Louisiana Tech game to be televised on Comcast Sports Network
The Cal Athletic Department has announced that a TV contract for the game vs. Louisiana Tech on Sept. 15th will be televised on the Comcast Sports Network. Now all 3 of Cal’s non-conference games have TV contracts. In addition to that being good news for the number of games televised, we also get a game time, set for 3:30 PM.
As a reminder, here’s the Cal TV schedule (all times Pacific):
- 9/1 Tennessee, ABC 5:00 PM
- 9/8 @Colorado St., CSTV 11:00 AM
- 9/15 Louisiana Tech., CSN 3:30 PM
- 10/27 @ASU, FSN 7:00 PM
- 11/3 WSU, FSN 7:00 PM
- 11/10 USC, ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 5:00 PM
- 12/1 @Stanford, Versus 4:00 PM
We can say with some confidence that there won’t be any more TV announcements between now and when the season starts. Now that ABC/ESPN and FSN (and Versus by proxy) have made their pre-season selections (they make additional ones mid-season), the only thing left to wait on was non-conference games, which have more contractual scheduling flexibility to schedule outside of our Pac-10 contracts. The Louisiana Tech. game was the last non-conference game to schedule so now we done until the mid-season selections.
Or at least that’s the way I understand it…
To understand those mid-season selections by ABC/ESPN and FSN/Versus, I went to the official Pac-10 TV schedule where they list the selections still to be made. Here is a list of each game remaining and the mid-season selections to be made:
- 9/22 Arizona: FSN and Versus (have a selection)
- 9/29 @Oregon: ABC/ESPN and FSN
- 10/13 OSU: ABC/ESPN, FSN and Versus
- 10/20 @UCLA: ABC/ESPN
- 11/17 @Washington: ABC/ESPN
To my eye, the week that is a big risk for not having a televised game is @Washington. The 3 early games all have multiple television options and look like compelling enough games to get picked up by one of them (Arizona=revenge (I guess FSN), Oregon is always a big deal (ABC), OSU will likely be strong this year (ABC)). Additionally, I’m pretty confident that SOMEBODY will televise the Cal vs. UCLA game and I think has the inside track on the ABC selection (the other options are Stanford at Arizona or Oregon at Washington). That leaves Washington as the weak spot. The good news for the Washington game is that, looking at the Pac-10 game schedule, there is only one competing game: Oregon St. at Washington St., a similarly unattractive game for a TV network. Nevertheless, it’s a concerning week with few options on a game that is likely to have low amounts of hype.
The week of 11/17 might be a good time to make a trip to Washington…