ASU game picked up by ABC
(Written by kencraw)
I hadn’t seen much mention of this elsewhere, but the Cal vs. ASU game on 10/4 has been picked up and will be televised by ABC at 12:30 PM. It’s the first ‘traditional’ 12:30 home game for the Bears in a long time. How long… er… look it up yourself!
OK, OK, OK… I’ll do it: It was the 2006 (yes, that’s no typo) Big Game which had a noon kickoff (and as they say in music, that’s good enough for Jazz (meaning ‘close enough’)). The last one actually at 12:30 PM was the 2006 Washingtong game.
Looking more broadly, the next three games have their time set, but we’re still waiting on UCLA, Oregon, Oregon State and Stanford as well as one of two slots for the Washington game that will be televised.
For the UCLA game there is still a 12:30 PM slot available at ABC that will be decided on Monday 10/10 however, that’s also the weekend of the Oregon vs. ASU game so a lot will depend on where those 4 teams are in the standings. If UCLA continues the downward spiral, Cal may be out of luck for the big networks and it may be back on Comcast-West.
For the Oregon game there is both a 12:30 PM ABC slot and a 3:30 PM FSN slot available that will be decided on Monday 10/17. I’m pretty confident Cal will get picked for one of the two. It just matters whether ASU vs. OSU is important enough to get the 12:30 spot over Cal vs. Oregon.
Oregon State has a 12:30 ABC slot and a 7:15 PM FSN slot available. There’s not a lot of good games that weekend and with OSU’s history of upsetting good teams, I think they’ll get picked up, but if either or both teams faulter sufficiently, this would be my guess for the obligatory “radio only” game for 2008.
Stanford is the odd one. While there are no contractual games available through the Pac-10, Cal hasn’t wrapped up a TV contract with CSN-W like they did for other games they didn’t have a contract option for. Does that mean this game won’t be on TV? Seems surprising if that’s the case. Perhaps they’re still in negotiation…
Finally, for Washingon, it’ll either be on FSN at noon or on ESPN(or 2) at 5:00 PM.
Let’s put this in table form shall we:
| Date | Opponent | Current TV | TV Options |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/27 | Col. State | CSN-W @ 12:30 | n/a |
| 10/4 | ASU | ABC @ 12:30 | n/a |
| 10/18 | Arizona | FSN @ 7:15 | n/a |
| 10/25 | UCLA | decision 10/10 | ABC @ 12:30 or ? |
| 11/1 | Oregon | decision 10/17 | ABC @ 12:30 or FSN @ 3:30 or ? |
| 11/8 | USC | ABC @ 5:00 | n/a |
| 11/15 | OSU | decision 11/3 | ABC @ 12:30 or FSN @ 7:15 or ? |
| 11/22 | Big Game | ? | ? |
| 12/6 | UW | guaranteed decision 11/24 | FSN @ 12:00 or ESPN(2) @ 5:00 |
September 26th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
They’ve GOT to keep the trend going! 2 years now without a game NOT being televised?
September 26th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
No, it’s only been a season and a half. The 2006 WSU game wasn’t televised minus the SlingBox’ed to Memorial image. Otherwise, the last untelevised game was fully three years ago, the 2005 Illinios game which was the 3rd game of the season.
I think with the new Comcast-West contract, it’ll be VERY rare for a game not to be televised. There may be a few that get picked up at the last minute when the big-contracts don’t materialize, but I suspect they’ll pick up most of those fall-throughs.
The exception would be when some mitigating factor makes it impossible for Comcast-West to pick it up (can’t be broadcast because of some other contract, CSN-W already has a TV line-up they can’t avoid, etc.)
September 26th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Ahhh I stand corrected. Totally forgot about that game. Strong defensive effort from what I remember.
Thank goodness I got season tickets AND the Direct TV sports pack for the fall…
September 27th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
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