Mountain West digital network gains some clarity, sort of

The Mountain West had its annual conference meetings this past week, and one of the many things that was brought up included the creation of the Mountain West digital network. The digital network is something the league discussed when there was a restructuring of their deal with CBS awhile back.

The Mountain West had the ability to broadcast certain events on each school's website, and sometimes at a charge, but that did not allow for football or basketball games in previous television contracts with the league.

As for how teams could broadcast basketball games last year, not sure, but it could be due to school's agreements. For example, Colorado State was able to broadcast football games last year, and other schools could do basketball. The amount of content on the digital network could vary on those contracts, Boise State will retain streaming rights until April 1, 2018. The Broncos also were charging for those events online.

Looks like there will be a few year period before everything is wrapped up nicely in the Mountain West digital network. Each school has to produce the events themselves to be shown online, but the big deal is that football and basketball games have the ability to be shown online, and for free. Look for the football games against FCS to be shown online, and probably the lower end games in the early non-conference season for basketball.

The events that will be shown online will be one's that are not on television, but there is no word on what events the schools will show. It will probably behoove them to air as much as possible, and include popular non-revenue sports like baseball, softball, volleyball and soccer.

There is still of information that needs to be sorted out for the legues digital network, but the more sporting events that can be shown to fans and for free is always a good thing.