LAS VEGAS—The Mountain West Conference has launched MW+, a direct-to-consumer streaming platform designed to give its member universities a new way to generate recurring subscription revenue directly from their own fans.

Unlike traditional conference streaming services, a majority of subscriptions purchased through a member school’s dedicated page flow directly back to that institution, creating a new revenue model as conferences navigate the changing economics of college athletics.

The launch reflects a broader shift toward schools and conferences building owned media businesses rather than relying solely on traditional broadcast partners. In addition to live events, MW+, which is powered by Kiswe, features original programming, athlete storytelling, and interactive fan experiences designed to deepen engagement while creating a scalable, year-round business.

With the addition of men’s soccer and men’s swimming and diving, the realigned Mountain West will now sponsor 21 sports. Its all-sports members — Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada-Reno, UNLV, New Mexico, San Jose State, UTEP and Wyoming — will continue to compete across the full Mountain West portfolio, including football.

UC-Davis joins Grand Canyon University, which just completed its first full year in the MW, as all-sport members outside of football, while Colorado College (women's soccer), North Dakota State (football), Northern Illinois (football and women's gymnastics) and Utah Tech (baseball and men's soccer) will compete as affiliate members in designated sports.

In February, the Mountain West announced a new media rights package featuring CBS Sports, Fox Sports, The CW and Kiswe. The agreements with CBS Sports, Fox Sports and Kiswe run for six years (2026-27 through 2031-32), while The CW has committed to a five-year partnership through the 2030-31 season.

In addition to the launch of the new SVOD service MW+, there is now a new conference website driven by SIDEARM that delivers improved navigation, enhanced storytelling, streamlined statistics and a modern user experience.

MW+ is available on a variety of platforms and devices, including web and mobile web, iPhone and Android mobile devices, streaming devices such as Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Amazon Prime Channels (coming soon) and more.

NEW YORK—Nielsen said it has started releasing rankings of the most-watched college football teams. In its first ranking, through the first 10 weeks of the season, Alabama is on top with 7.910 million viewers, followed by Georgia with 7.626 million viewers.

Nielsen also reported that through 10 weeks, college football viewership is up 4% from last year, comparing Big Data Plus Panel numbers to last year’s Big Data Plus Panel numbers from the same time period.

The Top 10 ranking showcases the teams with the highest viewership thus far this season, across ABC, Big Ten Network, CBS, The CW, the ESPN networks, Fox, FS1, FS2, NBC and TNT.

Those teams were:

The overall popularity of college football was also highlighted in a separate Nielsen ranking of the top 25 live sports events. College football secured 10 of the top 25 slots for live sports for the week of October 27 - November 2.

During that week, the World Series delivered five of the top 11 spots, including the No. 2 and No. 4 ranked telecasts (Fox). Game 7 (ranked No. 2) delivered 26.9 million viewers, the most for a World Series game since 2017.

From Oct. 27 to Nov. 2, NFL football secured seven of the top 14 slots across six different networks/distributors: Fox, NBC, CBS, Prime Video, ABC, and ESPN. The most-watched NFL games aired in the CBS late window. Nearly 31 million viewers tuned in for the Nov. 2 Kansas City Chiefs-Buffalo Bills in the late window, making it the most-watched Week 9 game on CBS since 2007.

The College Football Playoff (CFP), ESPN and TNT Sports have announced kick times and broadcast information for the 2025 CFP First Round, which will launch the second year of the 12-team Playoff.

“We are pleased to work with both ESPN and TNT Sports to deliver these first-round games to fans across the country in premier viewing windows,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the College Football Playoff. “We also appreciate the collaboration with the National Football League in coordinating schedules to best serve fans of both college and professional football. This all reflects the growing reach and excitement surrounding the new Playoff format, and we look forward to showcasing the best of college football on both networks.”

The 2025-26 edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff will begin with the first CFP First Round game on Friday, Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN. First round action will continue on Saturday, Dec. 20, as ABC and ESPN will broadcast the first game of Saturday’s tripleheader at noon ET, while TNT will present games at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. ET, respectively. All games on ESPN networks will be available on the ESPN App, while the first-round games airing on TNT and truTV will also be streamed on HBO Max. Each of the four first-round games will be played on campuses to be announced on Selection Day, Dec. 7.

