C-USA Announces 2008 Football Television Schedule
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
Irving, Texas (HNN) – Conference USA has announced its television schedule for the 2008 football season. The current confirmed schedule features nearly 50 games to air nationally or regionally. National games will be-televised on CBS College Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN 2, the NFL Network and the Big Ten Network. Included are a number of unopposed windows that provide tremendous exposure to C-USA, as well as several exciting league match-ups, and many challenging non-conference contests. Additionally, at least seven other games will be regionally-televised throughout the southeast on CSS.
This season marks the fourth year of C-USA’s partnership with CBS College Sports Network (formerly CSTV). In 2005, Conference USA signed a six-year initial term that includes significant national and regional exposure for football, men's and women's basketball and other C-USA sports. CBS College Sports Network is widely available on cable systems across the country and via satellite on DIRECTV Channel 613 (Premier Package and Sports Pack) and Dish Network Channel 152 (America's Top 200 Package).
Conference USA will also be featured on ESPN and its family of networks with at least 10 regular season contests televised this fall as part of its contract with the network. Additional non-conference games may be selected by the network through agreements with other conferences. The fourth annual Conference USA Football Championship Game will be televised by ESPN or ESPN 2 on Saturday, December 6.
“We are very pleased to have so many of our football games on television and distributed to fans throughout the country,“ said Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky. “We are looking forward to a great conference race this fall and we’re glad that people around the country will be able to watch so many of our games.”
CBS College Sports Network will broadcast nationally at least 20 C-USA football games during the 2008 season, including 15 conference match-ups. Live game coverage kicks off on Saturday, Sept. 6 as Rice visits Memphis. CBS College Sports Network’s schedule also includes 12-day selections during the final four Saturdays of the season.
The ESPN schedule kicks off on Friday, August 29, when June Jones makes his SMU coaching debut at longtime rival Rice. The next day, East Carolina squares off against Virginia Tech in Charlotte on ESPN. On Saturday, September 6, C-USA will have three of its home games air on the ESPN family of networks as West Virginia visits East Carolina, South Florida plays at UCF and Texas faces UTEP in El Paso.
The ESPN schedule also features six unopposed windows, with three Friday night contests, two Sunday night games and one Tuesday night tilt. Four of those games feature a pair of Conference USA teams in head-to-head matchups.
As part of the league’s agreement with CBS College Sports Network, seven games have been sub-licensed for regional broadcast. Comcast Sports Southeast (CSS) will begin its regional package throughout the southeastern U.S. on September 13 when Memphis visits Marshall.
Additional Conference USA football television exposures remain a possibility, and will be released as soon as they are finalized.