The 2009-2010 College Basketball on Multi-Sports Pack Thread

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of November 23-29, 2009:

Total RSN Games: 42
Games in the Clear: 37
Games Blacked Out: 5
% in the Clear: 88.10%
Total Full Court Games: 12
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 4
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 8


Summary of the results so far this year:

Total RSN Games: 110
Games in the Clear: 88
Games Blacked Out: 22
% in the Clear: 80%
Total Full Court Games: 38
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 18
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 20

This was a very good week in terms of the number of blackouts, which were very small. It wasn't a good week for those looking to pick up ESPN Full Court games in the clear. We are at an even 80% for games shown in the clear. If the SEC games were not shown in the clear like in years past, that percentage would be quite a bit lower. As usual, the Big 12 had quite a few blackouts outside of the states where games were being played, while I think we only had one ACC blackout this week. With college football season winding down other than bowl season, we are going to start seeing a LOT of games on Saturdays.

 

[bschulte]

One of the things I was curious about when starting this thread was how many Full Court games could be seen in the clear on Regional Sports networks. So far it seems to be about half and half, with team-produced games from the Big 12 and one-offs from other conferences/local channels making up the majority of "Full Court only" games. I'll be tracking this with much interest, especially as we get into conference season, which is where I think Full Court always used to shine. It's less useful now that the Big Ten and Mountain West have their own channels (one of which DISH doesn't carry unfortunately) but I won't get into that too much. I sometimes wish I could just pay a fee, however pricey, to just get every college basketball game televised and be able to take my pick. It's a pipe dream, I know, but I can wish!

 

[ehren]

USC/Georgia Tech blacked out and not on Full Court, how stupid!

2 games Sunday are blacked out as well, one on SUN and the other I think is a Clemson game? Both those aren't being carried on Full Court either! What the hell is wrong with ESPN FC?

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of November 30-December 6, 2009 (Week 4):

Total RSN Games: 47
Games in the Clear: 37
Games Blacked Out: 10
% in the Clear: 78.72%
Total Full Court Games: 19
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 9
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 10


Summary of the results through Week 4:

Total RSN Games: 157
Games in the Clear: 125
Games Blacked Out: 32
% in the Clear: 79.62%
Total Full Court Games: 57
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 27
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 30

 

[bschulte]

USC/Georgia Tech blacked out and not on Full Court, how stupid!

2 games Sunday are blacked out as well, one on SUN and the other I think is a Clemson game? Both those aren't being carried on Full Court either! What the hell is wrong with ESPN FC?

Those are ACC games available only in ACC territory.

The people who run ESPN FC choose games for only a few short reasons, the main one being, "Which games among those available to us should we choose to make this package sell?" That's it. And they certainly aren't going to show games specifically because they happen to be eligible to be blacked out.

 

[bschulte]

Virginia at Auburn was blacked out on Monday night on CSN Chicago as well as on the alternate CSN Washington channel. Does anyone have any knowledge of why this would have happened? Typically the only time ACC games have been blacked out has been when the ACC team is the home rather than the visiting team, so I'm trying to get a handle on why a blackout happened in this case.

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of December 7-December 13, 2009 (Week 5):

Total RSN Games: 35
Games in the Clear: 25
Games Blacked Out: 10
% in the Clear: 71.43%
Total Full Court Games: 19
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 6
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 13


Summary of the results through Week 5:

Total RSN Games: 192
Games in the Clear: 150
Games Blacked Out: 42
% in the Clear: 78.13%
Total Full Court Games: 76
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 33
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 43

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of December 14-December 20, 2009 (Week 6):

Total RSN Games: 36
Games in the Clear: 28
Games Blacked Out: 8
% in the Clear: 77.78%
Total Full Court Games: 15
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 6
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 9


Summary of the results through Week 6:

Total RSN Games: 228
Games in the Clear: 178
Games Blacked Out: 50
% in the Clear: 78.07%
Total Full Court Games: 91
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 39
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 5

It was a slower week than most due to college finals. Christmas week will also be a little slow mid-week, but after that we'll be into conference season.

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of December 21-December 27, 2009 (Week 7):

Total RSN Games: 28
Games in the Clear: 24
Games Blacked Out: 4
% in the Clear: 85.71%
Total Full Court Games: 15
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 8
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 7


Summary of the results through Week 7:

Total RSN Games: 256
Games in the Clear: 202
Games Blacked Out: 54
% in the Clear: 78.91%
Total Full Court Games: 106
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 47
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 59

 

[tjguitar]

I'm not at all hopeful about the Raycom produced ACC games, though,

It's my understanding that if you purchase the Superstations pack on Dish ($5.99/month), you'll get Boston's WSBK, which is a Raycom affiliate, then you can get these games without FullCourt. So how badly do you want them? And is that even any cheaper?

 

[dishburgh]

It's my understanding that if you purchase the Superstations pack on Dish ($5.99/month), you'll get Boston's WSBK, which is a Raycom affiliate, then you can get these games without FullCourt. So how badly do you want them? And is that even any cheaper?

You can choose to sub Superstations individually like I do (WSBK - $1.50 /mo.) to get these regional/Raycom/ACC games (Football and Basketball).

 

[bschulte]

You can choose to sub Superstations individually like I do (WSBK - $1.50 /mo.) to get these regional/Raycom/ACC games (Football and Basketball).

