Here it is my views on the Craig Thompson interview with David Locke on 1320 KFAN here is the interview again and even if you are not a fan of the conference this is a good listen.

I am glad that David Locke had this interview particularly because he has been away from the area for a while and his perspective is great. The one thing I hated about the commish I dislike is that he answers 'I can't answer that.'

The thing that made this interview stand out was with the statement that Commissioner Thompson made about dish negotiations

'We have had multiple chances to put The Mtn. in the 7 states of the conference.'

Having heard that statement from others was amazing, but hearing it from the mouth of the Commissioner was even more amazing. It seems to me that the 9 presidents and the Commish are holding out for all 50 states are being arrogant. However putting The Mtn. in the conference foot print would give the opportunity to show the dish networks that the channel is doing well and could help out the channel go nationally. The Mountain West is not in a conference like the Big 10 while they do have distribution problems they have HD channels and are on nationwide with DirecTv. The conference needs to start somewhere and in my opinion they need to appease their fans first. Also, that Craig Thompson mentioned that there would still be negotiations to get The Mtn. nationally if the channel was available only in the footprint makes it seem more idiotic that the conference area is not taken care of first.

Thompson's back pedaling with that how will only be in the footprint help recruiting, well Craig it would because currently there is no distribution in Texas at all. So, the 7 states is not what the conference wants, but two of those states are Texas and California, they just happen to be two of the most populous state. That UNLV example about their 7 footer from Indiana not seeing the games is a joke. If you listen to the first part of the Kyle Whittingha, the Utah coach, he has the best answer that 'more is better' even by having local access on the dish services would be a start.

The Commissioner tried to spin that teams like Wyoming that this deal is great for them, because they are getting unprecedented coverage. Then he goes onto say BYU and Utah fans may not like the deal because of less access, so that infers that those are the top 2 schools in the league. Locke asks about would the conference survive if BYU leaves and Thompson refers to UNLV's basketball from last year and Utah's Fiesta Bowl season. Even though I am a Ute fan, I understand that BYU's national fan base from the LDS religion, and their history drive the conference.

The most outrageous statement was that the Commissioner stated that they are on pace to meet the their viewership goal of just above 4 million homes, and that could take 4 years from conception. I will use a quote from the 'Wedding Singer',

That is something that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!

The fact that the commissioner knew the fact this would be process getting The Mtn. on This is just a mess.

I welcome your comments back on this subject.