MVFC and ESPN

Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:03 am

http://www.valley-football.org/news/def ... agreement/

Essentially just announcing that ESPN is continuing the agreement with the MVFC that they had last year (broadcasting nearly every home game for all conference members on ESPN3) through 2023. They had 49 MVFC games last year and plan to have 50+ starting this next year. Considering there were, I think, 2 conference games that weren't on ESPN3 this year, it seems like the plan is just to have every conference game on ESPN3, as well as a large number of non-conference games (probably nearly all or all of the home games).

rocki · Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:17 am

Really liking this. Nice to be able to be at work and tune in on the computers and catch tidbits now and then.

So looking forward to this season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BobLovely · Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:25 am

Great to see however, it would be nice to see some the big MVFC games on one of their cable channels. Infinitely more interesting than some of the low level FBS games they do broadcast...

Mon Feb 01, 2016 11:40 am

BobLovely wrote:Great to see however, it would be nice to see some the big MVFC games on one of their cable channels. Infinitely more interesting than some of the low level FBS games they do broadcast...

It would be nice, but it's only going to happen in very rare instances.
They've started doing the FCS Kickoff that happens a week before the regular season usually starts between two top FCS programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCS_Kickoff
NDSU was in the one last season.
Also, some of the FCS playoff games are on ESPNU or ESPN2.

Otherwise, FCS games don't really warrant a blip on the radar as compared to most FBS games. In terms of the playoffs, I don't know what the ratings were for the championship game this year, but last year (2014 season), the NDSU/ISU championship game was up to 1.4 million viewers on ESPN2 (up 16% from the previous year) and had roughly the same ratings as that year's Idaho Potato Bowl or GoDaddy Bowl, and beat out the Camellia Bowl and Miami Beach Bowl: http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college ... ratings/2/
All the other bowls were higher, and that was a hugely interesting championship game involving a very heavily supported (for FCS) team.

I'd also love to see more FCS games make it on the "big" channels", but at this point, the viewing numbers don't really support it other than the occasional NDSU or Montana game in special situations.

ibleedpurpleandgold · Mon Feb 01, 2016 12:05 pm

I hate this for home games makes the games take forever.