Someone should have seen the Mountain West Conference’s latest TV flap coming in the first week of September.
At that time, CSTV agreed to simulcast the Colorado-Colorado State game on Versus to give everyone in the state with cable a chance to see the rivalry. Another factor was the Big 12 only pays members a TV incentive for nonleague games if broadcast to a minimum number of homes, and CSTV did not qualify.
Also at the time, CSTV officials insisted there would be no network venue change for the biggest attraction in CSTV’s Mountain West inventory, Saturday’s Notre Dame-Air Force game.
It turns out CSTV isn’t available on cable in South Bend, Ind., not to mention the Mountain West’s own big cities: San Diego and Las Vegas.
The game is available throughout Colorado, however. It also will be shown on pay-per-view broadband streaming ($14.95 in advance, $19.95 game day), but that’s a steep price in South Bend, where the Fighting Irish have been on a major traditional network or ESPN for 169 consecutive games.
“The phone has been ringing off the hook,” Notre Dame spokesman Brian Hardin said. Mostly, he said, school officials have to explain the TV deal is not Notre Dame’s doing. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be a conference of one, like Notre Dame, and its unique television/BCS status.
Referring to the Big 12 incentive that played a part in moving the CU-CSU game, CSTV Networks spokesman Keith Marder said Tuesday, “Notre Dame doesn’t have a deal like that.”
CSTV, usually a digital or sports packages upgrade when available on a cable system, offered its affiliates free upgrades for Notre Dame-Air Force. But distributors can’t upgrade when they don’t have CSTV in the first place.
Before anyone gets too nostalgic for the ESPN days, the Western Athletic Conference is living out what would have happened if the MWC remained on ESPN. In a purely spiteful move, ESPN pulled the plug on Saturday’s San Jose State-Boise State telecast because the WAC wouldn’t move the Thanksgiving weekend Boise State-Nevada game from Saturday to Friday, even to replace a dreadful Fresno State-Louisiana Tech pairing.
“We don’t think that is fair to Fresno State-Louisiana Tech to dump the game regardless of how unattractive it is,” WAC commissioner Karl Benson said in an e-mail Tuesday.
TD upheld, again
MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said Tuesday on the weekly teleconference he watched the BYU-Colorado State game and Fui Vakapuna’s disputed 5-yard scoring run.
Vakapuna was tackled, came down on top of a pile of players around the 2, then surged in for the score. The ball was marked at the 2 but the instant replay showed the play was never blown dead before Vakapuna’s second effort.
“I was screaming at the TV. If it was not a touchdown, the first call (to the officials) would have been from me,” Thompson said. “It was clearly a touchdown.”
Footnotes
San Diego State coach Chuck Long will use redshirt freshman Kevin Craft and senior Kevin O’Connell at quarterback Saturday in the battle for the cellar with UNLV. … Sometimes there’s a positive to the limited exposure by The Mtn. network. BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall, suffering with a stomach flu on the sideline Saturday, said, “When you’re caught on national TV throwing up, it’s humbling.” Mendenhall didn’t realize The Mtn. isn’t distributed throughout the Mountain West, let alone a national audience.
Staff writer Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