Interesting, and a very nice cost effective workaround.

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of December 28, 2009-January 3, 2010 (Week 8):

Total RSN Games: 51
Games in the Clear: 40
Games Blacked Out: 11
% in the Clear: 78.43%
Total Full Court Games: 28
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 15
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 13


Summary of the results through Week 8:

Total RSN Games: 307
Games in the Clear: 242
Games Blacked Out: 65
% in the Clear: 78.83%
Total Full Court Games: 134
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 62
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 72

Sorry! I forgot to post the week 8 totals, and here we are at the end of Week 9. That post will follow shortly.

 

[bschulte]

Summary of results for the week of January 4-January 10, 2010 (Week 9):

Total RSN Games: 67
Games in the Clear: 57
Games Blacked Out: 10
% in the Clear: 85.07%
Total Full Court Games: 33
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 18
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 15


Summary of the results through Week 9:

Total RSN Games: 374
Games in the Clear: 299
Games Blacked Out: 75
% in the Clear: 79.95%
Total Full Court Games: 167
Full Court Games in the Clear on RSNs: 80
Full Court Games Only Available on Full Court: 87

Conference season is in full swing, and if the first week is any kind of barometer, I expect less games to be blacked out than in non-conference season. For one thing, there is no no college football to compete with, leading to more RSns available for college basketball on Saturdays. For another, the main blackouts seemed to occur in the ACC, SEC, and Big 12, and all three seem to have their conference games available from a variety of sources. The Big 12 in particular seems to use Altitude as an affiliate for conference games, with the result that almost all (all?) Big 12 conference games should be able to be seen around the country without blackouts if you use the Multi-Sports Pack.

Stay tuned. As we get a few weeks into conference play, I'm sure patterns will emerge. As it is now, it looks like I can say with quite a bit of confidence that most people subscribing to the Multi-Sports Pack should get around 80% of the games on RSNs outside of their area. In any event, I'll have exact (allowing for some inecitable human error on my part of course!) numbers for everyone at the end of this year. I suspect this is going to be the only year I do this, mainly as a way to satisfy my curiosity. If anyone wants to pick it up next year I'll have no objections.

 

[Marty43]

reminder: ESPN Full Court is in free preview from Jan 9th thru Jan 15. though some blackouts still exist, if you are in ACC or SEC territory Full court may be blacked out. The games should be available locally.

 

[hallrk]

I noticed a couple of odd games blacked out for me over the weekend. I can't remember the specific games but one was a Mid American game and the other a Big West game. Didn't matter to me since I would not have watched either. But I found it kinda odd to be blacked out for these two games in the DC area.

 

[bschulte]

I noticed a couple of odd games blacked out for me over the weekend. I can't remember the specific games but one was a Mid American game and the other a Big West game. Didn't matter to me since I would not have watched either. But I found it kinda odd to be blacked out for these two games in the DC area.

hallrk,

I noticed this as well. I think the MAC game was Central Michigan-Toledo. I noticed that was also a Full Court game, so I wonder if the decision was made to "protect" the Full Court airing of this outside of the FS Ohio and FS Cincinnati RSNs. I'm not aware of any MAC blackout policy, but maybe they have one.

The other one was CS-Fullerton vs. UC-Riverside in a Big West matchup. Does anyone know what the Big West's blackout policies are? Obviously it looks like they have one or FS West has one with regards to their games. I do know they have an ESPN contract, so it's possible they agreed to have some games on nationally with the concession that local and regional games are blacked out outside of Big West "territory", whatever that is defined as. ESPN has done this with a number of conferences to prevent them from launching their own conference network or from joining with other conferences to start a multiple-conference "super network".

 

[tjguitar]

Its my understanding that Big West and WCC games are blacked outside of their respective territories.

Yet, teh CSN California games of St Marys, Santa Clara, USF etc have not been blacked out for you?

I guess we'll see with tonights Santa Clara- LMU game on Prime Ticket. Maybe its just the Big West that si subject to blackout, but not the WCC?


The FSN Big West games were not blacked out until the ESPNU contract a few years ago.

Big West territory would be California only, but I believe the games are allowed to be aired wherever FSN West is considered the local RSN, which I think includes Nevada and Hawaii, in addition to Southern California. I'm not sure if the Big West FSN games get blacked out in Northern California - because a few of the teams are from up there. Maybe FSN only shows the SoCal teams but I'm not sure.

 

[Mr Tony]

hallrk,

I noticed this as well. I think the MAC game was Central Michigan-Toledo. I noticed that was also a Full Court game, so I wonder if the decision was made to "protect" the Full Court airing of this outside of the FS Ohio and FS Cincinnati RSNs. I'm not aware of any MAC blackout policy, but maybe they have one.

if its on Full Court its blacked out of the RSN's for outside the area (they want you to get full court). It would be on in the local RSN areas

 

[commodore_dude]

if its on Full Court its blacked out of the RSN's for outside the area (they want you to get full court). It would be on in the local RSN areas

This seems to be a mixed bag. I have yet to have any Big East Network broadcast be blacked out for me on MASN, SNY etc, but FSN Ohio is blacked out for Toledo @ Ball State right now. The odd thing is it isn't blacked out on the FSN Indiana alternate (447).