You can find your local CW station: https://www.cwtv.com/thecw/stations/

College football has a new broadcaster this season. The CW will debut its package of ACC games on Saturday with Cincinnati vs. Pitt.

The CW, long known for teen dramas, has recently jumped into sports with deals featuring Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf, NASCAR’s Xfinity Series and the “Inside The NFL” studio show. As part of this ACC deal, the network will air 13 college football games this year, along with 28 men’s basketball games and nine women’s basketball games during the winter, including basketball doubleheaders. The only other CW football game announced is NC State vs. VMI on Sept. 16. The deal runs through 2026-27.

Raycom Sports, which sublicenses from ESPN and has broadcast ACC games since 1980, will produce the games for The CW, just as it previously did for the Bally’s Sports regional networks, Bally’s dropped the ACC games in June amid company financial issues. Tom Werme and James Bates will be on the call this Saturday.

The good news for fans: These games will be available to more people than ever. The CW is a broadcast network, meaning it’s available in 100 percent of U.S. households just like ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. You can get The CW with a simple antenna.

The CW’s availability to specific streaming TV services like YouTube TV or Hulu includes most but not all markets, so you’ll want to check. (You can find your local CW station here.) The games will not be on streaming-specific services like The CW app or WatchESPN, but they will be available online through streaming TV providers like YouTube TV that carry The CW. (Note: In Chicago, the games will be on WGN, rather than the CW affiliate.)

Ahead of The CW’s college football debut, The Athletic spoke with CW Network president Dennis Miller about the plans and what fans can expect.

(Note: Conversation has been edited for clarity and length.)

To start simply, why has The CW gotten into sports? I was a big fan of Smallville and Arrow back in the day and remember watching those kinds of shows.

Looking at the landscape for some time now, that young adult programming when it started was a good alternative to what other folks were doing. But ultimately, that young adult audience shifted over to watching video gaming, TikTok, and streamers, not broadcast prime time. Looking at how well local sports had done, it became apparent there was an opportunity. The final piece was the RSN’s (regional sports networks) started to have financial troubles. We saw them implode and it was a perfect storm of opportunity to see if we could compete effectively.

How did this ACC deal come together?

(Nexstar networks president) Sean Compton was very friendly with Hunter Nickel and George (Johnson) over at Raycom. Gray Television (Raycom’s parent company) had been one of the larger CW affiliate stakeholders. We knew they had ACC games with ESPN. It became clear there may be a package available. Once we realized we could get this done for this fall, everybody moved quickly to pick up the football and men’s and women’s basketball games. We had time periods on the weekend because those have largely been paid programming. There was availability to get 1-6 on Saturdays and Sundays from all CW affiliates. We had conversations with them and advertisers who said yes, yes, yes. So we moved quickly to secure it.

So Raycom is still producing all of these games? You guys are just broadcasting them.

Correct. We’re working closely with them. We’ve added a few additional people to the mix. This is new territory for us, but we’re playing with people who are very sophisticated about this. We’re full steam ahead.

Raycom has a very long history with the ACC. How much did that solidify your decision to go for this?

It was a very significant part. They’ve been producing a large variety of sports and have relationships with the teams, athletic directors and the commissioner. That history and relationship went a long way.

What is the goal here for the network in broadcasting college football? What are you hoping to get out of it?

We’re going to learn a lot. We hope we have a significant impact on the overall ratings of the stations in which these games are aired. We think it’s going to drive a lot of local value for the stations. We’d like to be seen as a Big Five competitor with the other four networks out there, that we’re delivering a product of similar value and scale. It’s part of a longer process of taking The CW seriously, wanting to build something valuable for broadcasters. We’re in the midst of conversations with other leagues and IP holders about sports because we think there’s a lot more we can do.

The CW is a broadcast network, but its availability kind of varies by affiliates. How would you recommend fans, like at Pitt and Cincinnati, to find their game?

