You all know that the Mountain West Conference's major TV partner, The CBS College Sports Network, is owned by CBS.

This leaves me thinking: Should CBS themselves air a couple of MWC football games that may attract the interest of the network?

I can think of a few games that CBS should air this year:

9/6: Texas A&M at New Mexico
9/13: UCLA at BYU
9/27: Nevada at UNLV
11/22: BYU at Utah

Each of these games can air in a primetime slot to help the MWC territory.

What are your thoughts about CBS airing a few MWC football games? Post if you please.

CBS would already do it if they thought it would bring in MORE viewers. They choose not to take the hit.

DirecTV and Dish didn't want to deal with the mtn for two years after the network was formed. Same principle.

CBS isn't in it to "help the MWC territory." They're not even in it to help SEC territory. 'Tis ratings they want. The SEC delivers, the MWC doesn't. End of story... for now.

I indeed think they should do that. A handful of games on the national CBS level would serve as an infomercial for the former CSTV.

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MWC football games could also air on the CW - a network co-owned by CBS and Time Warner. That, along with diverting half of the March Madness games from round 1 to the Sweet 16, and airing a few NFL preseason games, could help build a sports division for the CW (managed by CBS Sports).

I'm really surprised that CW doesn't have a sports division yet. Especially because Time Warner owns a sports venture in the magazine realm: Sports Illustrated. The right sports could help lift ratings for the fledgling network (it's tough for them to be the #5 broadcast network).

I'd honestly be surprised if the CW itself last for more than 2 years. The Tribune Company, which owns the CW affiliates in the largest markets (WGN in Chicago, WPIX in New York, KTLA in Los Angeles) is reportedly very underwhelmed by the network's programming. This is because the CW has explicitly gone after a teen-to-early 20s female crowd, which is the demographic that happens to provide the worst possible lead-in audience for local newscasts (which are typically the most lucrative programs that individual stations have). If the Tribune bails on the CW, then the CW will effectively be killed off.

At the same time, with respect to sports programming on networks in general, there is simply going to be much less on over-the-air networks over time because the financials are out of whack. Major sports lprograms are typically "loss leaders" for networks - even for the NFL, which is the king of all sports programming, it's very difficult for the over-the-air networks to make a profit on those games. Instead, the point is to leverage those sports programs to draw huge audiences, which in turn the networks will run promos for their prime time shows, as well as providing a large lead-in audience for such prime time shows. Cable networks, on the other hand, are able to make a true profit on those same sports programs because they have a dual income stream - they get revenue for each cable subscriber that has the network in his or her home (whether or not that person ever watches it) and then they get the advertising revenue on top of that.

Time Warner, in particular, owns TNT and TBS, which have NBA and MLB packages, respectively. They make a lot more profit of putting those games on TNT and TBS (and then being able to demand a higher subscriber rate for those cable channels) than placing those games over-the-air on the CW. Bottom line: there's no way Time Warner would consider putting sports on the CW - it doesn't fit into their profile of attracting a young female audience, which means they would both lose money on sports while not having a reasonable expectation of leveraging those sports to promote and provide lead-in audiences for their prime time shows (so sports programs can't even be the "loss leaders" that they are for the other over-the-air networks).

The CW sports division, in my plan, would be managed by CBS and not Time Warner. Sporting events on the CW would basically be time-buys by the CBS network, with CBS Sports producing the telecasts (right down to the same music, though the CBS logo itself would be replaced by the CW's). Also, CBS - and not the CW - would handle the advertising of sports events, by producing the ads themselves. This ensures that any CW sports programming is not aimed at the same audience that watches the other programming - since CBS would be targeting sports fans. Ads would air on both networks though, to help ratings.

If, as Illini says, the CW demographic is a loser from Tribune's perspective, maybe they re-evaluate. If they have an affiliate in many major markets, it could perhaps be easily converted to a sports network, similar to the way FOXSports operates, with regional affiliates all over the country, that buy up rights to local teams and conferences in their regions.

This could become the CBS Sports (regional) network, with production by CBS Sports, airing stuff that they own / can buy the rights to...
For example the Denver affiliate airs events from the.mtn, Colorado Rockies, Nuggets and Avalanche.
The Salt Lake City affilitate airs the mtn., Utah Jazz, the Utah MLS games.
Affilites in the Southeast air the secondary SEC game, while the primary game is on CBS....

Now, I wouldn't be surprised that the individual affiliates would go after local sports properties, but the problem is that is something that can't be instituted on a nationwide basis (the Fox Sports Net model works for cable because there are certain sports properties, such as Pac-10 and Big 12 football, that they have national rights to). WGN in Chicago is the prime example - it is a CW affiliate with rights to the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls, and, starting this season, the Blackhawks. However, there are clauses within the station's contract with the CW (as is the case with all of the network's affiliates) that they can only move regular network programming a fixed number of times per year. This has resulted in WGN, which used to show virtually every Cubs game over-the-air, to move a number of sporting events to WCIU (which is an independent station in Chicago). I have always thought that this was foolish since sports in Chicago, in particular, have always drawn higher ratings than any CW/WB/UPN shows (and I think that Sam Zell, who now owns the Tribune and is the one complaining about the CW, believes the same thing). That being said, that clause is still in place and as long as the CW exists, that will be a major roadblock to further sports programming.

