Friday, December 4, 2015

2015 CFB TV Facts & Figures - Pac-12

The Pac-12 entered into the fourth year of their rights agreements with ESPN and FOX.  There seemed to be more planning on FOX's part when it came to issues around baseball postseason coverage compared to past years (no game moved to FS2, no worries about a game on FS1), but each week seemed to be a mixed bag when it came who came out with a particular game and complaints continued from coaches with respect to start times and travel, which is due to the nature of their TV deals with mid-afternoon west coast games (east coast primetime), in most cases, requiring exclusivity for a period of time

Here's a report card, excluding the conference championship game:

* Thirteen games aired on broadcast networks, down three from 2014.  FOX's total of ten games remained flat from last season, while the number of games on ABC dropped by 50%.  It should be noted that the conference's location hurts as they are really only available for around 2/3rd of the available windows.

* UCLA made the most appearances on broadcast TV with five games, followed by Utah and USC each appearing four times.  Colorado and Oregon St. were the two schools who did not appear on either broadcast network.

* Utah was the last school to fulfill its Pac-12 Networks requirements.  The Utes game vs. Colorado was required to air on Pac-12 Networks because they had appeared in the two primary packages a total of nine times, which is the maximum.

* Since the Pac-12 is zero-sum for its two primary packages with respect to cable/broadcast splits, the 31 games on pay television was an increase of three over 2014.  Since FOX's count for broadcast TV was flat vs. 2014, the same is true for the pay TV count and ESPN's side accounted for the increase in pay TV games.

* In terms of Saturday selections, there was a fairly even distribution for the schools.  Arizona St. was a popular choice for the primary pay TV networks as their games were selected five times.  For overall games on pay TV on an specific TV partner's networks, Arizona was selected five times for games airing on FS1 and Oregon made five appearances on ESPN Networks, the most for each party.  Stanford made a combined six total appearances, followed by California and USC appearing five times between FS1 and ESPN Networks.

* Here's the breakdown of games by the two primary packages, with the number of Saturday games in parenthesis:
  • FOX: 10 (9)
  • ABC: 3 (3)
  • ESPN: 14 (10)
  • ESPN2: 5 (3)
  • FS1: 12 (9)
* For the first time, ESPNU did not air any Pac-12 games.

* Here's a breakdown of each properties' Saturday start equalized to local start time:

ABC & ESPN Networks
  • Noon-3:29pm: 2
  • 3:30pm-6:59pm: 2
  • 7pm and later: 12
  • Noon-3:29pm: 6
  • 3:30pm-6:59pm: 6
  • 7pm and later: 6
Pac-12 Networks
  • Pre-Noon: 5 (four telecast windows)
  • Noon-3:29pm: 12
  • 3:30-6:59pm: 5 (four telecast windows)
  • 7pm and later: 7

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