Networks, this year: ESPN- 1 game, ESPN2- 6 games, ESPNU- 5 games) and it is know where near what the MWC has.
Here is what the MWC TV contract has this year for them for Men Basketball:
Versus- 7 games
CBS College Sports- 19 games
The mtn- 68 games
BYUTV- 7 games
That's a total of 101 men Basketball games just from the MWC TV Contract.
Plus OOC games played:
ESPN- 1 game
ESPN2- 3 games
ESPNU- 2 games
FSN- 4 games
CBS College Sports- 1 game (C-USA Contract)
FCS- 1 game
Comcast Sports- 1 game
ESPN Full Court- 7 games
The MWC has seen an improvement in the basketball play (better recruits) since they dumped ESPN and went with CSTV/CBS College Sports. But there has been a huge increase since the mtn was added to Direct TV (3 years now). Football is speaking for it's self with 3 ranked teams in the final rankings the last 2 years in a row and basketball right now the MWC has 4 teams ranked in the top 50 of the RPI (New Mexico #17, BYU #22, UNLV #28, San Diego St #41).
The TV Contract with CSTV/CBS Sports has actually turned out a little better than I thought it might. In truth ESPN was killing the MWC slowly... the old ESPN TV Contract (it ended in 2004) was a 7 year deal that paid $48 million ($6.9 million a year) and normally broadcast 8-10 football games and 12 basketball games yearly. The basketball games were mainly "Big Monday" games (Aka "Midnight Mondays") that started at 10pm, thus got over at midnight or 2am on the East Coast, which was murder for the student athletes and fans that had school and or work on Tuesday.
The $7 million a year was not close to any of the "Big 6's" TV Contracts and the number of games were way less, days (weekdays), and times were also bad which killed attendance of the games (costing the schools money). Most people understand the number of times a schools games are on TV has a direct effect on how well it recruits (recruits want parents and friend to be able to see them play, along with being on TV).
Now here is the kicker, ESPN in 2003/2004 was offering the MWC less than their current contract was paying and the MWC would have newly invited TCU in the conference in 2005. So in 1998 the TV Contract from ESPN paid $48 million and then for the 2005 TV Contract ESPN was offering only $40 million over 7 years, even with the MWC inviting TCU. And here is the kicker ESPN wanted to put the majority of the MWC football games on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. So the MWC looked around and found CSTV who offered them a 7 year deal that would pay $82 million, more than double the amount of National broadcasts (smaller scale, but at least 8 football games yearly needed to be broadcast to 70 million or more Households), and create a dedicated network just for the MWC. Then the MWC gave ESPN a chance to give a counter offer, but ESPN said it would be the original offer or nothing. Thus the MWC signed with CSTV, who in turn sold out to CBS and at that time CBS picked up the option on the 3 year extension that increased the Contract to 10 years for $120 million.
Sure the MWC's TV Contract is way below that of any "Big 6" TV Contract, but least ESPN is not holding the MWC down any more. Funny thing is ESPN seems to be much more interested in the MWC than they were when the MWC was under Contract with them. I could not believe the 3 ESPN College Games Days this year; Provo, Utah (TCU @BYU) then Colorado Springs, Colorado (Army @Air Force), and then Fort-Worth, Texas (Utah @TCU).
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O/T When does BCS teams take a run at Boise?
