![]() ![]() “When you cross conference lines, it’s important that we play well.”Īnderson’s reigning Mountain West-champion Aggies contributed to the league’s postseason success, beating the Pac-12’s Oregon State in the inaugural Jimmy Kimmel L.A. “The Mountain West was the highest-ranked Group of Five conference a year ago, which is saying a lot, considering Cincinnati made the Playoff,” said Utah State coach Blake Anderson. The Mountain West finished the 2021-22 bowl season with the best record of every conference, a feat celebrated at media days with its Bowl Challenge Cup trophy prominently displayed. Boise State – which nearly derailed the Playoff aspirations of Oklahoma State well before the epic Big 12 Championship Game loss to Baylor – scored a road win over a top 10-ranked BYU bunch that had its own designs on crashing the final four party. Last season, the league beat opponents from the ACC and Pac-12. In 2019, Mountain West teams combined to score at least one win over every Power Five conference. Mountain West history is written with such high-profile upsets. The playing field offers those programs with more shallow pockets an equalizer. Now, a resource gap between college football’s power brokers and the rest of the landscape has always existed. Even the Pac-12, about which veritable eulogies were written even before USC and UCLA exited, distributed about five times more per school in its most recent budget reports than the forecasted Mountain West per-member rates. The 2020 contract renegotiation was a win for the conference, to be sure – but still well below the revenue generated in the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC). Fox also has rights to the Mountain West Conference Championship Game, giving the league a high-profile, broadcast-network home on title weekend. The ESPN deal called for the Worldwide Leader to broadcast all Boise State home games.īoise State’s presence remains an important angle to the new TV contract, with Fox retaining the rights to the Broncos’ home games. ![]() More specifically, ESPN and Boise State were in business.īoise State joined the Mountain West in 2011, bringing a resume built the prior decade in the Western Athletic Conference that included seven top 15 finishes from 2002 through 2010 and Fiesta Bowl titles in the 20 seasons (the latter won at the expense of then-Mountain West member TCU). Then, by spring 2013 – less than two years after ESPN aided BYU’s move from the Mountain West into independence with an eight-year broadcasting deal – the Worldwide Leader and the MW were back in business. in a 2007 Daily Herald (Provo, Utah) series foreshadows both BYU’s exit from the Mountain West three years later – and could be taken from any number of commentaries about USC and the Pac-12 Network in more recent years.īYU and Utah were on their way out just three years later, and the mtn. ![]() The myriad distribution challenges became a point of contention with the conference’s standard-bearing programs, BYU and Utah.Ĭoverage of inability to gain widespread distribution for the mtn. But ambition and execution failed to align. ![]() Credit the Mountain West for at least making an attempt to shake that power structure with the mtn. Plenty of fans nearly two decades later repeat a similar lament. #MWesttion? Doesn’t have quite the same ring.Ī July 2004 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune reported that, additionally, Mountain West brass “objects to the way ESPN controls the rights to all its games – whether it broadcasts them or not.” The network sought to broadcast games midweek in the time slots most closely associated with the Mid-American Conference in the present day. The joint 40-30-30 venture between CBS (via the former CSTV), Comcast and the conference itself launched in 2006 as a response to the Mountain West’s dissatisfaction with ESPN. If you do remember the mtn., apologies for any frustrating flashbacks of wanting to tune into a game on the channel only to discover your provider didn’t offer it. Regardless, the Mountain West theoretically finds itself in a better place than a decade or so ago amid the struggles of the mtn.ĭon’t remember the mtn.? Chances are it’s because you didn’t get it with your cable or satellite package. The contract should produce substantial gains in each league members’ annual revenue, though the 2020 COVID-impacted season obfuscates just how immediate benefits might be seen. The conference brokered a $270 million combined rights deal with CBS and Fox in January 2020 that runs through the 2025-26 academic year. ![]()
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