There are a number of sources depending on the delivery system. We hope DirecTV will be resolved soon, YouTube TV, Hulu, various cable providers. Obviously, their guide is one way. We’ll direct people from local news sites. I’m sure there will be a few holes in the beginning since we’re new to this, but we’re trying to direct people to where their station is in some markets. We’ve got a marketing team and our affiliate relations teams have spent a lot of time talking about creating awareness. We’re using social media too.

Will ACC games be carried by every affiliate? I know that was an issue with LIV Golf.

There is unanimous enthusiasm for college football and college basketball. We’re going to have 100 percent coverage.

Will games be on The CW app?

No. The digital rights are not available to The CW app. It’s exclusive to the (TV) broadcasting. … We do have video-on-demand rights, which a lot of people do when they have multiple things to watch. That usually lasts seven or eight days on a station.

With LIV Golf, there were also some hiccups about getting cut off due to time for scheduled programming. Are there plans in place if a game goes long? You mentioned the 1-6 window.

We are going to have a series of doubleheaders, some prime-time games when teams warrant that. We’re set up. We’ve learned our lessons from previous experiences that we’ll make sure the full game is covered, even if it runs over.

College football fans get frustrated with long and frequent commercial breaks in games. Is there anything different about the way these games will be broadcast or will it be the typical Raycom broadcast?

It should be the same as they’ve seen before and what they’re used to with other networks. We’ll learn a lot from the Raycom folks and bring some insights if it needs adjustments along the way. To start, we want to be consistent with how they’ve done things in the past.

Could The CW look to take a larger part in college sports moving forward?

We are in conversation with leagues that are getting reconfigured. The ACC just added more teams. There’s going to be more product available to ESPN, the ACC Network and ourselves. I think we’re probably in the third or fourth inning of the tectonic plates getting shifted around in college sports. They know broadcast is the only place they can get 100 percent reach, and we happen to be the network that has more real estate available than our competitors.

Were there conversations with the Pac-12?

We had a couple conversations with them early on, not long after The CW was acquired (in fall 2022). They were working through some potential streaming deals and their situation. Then the sands were shifting below them with USC and UCLA departing and then a lot of noise in the marketplace. So we focused on getting the ACC deal done. Not long thereafter, the Pac-12 kind of dissolved.

TV has had such a profound impact on changing college sports. What do you see as the future of this space?

We’re right in the middle of it now with all the activity between ESPN and Charter. That’s going to have a profound impact on how things get realigned. I think you’ll see some interesting combinations of streamers and broadcasters coming together because streamers are in a position with their balance sheets to pick up the entire set of rights here or write significant checks. But they don’t have 100 percent reach. If you want to put fans in seats and want to sell merchandise and grow a brand, it’s important to have that capability. That’s my sense of where we’ll end up, some interesting combinations that are the configurement for a lot of college sports and professional sports.

Have you viewed the LIV Golf experiment as a success?

Yeah. We made the LIV deal happen quickly because we were just getting started with the stations and (LIV) was actively looking for a broadcast partner, many were incumbents with the PGA so they weren’t available. So it was a mutually beneficial quick moment in time here. Once we did that deal, the phones started ringing with, ‘Oh, you guys are into sports here.’ It really was a big catalyst for the kind of conversations and the kinds of arrangements we’re seeing today here. It definitely kicked us off.

What would you consider a success for the ACC on The CW?

We want to deliver a quality product to the consumers. We want the broadcaster to feel they’re competing as a Big Five network with similar sports on the weekends and evenings. We’d like to drive prime-time ratings when we’re the lead-in in a significant way for our stations. We want to make sure the teams feel we’re delivering an audience for them and their brands so we can step up and join the club. We’ll make a few mistakes along the way and learn, but we’re all hands-on. We’re committed to being a Big Five network in the years ahead here. We hope this is an appropriate launch for them.


Link
https://theathletic.com/4842669/2023/09/...twork-acc/