I remember, as a kid, looking up "Brigham Young" games in the "Far West" tiny print scores section on the sports page of the newspaper. Maybe our stake would show a game or two on the big satellite dish at a church building. We didn't have cable TV growing up, just OTA channels, like many people then. I may see a bowl game on national TV. Then came the MTN debacle, that at first raised hopes of seeing the team more, but ultimately shackled BYU to an obscure channel that many TV providers did not carry, especially outside the mountain time zone.

Going from that to seeing virtually all the games on a nationally prominent sports channel (except for when we play many G5 teams at their place) is an amazing benefit for a BYU fan outside of Utah! In the past, I would have loved to see something like a BYUTV game broadcast, or even re-broadcast. Now, I am annoyed when it is on BYUTV because of their sub-par log-in experience or DVR capabilities. That is a nice problem to have!

Now add that, in a normal year, I can drive a few hours to see BYU play an away game near me. That game also adds national visibility since it played in the eastern time zone. It is wonderful! Imagine this year, if we had the equivalent of the MTN-type TV coverage. The national conversation and rankings may be very different. *The awesomeness of TV accessibility of independence is one of the aspects that I think unites us in the fan base, regardless of whether we are all fans of independence in general or not. *