Man, this MUST be the year that Cal got the short straw in TV coverage.  Not only will the road game versus Colorado St. be on CSTV, the Big Game will be on Versus.  It’s hard to say which is a worse TV package.  I know for me, I get Versus but will have to pay a package upgrade fee to get CSTV.  From the sounds of it, Versus is included in a lot more cable packages that CSTV.  On the other hand, if you’ve been reading my Americas Cup blog entries you’d know that Versus gets extra points from me for covering my beloved sailing events.  At the same time, CSTV at least is a channel that focuses on college sports unlike Versus which covers everything from sailing to the Premier Darts League and in fairness to Versus, playoff NHL hockey.

Speaking of which, every Cal fan really needs to read SFGate’s editorial about the Big Game TV deal.  Here are a couple of the highlights from it:

• “It televises the Louis Vuitton Cup, which is either a yacht race or a competition among airport baggage handlers.”  (Of course all my readers know it is the lead-up to the Americas Cup.)
• “The Versus series “Holy @#%*!” is not a religious program but rather a roundup of “snowmobile crashes, rodeo wrecks, bungee-jumping disasters and skydiving mishaps.” Stanford football highlights could be added to that mix, depending.”  (A well played shot if there ever was one)
• “Cal supporters should remember that the Big Game isn’t exactly a dream matchup for much of America, although some viewers might be drawn in by the Stanford Band’s halftime ‘Salute to Bungee Jumping Disasters.'” (Another good shot!)

Finally, although the Versus/Big Game deal makes the headlines, two other games got standard issue TV deals announced.  The game at ASU will be on FSN at 7:00 PM and the WSU game in Berkeley will also be on FSN at 7:00 PM.  Personally, I think I might revise my ASU game prediction with the new late start time… I think that works in Cal’s favor.

So, to sumerize, here is the current list of Cal Bear games on TV:

• Tennessee – 9/1 @ 5:00 PM on ABC
• @Colorado St. – 9/8 @ 11:00 AM on CSTV
• @ASU – 10/27 @ 7:00 PM on FSN
• WSU – 11/3 @ 7:00 PM on FSN
• USC – 11/10 @ 5:00 PM on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2
• @Stanford – 12/1 @ 4:00 PM on Versus

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Sports, Sports - Cal Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.