In April, it was announced that ESPN will present each of the four Playoff Quarterfinals, the two Playoff Semifinals and the 2026 CFP National Championship, slated for Monday, Jan. 19, at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

The CFP National Championship returns to Miami for the first time since the 2021 contest, marking the second straight season the national championship game will return to a city for a second time, after Atlanta hosted the title contests in 2018 and 2025.

Last season, the inaugural CFP First Round delivered 10.6 million average viewers across ESPN networks and TNT Sports.

The quartet of Playoff Quarterfinals scored multi-year viewership highs, while the CFP Semifinals produced the most-watched Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on record (20.6M viewers) and the second-most-watched Capital One Orange Bowl in nearly 20 years (17.8M viewers). The 2025 CFP National Championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame attracted 22.1 million viewers, the most-watched non-NFL sporting event over the past year. The showdown peaked with 26.1 million viewers. ESPN reported.

A football season unlike any other is taking shape in a conflicted broadcast environment where big-game producers are delivering unprecedented viewing experiences digitally as TV station owners count on the sport’s popularity to help them weather a weakened ad market.

The challenges were highlighted by The Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger during an early August earnings call, when he discussed the now-launched ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming service, which encompasses all content delivered over the seven ESPN cable channels and online assets, including ESPN+.

While stressing that Disney views what it’s doing with ESPN as part of its TV business, Iger acknowledged, “the features and functionality of the ESPN app will have more on them or in the app than obviously any linear channel can provide. It will really be a sports fan’s dream in terms of everything they’ll be able to do and watch on that channel.”

ESPN-NFL Deal
Adding to the drama, the NFL and Disney also announced a landmark deal that, if approved, would give the league an unprecedented 10% stake in a media partner in exchange for ESPN’s takeover of NFL Network, with the addition of more games and other benefits. A taste of what’s in the offing on the ESPN service, which launched Aug. 21, can be found on the NFL+ streaming service, which remains under the NFL’s control, delivering all its games, but is available in the deal with ESPN for bundling with the latter’s streaming service.

It happens that the advanced in-game betting, personalized fantasy team features and other data-rich enhancements available on NFL+ are supported by technology from Genius Sports, which has also been supporting features on ESPN+. While declining to go into details of what his company is bringing to the new streaming service, Matt Fleckenstein, chief product officer at Genius Sports, says the arc of development on ESPN and NFL+ is parallel.

Specifics are “just a question of whether we’re working directly with NFL+ or ESPN,” he says.

The Genius BetVision app—a single-screen display of betting options supported by all the major sports-betting books, with video lagging just two to three seconds behind real time—is an especially noteworthy example of game-changing aspects to what ESPN might be offering.

With nearly all major pro and college football games now available on streaming services, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the broadcasters whose distribution via cable, satellite and OTA accounts for the lion’s share of the football audience. As they’ve done before, station group owners in their latest earnings reports cited football as a significant counterforce to economic headwinds impacting ad revenues.

During Sinclair’s Q2 earnings call in early August, Chief Operating Officer Rob Weisbord, acknowledging the overall advertising environment “remains rough,” said that with “larger buys coming down the pipeline … we’re cautiously optimistic as we move through the summer months into September with the return of college football and NFL.”

Building on the popularity of football, Sinclair has launched four podcasts devoted to college football programs at Ohio State, Alabama, Texas and Notre Dame, and “will shortly be announcing a landmark events and media partnership” devoted to “producing original content and brand activations,” says Chris King, Sinclair’s vice president of investor relations. This will include a “nationwide tailgate tour during the upcoming college football season” and an exclusive event at February’s Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., he said.

Scripps’ Sports Strategy
E.W. Scripps also touted the importance of football to its second-half expectations following first-half revenue performance that was down just 2% from levels reached in a national election year, marking a “best-of-class” performance that tied “directly back to our sports strategy,” according to Chief Financial Officer Jason Combs. While “there’s a lot of hesitancy out there” in the overall second-half advertising picture, Combs voices “optimism around our ability to monetize football as it starts to kind of roll back in here.”

