With the Mtn. being dead it is now time to look at the reality of where those games that would have been on the Mtn. will go. First off, CBS Sports has the rights to those games that would have been on the Mtn. and they can sell those rights. With the football season being 14 weeks long and 10 teams in the Mountain West, and lets assume there are 2.5 games per week that would have been on the Mtn. that comes out to 35 games that will not be broadcast. It could be 30, but the Mtn. did a lot of triple headers.
With CBS Sports owning only two channels there is not a lot of places for these games to go. CBS Sports Network already has a deal with Conference USA, Navy and Army for football games. The Conference USA deal is not that big since most of their games are on a Fox Sports regional channel. CBS Sports Network is the likely landing spot for most of these extra games. With Hawai'i in the Mountain West I could see some 11 p.m. or midnight ET games on Saturday night's for some games. Games could be moved to Thursday or Friday for more air time on CBS Sports Network, or maybe even have 12 p.m. ET local kick offs.
Over the air CBS could be an option for some games and the time slot for those would definetly have to be at 12 p.m. ET to lead into the SEC game that kicks at 3:30 p.m. ET, but those games would likely need to be high profile games to air on CBS. That could include some games featuring Boise State, Nevada or Wyoming as they look to be the front runners.
The other option would be to have NBC Sports pick up some games either through buying them from CBS Sports or some other means. NBC Sports should have at least one game a week in my opinion from the Mountain West and not just once every other or every three weeks. There is some time constraint on NBC Sports now that they have a deal with the CAA for football and basketball. However, those are East Coast teams and should not affect the Mountain West adding more games.
Another likely option would be for CBS Sports to sell games to local affiliates or even ESPN or ESPN Regional to broadcast game. Out of market fans should hope for the latter since that would mean games could be shown on ESPN3 even if on a local station. The prior would mean one must be within the area to get the games.
The final option could be for the league to sell all of those rights to someone like FOX who is looking to add more sports content through the end of the deal they have with CBS Sports and NBC Sports which is through the spring of 2015. Currently Fox Sports shows games on over the air FOX, FX and their regional channels; plus there is the news that FUEL TV is looking to add more mainstream sports. They already have the UFC, but most of their other sports have come from the action variety of surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding and etc. Being on FUEL TV would be a hard channel to find, but if the games are on television then it is all good.
These scenarios are just guesses and hopefully something gets done soon, but there is the possibility that a lot of games will not be on television.
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