The Mountain West Conference officially announced its new media rights deals, with CW joining the returning CBS and FOX. Plus: a lengthy break between the College Football Playoff quarterfinals and semifinals; more methodology changes at Nielsen; and additional sports media news.
Mountain West announces new media deals
The Mountain West Conference on Tuesday announced new media rights deals with CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Nexstar-owned CW and the streaming platform Kiswe. Each of the deals runs through the 2031-32 season, save for the Nexstar deal, which expires a year earlier.
Under the new deal, CBS will carry a combined 35 games across football (15), men’s basketball (18) and women’s basketball (two), with most of those on the CBS Sports Network. FOX will carry 32 games across football (12) and men’s basketball (20) across its broadcast network, FS1 and FS2. The football and men’s basketball championship games will continue to air on FOX and CBS respectively.
New to Mountain West coverage is CW, which will carry a combined 48 games across football (13), men’s basketball (20) and women’s basketball (15). The Mountain West joins the ACC and Pac-12 — which starting this season will feature a number of ex-Mountain West teams — in airing on CW.
Finally, the Kiswe streaming service will operate a new direct-to-subscriber Mountain West app, which will carry all events that are not earmarked for the three other rights partners. Currently, non-revenue Mountain West events stream for free on the conference’s website. The new app, which will be available via the major streaming players, mobile devices and Prime Video, will require a paid subscription.
CFP semis to take place two weeks after quarterfinals
The College Football Playoff semifinals are scheduled to take place nearly two weeks after the quarterfinals next season, it was announced Tuesday, with a full 13 days between the final quarterfinal on January 1 and first semifinal on January 14. As previously announced, the CFP National Championship is set for its latest date yet, Monday, January 25.
The lengthy layoff will repeat itself the following season, with 12 days between the final quarterfinal on January 1 and the first semifinal on January 13. This past season, the semifinals began a week after the quarterfinals ended.
The schedule is a function of the calendar and NFL competition. The CFP schedules its semifinals for a Thursday and Friday because Saturday and Sunday are occupied by the NFL. With New Year’s falling on a Friday this season and a Saturday the year after, scheduling a game for the following Thursday would force teams to play on short rest.
Another notable item in the schedule announcement is that the Sugar Bowl will not take place on New Year’s Day the next two seasons. The game will host the second semifinal this coming season — taking place a full two weeks after New Year’s on January 15 — and then it will host a quarterfinal on New Year’s Eve the following season. Either the Cotton, Peach or Fiesta bowls will fill its post-Rose Bowl timeslot.
Nielsen previews new methodology change
The measurement company Nielsen on Tuesday announced that it will be testing a “new methodology enhancement” focused on co-viewing that will start with Sunday’s Super Bowl and also be used for other “high-profile sports and entertainment live events” during the first half of the year. While the data will not be included in the company’s official viewership estimates at the outset, the plan is to begin doing so the new television season begins in September.
Nielsen described the change as being in “the first phase,” with additional modifications planned for future years. Nielsen has already rolled out considerable changes to its methodology just in the past year, expanding its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets in the lower 48 states and debuting a new methodology in September that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers internal first-party data.
NFL executives have been outspoken in their belief that Nielsen undercounts co-viewing, with the league’s chief data and analytics officer Paul Ballew telling reporters in a preseason conference call that the league planned to work with Nielsen to “accelerate the measurement innovation even further,” specifically suggesting that the company could “deal with some technical deficiencies as it pertains to elements such as co-viewing, especially for big games — what we call tentpole events, like the Super Bowl and Thanksgiving.”
Nielsen said in its announcement that it plans to use smartwatch-style wearable measurement devices to passively track viewing by capturing audio from televisions in use. Data obtained in the pilot program will be available “a few weeks” after the “Big Data + Panel” figures are reported.
Plus: Guthrie, Webber, Hanson, LIV Golf
- NBC “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie will not be part of the network’s Winter Olympics coverage, the network confirmed Tuesday. As most are likely aware, Guthrie’s mother was reported missing on Sunday and foul play is suspected. Guthrie was to co-host Friday’s Opening Ceremony alongside Terry Gannon.
- TNT Sports college basketball analyst Chris Webber will fill-in for Charles Barkley on Saturday’s TNT-produced NBA studio shows on ABC, marking his first appearance on NBA coverage since leaving TNT in 2021. Saturday marks the first time this season that one of the main TNT crew — Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal — will miss a studio assignment.
- NFL “RedZone” host Scott Hanson will host NBC’s “Gold Zone” Olympics coverage during the 2028 Summer Olympics from Los Angeles, NBC confirmed to Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal. Hanson hosted “Gold Zone” for the first time in the 2024 Olympics and will do so again at the Winter Olympics that begins this week.
- Fox Sports said Tuesday that its broadcast network will carry nearly 30 percent more hours of LIV Golf this season than last, part of a nearly 300-hour schedule that begins Wednesday. It would seem that the additional over-the-air hours will be the result of longer telecast windows, as it appeared FOX is carrying the same number of telecasts this season as last year (17).