I think that if we're looking at this issue in a vacuum, it's easy to say that a network should just set up a sports department. As I said about the economics of sports today, though, it's cable that's the profit maker. CBS makes a lot more profit by putting MWC games on mtn because of the dual income stream (subscriber revenue and advertising dollars) than putting games on over-the-air - the whole selling point of mtn is that it would have exclusive rights to certain MWC games and as soon as that's chipped away, the network risks getting put on the dreaded sports tier as opposed to basic cable in its home markets (this is already the case in a number of MWC markets) and loses out on a whole lot of money. With all due respect, the MWC isn't the Big Ten or SEC - the president of an over-the-air network isn't going to expend a lot of resources on a sports department that would be anchored by the MWC (and that president would rightly question why they should spend money or sell air time to broadcast games over-the-air nationally that never were broadcast nationally by other networks).

Aside from that and more importantly, as someone pointed out before, networks (whether over-the-air or cable) aren't in the business of giving conferences exposure just because of the goodness of their hearts. They give conferences exposure based upon what ratings those conferences provide back to the networks. If the MWC wants over-the-air coverage, it has to prove that it can deliver the ratings (and judging by their national ratings on ESPN historically, they cannot prove it) - no one in their right minds is just going to give national time slots to any conference off the street. Remember, you're trying to sell a package to a television executive that lives in New York or Los Angeles and basically knows (or thinks he or she knows) four things about college football: Notre Dame is a really famous football school, Michigan-Ohio State is a really big game, Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell like hanging out on the sidelines at USC, and people in the South love the SEC as much as NASCAR so we ought to broadcast it even though we have no clue why they love that crap so much. Not surprisingly, the three college sports entities that have across-the-board great television contracts and exposure happen to be Notre Dame, the Big Ten, and the SEC, while USC is put on TV at every turn (the Pac-10 overall has what I would characterize as good, but not great, TV contracts). The chances that these NY/LA-based executives would even think two seconds about what a group of college sports fans that live in a decent-sized city such as Denver, much less places like Wyoming or New Mexico, would want to watch is pretty remote.

Nascar is one of the most popular professional sports venues in the nation and the SEC is the top conference in the land so which one is crap in your most intelluctual opinon? Please

Build it put a good product on the field and they will come. FSU was about to drop football
they were laughing stocks in the collegiate world. They took on all challengers over a 10 yr period of time playing Nebraska, Oklahoma Michigan and others and beat them in their own stadiums. Built their program from nothing. Miami the same way. Now they are media darlings. It can happen in other places. We here in the South don't watch crap we watch the most exciting brand of college football played in the country bar none. We love our teams and because the media historically time after time has given Notre Dame USC Ohio ST Michigan automatic top ten status whether they deserved it or not, we do push for recognition.


The networks know what they are doing. That is why they televise the SEC games ND, USC, Ohio St & Mich. They put fannies in the seats and couch potatoes at home. Every team and every conference has it's up's and downs. Look at ND, FSU, Miami, Neb all playing below their standards. Michigan can't beat Ohio St now but Cooper was fired because he couldn't beat Michigan. USC in the 90's went through their spell. Texas went through theirs in the 90's as well as Oklahoma, Georgia, Clemson, Pittsburgh, Arkansas, Tex A&M UCLA.

Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, or Tenn. will win that conference in any given year. Where else in the country can you say that? PAC 10 no it's USC, Big Ten well if you are lucky enough not to have to play Michigan or Ohio St you could tie for the championship, Big 12 will be Texas, Oklahoma, hopefully Nebraska or Colorado. The ACC Va Tech and who lately.

I didn't mean that I personally believed that the SEC is "crap" - I was just pointing out what the average television executives based in New York or L.A. believes, as in they don't understand why those sports are appealing in the South (and I'll admit that I personally have zero interest in NASCAR - as a life-long Chicagoan, I don't get it as a spectator sport and probably never will, yet as a finance guy, I understand perfectly why sponsors and networks fall over themselves to align themselves with the sport), but since they get ratings, those executives understand numbers so the networks are going to televise them. I think we're on the same page here - networks are going to televise those conferences and teams that get ratings, plain and simple. That would certainly include the SEC.

If there's one place where the Pac-10 might find a feasible change in the next few years, it COULD be that Fox Sports contract. Maybe not... no telling if ESPN would pay the premium the conference would want. Just saying...

A little further info on the Tribune Company's issues with the CW that I referred to in previous posts:

http://thetdogblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/tribune-scrubs-cw-off-its-stations.html