Fox Sports 1 Update

[NovaBall]

Who cares who built whom? We owe no loyalty to ESPN moving forward. FOX is far and away the better media partner for the growth of the new big east moving forward. Time for the big east to grow with FOX instead of be smothered by ESPN.

[NJRedman]

ESPN was literally in a trailer airing darts and D level sports when the big east came along. They were not airing the ACC and Big Ten then.

[stever20]

ESPN was literally in a trailer airing darts and D level sports when the big east came along. They were not airing the ACC and Big Ten then.

They aired some of the 1980 NCAA tourney, which was 6 months after they launched.

Also, according to Wiki, they absolutely did air the ACC and Big Ten:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... properties
ACC : 1979–2027
Big Ten: 1979–2017

[NJRedman]

This is why i love our deal with Fox, and it's not just the large sum of money either. I sat in my home in LA and watched Bill Raftery and Kenny Albert call the St. John's/Wagner game on national TV. Thats a game buried on SNY if it's even aired at all 4 or more years ago. The fact I can watch these early season chump games in LA without having to buy some crazy TV package is amazing. ESPN would NEVER give us that.

[billyjack]

ESPN was literally in a trailer airing darts and D level sports when the big east came along. They were not airing the ACC and Big Ten then.

They aired some of the 1980 NCAA tourney, which was 6 months after they launched.

Also, according to Wiki, they absolutely did air the ACC and Big Ten:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... properties
ACC : 1979–2027
Big Ten: 1979–2017

Ok, so back in 1980 or so, there were only a few early round NCAA games that were televised nationally. NBC would show several national games on the weekend, but they would be like UCLA and the big names only, until you reached the Elite-8. Even then, you didn't have access to each game. The exception was if a local team was playing early round, then your local VHF station would carry the game.

So in 1978, our local affiliate in Providence televised the Friars-Michigan State game and the Duke-URI game. For any other early round games, occasionally local UHF stations would buy the feed of other random early round game that might have a smidge of local interest. Otherwise, most games were completely unavailable. To get a score, we'd have to wait til the 11pm local news sports, or we would often call the Providence Journal sports department, where some grouchy lady would allow us to ask for 3 scores only.

So, in 1979, the Sweet 16 game between Syracuse and Penn wasn't televised on NBC in Providence, but luckily was picked up by UHF Channel 27 out of Worcester. This required us to twist the UHF dial like a safecracker to pick up the station, but it would be a snowy, staticky feed. (on a side note, we also got the staticky feed anytime we watched Bruins games on Boston's TV-38, and could never find the puck).

Anyway, Channel 27 didn't have their own crew sent to the Syracuse-Penn game. Instead it was probably NBC or the Syracuse announcers, and Channel 27 picked up their feed. In the same way, I think ESPN would pick up random game feeds. They wouldn't send out their own crews. I think, I'm going by memory here. We didnt get cable in my town til 1983 (what do you think, i lived in some fancy place like Cranston?). I think it wasn't til their Big East contract that they went all out with their own crews. Even then, Gavitt had to spoonfeed ESPN, where he himself would do play by play or color. I think that's the difference here.

I'm guessing the ESPN's Big Ten and ACC coverage referenced in the wiki link was also just ESPN picking up local ACC feeds and putting it on their satellite. I looked for the answer but couldn't find anything definite.

The wiki link also has holes, like it doesn't say anything about ESPN covering Aussie Rules Football early on, but I remember watching Aussie games in the 80's. Who can forget those great Geelong vs Collington matchups.

Anyway, this is an interesting discussion. Full wall-to-wall NCAA Tourney coverage didn't happen til past the late 80's. We didn't get the 1989 Georgetown-Princeton game televised, though it was played at the sold out Dunk. The 1986 Brown-Syracuse game wasn't shown live on any Providence station.

Anyhoo, I've written too long of a post here.

[NovaBall]

This is why i love our deal with Fox, and it's not just the large sum of money either. I sat in my home in LA and watched Bill Raftery and Kenny Albert call the St. John's/Wagner game on national TV. Thats a game buried on SNY if it's even aired at all 4 or more years ago. The fact I can watch these early season chump games in LA without having to buy some crazy TV package is amazing. ESPN would NEVER give us that.

Exactly. There are some haters who will sit back and laugh at the low ratings that nova v Farleigh Dickerson will receive. But as a nova fan I am amazed a game like this is even televised at all. Fox is the best!

I remember the days I grew up in northern new engkand rooting for providence. I had to order the providence journal which arrived a day late so I could follow the rick Barnes PC team of the early 1990's just to see the boxscore. The number of games actually televised were not that many. Now every one of the games are aired. Even thinking back 10-14 years ago when I lived in Boston I was only able to catch about a third of Villanova's games. Now I'm tivo'ing games against farleigndickerson. Amazing.

[NovaBall]

I, looking at my channel guide to see what college hoops games are available to me today. Almost half are big east games. Gtown, shu, providence, creighton and DePaul. The only other games on any type of television for me are ucla, Oregon, Baylor, Oklahoma state, Texas tech and hawaii.

Coincidentally, the other games except for hawaii are pretty much all courtesy of fox sports as well.

[NovaBall]

The fact that seton hall v Dartmouth is televised today is amazing.

Fox is so much better than ESPN.

[novahoops11]

3 of 5 Big East games in glorious HD today. Meanwhile I went looking for the Nebraska game to preview the Huskers, and found that in order to watch it I have to pay ten bucks for streaming video on my computer.

[NovaBall]

The dunk looks fantastic in this glorious HD broadcast by fox sports. Brought right to my living room thousands of miles away from chilly New England. Dunn looks fantastic, but he can't do it alone. I love the look of providence's court, looks nice and clean on the glorious fox broadcast.

Thanks again to fox sports for delivering my desired content into my living room. Fox is the best.