Campus Clips: Mid-American Conference Nets Regional Deal with Time Warner Cable; CBS Sports to Broadcast Mountain West Football Championship
Story Highlights
Compiled by Brandon Costa, Senior Editor, Sports Video Group
The Mid-American Conference (MAC) announced a new regional television agreement with Time Warner Cable Sports which makes Time Warner Cable SportsChannel the exclusive home of MAC sports in Ohio and western and central New York. Live games and extensive non-game programming will air on the network and selected programming will be available nationally on Time Warner Cable Video On Demand, as well as ESPN3, the Watch ESPN app and the official Mid-American Conference Web site www.mac-sports.com…
…CBS Sports has signed a multi-year deal to broadcast the Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game. CBS Sports will broadcast the inaugural title match-up live on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 10 p.m. ET from the home stadium of the regular-season Mountain West divisional champion with the highest BCS ranking…
…The America East Conference launched its new logo, look, and brand identity, the culmination of a yearlong process that examined the conference’s position within the collegiate sports landscape, with the aim of articulating a renewed direction for the conference and its member institutions…
…Football season is yet to kick off but many networks are already setting their eyes toward basketball season, announcing their game schedules.
ESPN’s 2013-14 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) men’s college basketball regular-season schedule will feature 130 conference games across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3. It marks the most ACC conference-controlled games on the ESPN networks in a season and an increase over 106 contests last year. The 2013-14 lineup includes the addition of new conference members Notre Dame, Pitt and Syracuse.
ESPN’s 2013-14 American Athletic Conference men’s college basketball regular-season schedule will feature 63 conference games across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS. The 10-member conference includes Cincinnati, UConn, Louisville, Rutgers and USF, plus first-year members UCF, Houston, Memphis, SMU and Temple. ESPN and the American Athletic Conference enter into the first year of a wide-ranging, multiyear rights agreement. The deal grants ESPN exclusive worldwide distribution rights across all media for football, men’s basketball and select women’s basketball and Olympic sports through 2019-20 – starting with the 2013-14 basketball season.
In the meantime, ESPN unloaded some AAC inventory. CBS Sports Network has acquired the rights to broadcast a select number of men’s basketball and college football games from the American Athletic Conference. The agreement between the network and ESPN, will allows CBS Sports Network to broadcast 30 men’s basketball games per year except for the first year of the deal, which calls for 25 games in the 2013-14 season. In football, the deal allows the network to telecast a minimum of 13 and a maximum of 15 football games starting in 2014.
ESPN and the Southeastern Conference announced its 2014 men’s college basketball regular-season schedule for ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 and ESPN Regional Television produced games on the regionally syndicated SEC Network. ESPN, the exclusive national cable home and syndication rightsholder for the SEC, will offer 120 conference-controlled regular-season games across the platforms. ESPN and ESPNU will combine to televise two SEC games every Tuesday during conference play, including the return of the popular Super Tuesday series featuring an SEC-Big Ten doubleheader. In addition, ESPN or ESPN2 will showcase an SEC matchup every Thursday while Saturday’s will include at least one game on ESPNU and ESPN or ESPN2.
Raycom Sports unveiled the syndication schedule of ACC Men’s basketball games for the 2013-2014 season on the ACC Network. The games are syndicated to 90 markets across 33 states. In addition to the ACC geographic footprint, games will air in cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver and Cleveland. In a partnership with the ACC, Raycom operates the ACC Network, which distributes ACC content through live television broadcasting, original programming via digital technologies, historical archives, mobile applications, social media, ACC Championship events and the official ACC website…
…The ACC Digital Network (ACCDN) added former Miami Running Back Clinton Portis and former Notre Dame Lineman Renaldo Wynn to the ACCDN broadcast team. The two decorated former college and NFL athletes will join host Jeff Fischel in bringing fans insight, features and exclusive interviews as part of the ACC Digital Network’s extensive sports coverage of the ACC…
…New England College Athletics has partnered with Stretch Internet as the exclusive home of live video streaming for Pilgrim Athletics. New England College will stream all 25 of their fall athletic games and a majority of their winter and spring games free of charge through athletics.nec.edu. All games will be available through a custom build GameCentral portal that will give fans of New England College Athletics a viewing experience like never before. The partnership will also including live stats through the portal, blogging and chat features and a versatile mobile streaming application. For fans who can’t watch the game live there is an archiving feature that will allow the opportunity to watch events on-demand. New England College will unveil the streaming feature on Saturday, August 31 as the men’s soccer team will host non-conference opponent Nichols College. Live video links will be available on each sports’ schedule page and on the NEC Athletics home page on game days…
…ESPN Regional Television (ERT), a subsidiary of ESPN, made moves on two bowl games this month. ERT announced the creation of the Camellia Bowl which will match-up the Sun Belt Conference against the Mid-American Conference (MAC) beginning in December 2014. The game will be played yearly at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., before the Christmas holiday and be televised nationally on ESPN or ESPN2. ERT has also agreed in principle to acquire the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl from the Humanitarian Bowl, Inc. The 17th annual game will be played on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN…
…Cornell College Athletics released a free mobile iOS application available for iPad and iPhones…
…The Peach Belt Conference, in partnership with PrestoSports, launched a redesigned conference website…
…The Midwest Conference (MWC) also debuted a complete redesign of its website, midwestconference.org. In collaboration with SIDEARM Sports, the official conference website has a new sleek design that will focus on the league’s social media innovations…
…Saint Joseph’s University and Swarthmore College also debuted new athletic websites.
