Just as the Mountain West Conference is counting the days left on its ESPN contract, a bombshell hit Tuesday via the financial news wires.
Bloomberg News reported negotiations are underway for CBS to buy College Sports TV, which holds MWC broadcasting rights starting with the 2006-07 academic year.
“It’s a viable news story,” MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said on the league’s conference call. “Does that mean the Mountain West (games) will be on CBS, followed by the SEC, or vice versa?
“If this sale goes through, that is a possibility. The bottom line is it’s in consideration, but no deal has been struck.”
Thompson said such a deal would be “very positive potentially” for the MWC.
CSTV, a fledgling cable network, also has planned on a regional network devoted to the MWC’s nine members. Its assets also include 250 college and conference websites. CBS’ major- college sports properties include contracts to televise Southeastern Conference games and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. CSTV and CBS Sportsline.com have a joint venture in which CSTV has webcast rights to early-round games in the NCAA Tournament not shown in a local TV market.
CSU-TCU in spotlight
The five MWC coaches whose football teams already have played Colorado State and Texas Christian wouldn’t predict a winner for Saturday night’s showdown in Fort Worth, but they expect a great game.
“TCU is at their place and that’s a big advantage, but CSU is a football team you can never count out,” Utah’s Kyle Whittingham said. “If you play at TCU with that climate, I think you want to do it in November, not September.”
The Utes were sapped by the mid-September humidity in a 23-20 overtime loss at TCU.
Brigham Young’s Bronco Mendenhall, whose team took TCU into overtime before losing 51-50 and later defeated CSU 24-14, said focusing on TCU’s speed can be misleading.
“To say they are not physical would be a huge (misstatement),” he said, adding that the Cougars had nine players injured in their game against TCU.
Said New Mexico’s Rocky Long, whose team is coming off a 35-25 loss to the Rams: “CSU is starting to play like CSU’s teams of the past. TCU has played with a lot of confidence. It’s going to be a great game.”
Air Force’s Fisher DeBerry and Wyoming’s Joe Glenn pointed to CSU’s edge in big-play capability in the passing game while giving TCU an edge in overall team speed.
Air Force and Wyoming both went 0-2 against CSU and TCU.
Footnotes
TCU (8-1) already is assured of a bowl berth; CSU (5-3) and New Mexico (5-4) need one more victory for bowl eligibility. BYU (4-4), Utah (4-4) and Wyoming (4-4) play each other this month and need two wins to be bowl-eligible. Whittingham said he thinks an MWC team other than TCU will need a 7-4 record to secure a bowl berth. … BYU’s 62-41 victory over Air Force on Saturday was the highest-scoring game in MWC history.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
