We can all agree the television deal is not the best for the Mountain West, but just recently The Mtn. has expanded their coverage to the Atlanta market as well as increasing coverage in West Texas:
The Mtn. - MountainWest Sports Network has launched on Comcast cable (XFINITY) in the Atlanta, Ga. area and is available to Suddenlink Communications customers in West Texas, including Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, San Angelo plus several municipalities east of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The Mtn. can be viewed on Comcast XFINITY digital television service in the Atlanta DMA (No. 8 in the United States) on the Sports Entertainment Package (channel 786) in areas having completed Comcast's World of More upgrades and will be available on remaining systems throughout 2011 as World of More enhancements are completed.
Getting Atlanta is a bid deal, as mentioned they are the number eight market and is the largest market to carry the Mtn. Dallas/Forth Worth area is larger, but the Mtn. is only available on DirecTv and not on Time Warner Cable. Even though, the Mtn. is on the sports package at least it is available to get. While it is on the sports package, there will still be a lot of people who will have access to the channel because Comcast has the very popular NFL RedZone channel -- which is also on the sports package -- and with Atlanta being an NFL town full of transplants in the area there will be a good amount of people who subscribe to the sports package at least during football season.
One thing that still boggles my mind with the television deal is that Comcast is the largest cable provider in the United States, so it would be in their best interest to at least have the channel on the sports package available to every single Comcast cable subscriber where the channel is not on the sports package tier.