Conference USA has agreed to a new five-year media partnership with ESPN and CBS Sports that will see the league continue to air football and basketball games with its previous partners with one noticeable shift: the conference’s football games in the month of October will primarily be played on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
The move mirrors what the Mid-American Conference calls “MACtion” during the month of November when it plays the majority of it’s conference schedule on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for increased national exposure.
“Obviously, revenue is important, but what kept coming up with our membership was exposure,” Conference USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod told Sports Business Journal. “How do we maximize our potential and move forward? … This is our chance to prove ourselves and then hopefully we’ll go back to the market (in five years) and increase our value.”
CBS secured the “tier one” rights for the conference, giving it the selection of 18 football and basketball games throughout the season. Additionally, CBS will air the conference’s football championship game, the men’s basketball tournament championship game, and the women’s basketball tournament semifinals and finals.
“We really liked is there are championships involved here,” said CBS Sports Executive Vice President of Programming Dan Weinberg. “That’s always the goal at CBS Sports to crown champions, and we’ve got several in this deal. … Another point that we liked was the deal retains our status as the league’s primary partner.”
The conference’s mid-week football games will be shared between the ESPN trio of ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU, while CBS will air its portion of games on CBS Sports Network. Sources told Sports Business Journal each conference member would make roughly $750,000 per year from the new deal.
Conference USA will add Liberty, Jacksonville State, New Mexico State, Sam Houston State, and Kennesaw State to the conference over the next two years. They’ll join existing members Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, and UTEP for a 10-team conference.
Will any games air on CBS(network) in this deal. Also does this mean they will not have a deal with Sinclair for games on Stadium.
It looks like the C-USA football championship game will air on network CBS. And that is correct, C-USA will not have a deal with Sinclair for games on Stadium any longer. All games will be on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN+, or CBS/CBS Sports Network.