Post by FULL_MONTY on Aug 16, 2012 8:44:38 GMT -8
**Thread Back from the Dead 8/16**
I don’t know about you all but I’m starting to get a little worried about this.
We’ve known for about a month that Time Warner has purchased some, if not all, of the broadcasting rights for the football games that were not carried by the MWC’s national TV deal.
In my observation, when those TV rights are purchased, SDSU usually sends out a spiffy press release at least announcing that all games will be televised, they’re happy to partner with [fill in the blank] broadcaster, etc, etc.
I hope the delay is because SDSU is working with the MWC and TW to figure out how to maximize the coverage and figure out a way to get the games on Cox, satellite, and AT&T. My fear is that TW is dead set on the exclusivity and SDSU is desperate to figure something out before the season starts.
What is even scarier is now that the MBB conf. TV schedule has been released, I really hope someone other than Time Warner will come in and buy the rights to the non-televised home games. If the same thing ends up happening, this could be a real setback going into very important seasons for both programs and the athletic department in general.
Also, I think this is a glimpse at how “committed” Fox Sports San Diego is to SDSU football. IMO, given what they paid for the Padres, they could have easily paid more than whatever Time Warner gave the MWC for our games. OTOH, they probably balked at the football rights because they probably didn’t want to overpay for FB rights that, given our move to the Big East, would only last for a year. They also would have only had clear broadcast windows for 4 of the 6 untelevised games. I know there are still carriage issues with FSSD and TW, but I do hope that Fox comes in and makes a run at some of the MBB games. At least that would make the MBB games available to Cox and satellite customers. The satellite issue is important because most bars are on satellite.
Ugh.
TW has no distribution agreements with any carriers other than themselves. It is a mess and that is why Sterk seemed put off.