This is bull (no offense).

-The channel will now be AVAILABLE. Meaning those who WANT to watch it CAN.
-It's not like people everywhere were clamoring to watch MWC sports when we were on ESPN.
-This SHOULD be FAR more accessible than MOST of the games would have been on ESPN, at least for non-regional folks.


I'm sure, had we stayed on ESPN, the football games would still have been picked up by KSL where possible. The basketball games, however, would have been on ESPNU or ESPN360. I don't know that I've even SEEN those channels anywhere.

Throw on top of that the fact that MOST of the games are on Saturdays, with a few on Thursday, and all at fairly reasonable times, and I can't see how ANYONE wouldn't be excited about the chance for the Mtn to be available nation-wide on a DirecTV Sports Package...

Thousands of people will be thrilled and happy over this deal. The same thousands will watch the channel.

The Mtn is so small-potatoes, that it is really hard to fathom. Almost NO ONE will watch it, assuming it is on the sports package tier. This is basically ESPN game plan, except slightly cheaper.

I will be one of those thousands! Plus you can go to any sports bar and catch the game.

What makes you think anyone cared about BYU when they were on ESPN? The only time they got serious attention was when they played Penn State, Florida State or Miami on ESPN. IOW, it wasn't BYU they were interested in, it was the fans of the team they were playing.

The other appearances on ESPN versus AFA, SDSU and so forth just didn't get anyone outside of the MWC footprint all that excited.

exposure, exposure, exposure.

When you are the only football game on TV, you get exposure (i.e. Thursday night ESPN games back in the day).

More college football fans today are familiar with Boise St., than they are BYU.

How is this different from the Big 10 situation? The deal is supposed to cater to the fans of the conference. National publicity is secondary. The conference was dying a slow and painful death and only a select few were able to witness it. Now fans of the 9 schools will be able to see it all over the country. The fact that other fans looking for a game can now check us out too is just a bonus.

Tens of thousands, even. Maybe it'll even border on the hundreds of thousands.


Don't overestimate BYU's appeal nationwide. Whether we're on this deal or on ESPN, the same number of people will be interested in seeing the game.

What this gives us, is AVAILABILITY for those who ARE interested. And that's the important thing.

The difference is that the top Big 10 games get the same exposure they have always gotten. It's the crap games that go to the Big 10 channel.

It's not like all Big 10 home games are on the Big 10 channel. Far from it. In direct contrast to this MTN deal.

The Mtn deal is probably a big win for the SDSU's and the New Mexico's, but it is a loser deal for BYU.

It's funny that we complained about bad start times and games on Thursdays. Now we still have bad start times and games on Thursdays. Except they are on channels no one sees.

Exactly. And this deal makes the games available for people to watch. Far more so, IMO, than would have been so on ESPN.

Will there be competition? Absolutely - it's unavoidable these days. But the fact that it's AVAILABLE is going to go a LONG ways. There'll be people flipping channels who stumble upon the Mtn, and decide to watch awhile.