One aspect to that optimism relates to Scripps Sports’ longstanding relationship with the NCAA Division I Big Sky Conference, which consists of 10 full and two affiliate member universities in eight Western states. The contract with the Big Sky, renewed for another five years in March, makes Scripps responsible for producing and broadcasting at least 12 conference games a year over its seven Montana stations involving either or both of the state’s conference members, Montana State and Montana University, James Raffety, Scripps Sports senior director of sports production, says.

Scripps is generating coverage that “brings big market, big production to FCS [Football Championship Subdivision] football,” Rafferty says. And Scripps also benefits from the fact that the Big Sky relationship runs deeper than basic game production, he says, with the broadcaster acting as league supporter in event productions like the annual Big Sky Hall of Fame banquet and the Media Day season kickoff. It’s a relationship that goes to the heart of Montana culture with the broadcast of the annual “Brawl of the Wild” showdown between MU and MSU, which Rafferty says draws the biggest statewide audience for any TV program other than the Super Bowl.

Local Ties
Many other station owners benefit from relationships they’ve built with colleges at regional and local levels, in some cases enabling game coverage not supplied by the national networks and, in others, resulting in ancillary programming with games broadcast nationally. Gray Media, for example, is leveraging multiple university partnerships with its launch of regional sports networks, says Robert Folliard, the station group’s senior vice president of government relations and distribution.

“This is a strategic initiative for the company to get into local sports where there’s a ton of advertising and sponsorship opportunities,” Folliard says. “We provide the only platform that can get them into every home.”

On another front, Gray with six other partners in the NextGen TV Pearl TV alliance will be broadcasting college and NFL games in HDR-enhanced 4K, marking a major advance in viewing experience over what consumers typically get through cable and online services. With FCC Chair Brendan Carr voicing enthusiasm for NextGen TV, it looks like “all signals are a go” for expeditious transition to ATSC 3.0, Folliard says, which means TV stations will be in a much stronger position to hold football fans with the combination of superior signal quality and OTA access to interactive game playing and real-time betting.

Nobody is doing more than Fox Sports to keep all its boats afloat, including the new Fox One DTC streaming service, by delivering superior viewing experiences across all affiliated TV and digital outlets. On the big home screen, whether NFL games are delivered via pay TV, OTA or online, Fox is tapping things it introduced at this year’s Super Bowl to enhance the lean-back experience, says Michael Davies, executive vice president of field operations at Fox Sports.

“We’re looking at picking up where we left off,” Davies says. He cites wider use of things like dual SkyCams, Lidar technology for nonobstructive on-screen placements of AR-embellished graphics displays and officials’ Hawk-Eye play-review systems to help commentators with real-time analysis. At some point, Fox Sports anticipates embellishing some NFL broadcasts with output from field-based 180-degree cameras that Fox partner Cosm has deployed to support immersive off-site theatrical viewing of game action.

With the start of another football season, a new carriage dispute has arisen.

This time it’s Fox, which has been unable to renew a new content partnership with YouTube TV. In an email sent to subscribers on Monday, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) said: “[I]f we are unable to reach an agreement with Fox by 5 PM ET on August 27, 2025, their content may become unavailable. If this happens, this will impact channels like the Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News, and Fox Sports, as well as any Library recordings you have from these channels.”

YouTube said it hopes to reach a mutual agreement “without passing on additional costs to our subscribers.” It also said it will give a $10 credit to subscribers if Fox’s content becomes unavailable “for an extended period of time.”

Fox has launched a “keepfox.com” website designed to keep viewers updated and issued the following statement:

“While Fox remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,“ Fox said. ”We are alerting FOX viewers who are YouTube TV subscribers that they could lose access to much of their favorite news, sports, entertainment and local station programming unless Google engages in a meaningful way soon.”

