I contacted Javan Hedlund (Associate Director of Communications of the Mountain West Conference), this week to get some clarification on a few questions about the mtn which have come up with regularity this week:

Why did the MWC go with CSTV? What does this mean to BYU and other schools in the conference?

Will BYU fans outside of Utah be able to watch BYU? And, as a corollary to this question, what are the options for BYU fans to watch BYU if they live in another MWC region, and that region's team has a game which overlaps with BYU's?

Mr. Hedlund was gracious enough to respond, even with the hundreds of other emails he must be getting this week in addition to his other responsibilities.

I told him that I would try and distribute this post to as many BYU fans as possible to try and get the real story out (and to try and cut down on his workload of answering so many emails), so please feel free to link or cut and paste this post in emails or posts on other message boards throughout the conference. If you'd note that this came from Jiminy Cricket of www.Cougarboard.com whereever you post it, that should cut down on people contacting Mr. Hedlund to try and confirm it is legitimate (I would be happy to correspond to anyone who doubts the veracity of this post, so please don't bug Mr. Hedlund about confirming my post--I am trying to lessen his workload, not add to it ). Mr. Hedlund confirmed a lot of facts, but the analysis is strictly mine, so any mistakes in this post are no fault of his.

It is good to remember that staying on ESPN would have likely meant the death of the MWC as a viable Division 1A league.

The MWC didn't leave ESPN because they wanted to be visionary. They left because there was nothing for the MWC at ESPN anymore.

Our old TV contract was quite good (thanks to the negotiations of Rondo Fehlberg, BYU's ex-Athletic Director) with good money, good TV slots, and a place of respect in the ESPN lineup. (According to the Daily Herald, the Mountain West Conference was making about $7 million/yr under our old contract, and we all remember the premium Thursday evening time slots and coveted Saturday timeslots on ESPN and ESPN2).

The new contract ESPN was offering, however, had none of those things. The WAC signed a TV contract with ESPN last year, and do you know what they are making? Around $1 million per year...for the entire league. Does anyone really think that ESPN would value us 6x more than the WAC, especially when they already have 4 other major conferences in their stable?

The Thursday night timeslots on ESPN? Gone to the ACC. The coveted Saturday timeslots on ESPN/ESPN2? Gone to the Big 10 and others. Our timeslots for football--instead of the old days when we were on in primetime and at noon on Saturday--would have been 10AM or 8-9PM. Basketball would still have had been relegated to the junky Big Monday timeslot of 10PM.

In addition, we were already being pushed down to ESPN+, ESPNU, and ESPN Classic under the old contract...does anyone think our TV options would have improved?

ESPN thought they had us over a barrel, and were planning on using the MWC as a schedule filler on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and using us to bring value to their lower value channels like ESPN Classic and ESPNU.

Our conference went into negotiations with ESPN in good faith, and came out of those meetings with a figuritive slap in the face: much less money, worse timeslots, awful midweek games with fewer broadcasts overall, and much less exposure for the MWC. In effect, ESPN told the MWC to lick their boots, and then asked for a thank you for the privilege.

So, it was into this dire situation that our White Knight, CSTV, came.

Dave Checketts, CEO of Sportswest, partnered with Brian Bedol, founder of ESPN Classic, to create CSTV to not only save BYU and the MWC, but also to do it in a revolutionary way (Checketts has since sold his interest in the network, while Bedol continues as CEO of CSTV after they were bought by CBS).

The new deal with CSTV provides football games on OLN, CSTV and The mtn., along with video streaming of almost all sports (golf, swimming and track excepted, which would be very difficult to stream). The mtn. will also provide television opportunities for sports like soccer, volleyball, baseball and softball (a huge boon for recruiting in those sports). In all, the CSTV-affiliated networks will broadcast more than 200 non-revenue sports events, 36 football games, and 150 men's and women's basketball games (numbers from The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin) .

In addition to greatly improved exposure for the league's entire athletic offerings, thanks to CSTV we also increased our rights fees around 50%. Instead of $7 million per year, we now have a 7 year/$82 million dollar contract (from the Casper Star-Tribune); and, thanks to this, we will remain a viable Division 1A league. CSTV/The.mtn was a lifeline, and we owe CSTV a debt of gratitude.

But what about watching BYU, you say? Glad you asked.

According to Mr. Hedlund, "The deal signed yesterday provides cable subscribers with Comcast to get both CSTV and The mtn. this coming fall. It does not mean that CSTV and The mtn. will only be on Comcast. The expectation of the league is that both networks will be available on several cable operators, including Cox, Time Warner, Charter, Cable One, etc., by Sept. 1.

"The conference also expects CSTV and The mtn. to be available on both Dish and DirecTV by Sept. 1." Mr. Hedlund also noted that he personally is a DirecTV subscriber, and he has taken no steps to change.

Of particular concern to BYU fans, who inhabit all of the MWC markets (in addition to being in non-MWC regions), I asked Mr. Hedlund what were the chances of BYU fans in non-Utah markets being able to watch BYU football this fall--particularly when that region's team has a game which overlaps with BYU's. In other words, if a BYU fan in San Diego wants to watch BYU at noon, but SDSU also has a game on at that time, what does that mean?

His answer was as follows:

"There is a possibility for a pay-per-view package like ESPN GamePlan. Since the new deal with Comcast just came down yesterday, those deals are in the works.

"The mtn. will be similar to the NFL on Sundays. Fans in Salt Lake will see Utah or BYU, while those in San Diego will see SDSU and in Albuquerque they will see New Mexico. Comcast will also have the opportunity to show the local game on the mtn., while placing the overlapping game on another public access channel (ie, channel 6 here in Colorado Springs). Therefore, both games would be shown in a market."

My guess is that it is with issues like this where the partnership with Comcast will pay particular dividends, as it will be in their best interest to make alternate feeds available.

In conclusion, Mr. Hedlund asked me to communicate to the BYU fanbase that this CSTV/the mtn agreement is much better than anything we could have gotten from ESPN, and that the Conference offices are well aware of the passion which BYU fans have for our athletic teams, and that the best way we can contribute to making this transition a success is to continue emailing our cable providers about carrying the mtn.