OLN/Versus to air NCAA Football, Hoops

[Big McLargehuge]

Great news for me...the MWC is easily my favorite college football conference(I was accepted to both Colorado State & Wyoming afterall). I love the style and I love the teams.

Would have been nicer if the MWC just would have stuck with ESPN...but oh well. Colorado State used to be on ESPN 4 or 5 times a year with their goofy scheduling practices(thursday games galore).

Don't like the fact TCU seems to be the main focus...blech.


The WAC used to be my favorite but it's just been purged too death. The MWC carries on the tradition considering all of the teams aside from TCU came from the WAC. Only 3 teams remain in the WAC from when I first started following the Conference back in 1997...Hawaii, Fresno State, and San Jose State(who was in their second season). The WAC is just too much of a revolving door conference anymore. 13 schools have left the conference since 1999.

 

[Hasbro]

Here's the deal with Mountain West and Versus/OLN:

The Mountain West used to be with ESPN but signed with CSTV for a boatload of money. Part of that deal was the creation of a sub-network called The Mtn., which will be a 24-hour sports network that carries only Mountain West Sports (everything from football to women's volleyball, etc.).

A couple weeks ago, CSTV signed a deal with Comcast in which each of the two parties would own 50% of The Mtn. Another aspect of that deal was to get OLN/Versus (also owned by Comcast) involved.

So this fall, CSTV will air eight MWC games on its national channel. Eight ADDITIONAL games will air on Versus/OLN national. The OLN football schedule includes some pretty big national matchups like Air Force-BYU. TCU will also be on OLN five times, which is big since TCU could be in contention to crack the BCS this year. A couple of those games are on Thursday nights, which means head-to-head with ESPN's Thursday night game. If TCU is in the mix, that will certainly draw viewers over from ESPN and expose Versus/OLN to a wide array of people.

Versus/OLN will also be broadcasting like 20 basketball games. This will be a good year for that since the MWC will be extremely strong -- kind of like the Missouri Valley was last year.

This is a big step that hopefully leads to larger distribution of OLN/Versus.

The other good thing about this is CSTV broadcasts college hockey, which puts it a step closer to getting air time on Vs. However Air Force is the only MWC school with a hockey program.

 

[ColoradoHockeyFan]

Here's the deal with Mountain West and Versus/OLN:

The Mountain West used to be with ESPN but signed with CSTV for a boatload of money. Part of that deal was the creation of a sub-network called The Mtn., which will be a 24-hour sports network that carries only Mountain West Sports (everything from football to women's volleyball, etc.).

A couple weeks ago, CSTV signed a deal with Comcast in which each of the two parties would own 50% of The Mtn. Another aspect of that deal was to get OLN/Versus (also owned by Comcast) involved.

So this fall, CSTV will air eight MWC games on its national channel. Eight ADDITIONAL games will air on Versus/OLN national. The OLN football schedule includes some pretty big national matchups like Air Force-BYU. TCU will also be on OLN five times, which is big since TCU could be in contention to crack the BCS this year. A couple of those games are on Thursday nights, which means head-to-head with ESPN's Thursday night game. If TCU is in the mix, that will certainly draw viewers over from ESPN and expose Versus/OLN to a wide array of people.

Versus/OLN will also be broadcasting like 20 basketball games. This will be a good year for that since the MWC will be extremely strong -- kind of like the Missouri Valley was last year.

This is a big step that hopefully leads to larger distribution of OLN/Versus.

Now this is indeed starting to sound like a good deal that should help expose Versus a lot more. Good news.

 

[Hasbro]

The WAC used to be my favorite but it's just been purged too death. The MWC carries on the tradition considering all of the teams aside from TCU came from the WAC. Only 3 teams remain in the WAC from when I first started following the Conference back in 1997...Hawaii, Fresno State, and San Jose State(who was in their second season). The WAC is just too much of a revolving door conference anymore. 13 schools have left the conference since 1999.

I still reflexively call the Mountain West the WAC. They should have got to keep the name.

 

[OG6ix]

Versus needs to pick up the MLB package. If not, pick up some Division 1 NCAA sports atleast.

 

[Oilers Chick]

The other good thing about this is CSTV broadcasts college hockey, which puts it a step closer to getting air time on Vs. However Air Force is the only MWC school with a hockey program.

and the only AFA games that CSTV seems to care about carrying is those versus Army. With the Falcons now in the Atlantic Hockey conference, there will be more than just one hockey "military grudge match" this season.

...maybe they'll carry an AFA vs. Holy Cross games for the Crusaders' new "legion of fans".

 

[GKJ]

AFA in the Atlantic Conference? Do they have the funding for travel costs? That's like when the Arizona Cardnals used to be in the NFC East

 

[nashtrash25]

That Utah-Boise State game wil be a nother big national draw.

Hard-core college football fans will definitely be interested in that one.

 

[Hasbro]

AFA in the Atlantic Conference? Do they have the funding for travel costs? That's like when the Arizona Cardnals used to be in the NFC East

Thing is They're the Air Force! If there's a school that has an easy travel in college sports it's them.

Keep in mind out side of nonconference games in Denver and C Springs their shortest trip was to Bemidji anyway, outside of that it was Detroit, Huntsville, Pittsburgh or Buffalo. Outside of the WCHA I don't see what confernce would yeild a demonstrable difference.