As the costs of sports rights continue to soar, the networks are using the popularity of football as a cudgel against pay-TV providers who are also losing viewers to cord-cutting. TV carriage disputes have become fairly common during the late summer, early fall time period, during the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons; in 2023, Charter Communications and Dish settled their disputes with Disney at the beginning of the season; Nexstar Media Group and Verizon Communications had a similar conflict in 2022.

As of the beginning of 2025, YouTube TV was estimated to have 9.4 million subscribers, making it the fourth-largest U.S. pay-TV provider after Charter, Comcast and DirecTV. ‌

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.—DirecTV has announced a multi-year sponsorship and marketing agreement with six university athletic departments ahead of the 2025 college football season that will involve 360 marketing, rights to use the schools brands and IP in fan zones, an NIL program, customized branded experiences for fans attending games and other consumer and community engagement activities.

This agreement, which was negotiated with the college sports marketing company Learfield, includes Duke University, Ohio State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Oregon, United States Military Academy (Army), and The University of Texas.

“College sports unite fans like few things can, and collaborating with these six legendary programs allows DirecTV to show up in meaningful, authentic ways,” said Kelly Jo Sands, senior vice president of digital marketing at DirecTV. “From in-venue activations to social media content and NIL partnerships, we’re committed to delivering ‘Game Day, Your Way’ across every touchpoint, for both men’s and women’s teams alike.”

DirecTV reported that the alliance spans multiple athletics programs, including football, both Men’s and Women’s basketball and other collegiate sports. DirecTV will have enterprise-wide IP rights to use official school logos and marks, in-venue and TV-visible signage, and digital media opportunities to deliver DirecTV messaging to college sports fans who are watching games in-venue, at home or on the go.

“This agreement with DirecTV showcases the advantage of leveraging the rights to school logos and student-athlete brand power to tap into fanbases and create authentic connections,” said Bill Hirsh, senior vice president of corporate sales at Learfield. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with DirecTV throughout the upcoming college athletics season to deliver their products and offerings to fans all over the country.”

The first of what DirecTV is calling a “Fan Zone activation” will occur with the Texas Football vs. Ohio State matchup on August 30. “Fans attending the event can look forward to interactive `Best Seat in the House' experiences and live pregame viewing powered by DirecTV’s satellite-free streaming service,” DirecTV explained. “These Fan Zones bring the comfort of the living room into the heart of the action, creating an immersive environment for fans to catch every moment surrounded by the excitement of game day. Visitors can explore DirecTV’s Genre Pack offerings like MySports, ensuring they can watch their favorite teams anytime, anywhere—without a satellite dish.”

As part of the agreement, DirecTV also said there would be community engagement initiatives throughout the school year, as well as new social and influencer content available on DirecTV, creator and school social channels.

The sponsorship agreement also includes an NIL program featuring standout college athletes from the schools.

Fan activations will occur through out the academic year and will include these major college football games:

• August 30: Texas at Ohio State
• September 20: Oregon State at Oregon
• October 4: Clemson at UNC
• October 18: Georgia Tech at Duke
• November 1: Penn State at Ohio State
• November 28: Texas A&M at Texas

NEW YORK—NBC Sports and IMAX have announced that they will be offering the first-ever live college football game at select IMAX locations nationwide with the 2024 edition of the annual Penn State “White Out” game on Nov. 9 between the No. 6 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions and the Washington Huskies.

The Big Ten showdown will also stream exclusively on NBCUniversal's Peacock at 8 p.m. (ET).

The screenings are part of IMAX’s plans to expand and diversify its content portfolio beyond Hollywood films and it continues a partnership between NBC Sports and IMAX for live events and experiences. Earlier this year, NBC Sports and IMAX teamed up to stream the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony to over 100 IMAX locations nationwide — the first time this global event was ever broadcast live in IMAX.

For more details, including ticket availability and participating locations, visit www.IMAX.com/whiteout.

The official kickoff to the college football season provided another reminder of how football can boost audiences across all platforms, with ESPN and ABC reporting hefty increases in audiences for both linear TV and engagement on social media. 

ESPN’s Nielsen-rated networks airing college football – ABC, ESPN and ESPNU – averaged 3.1 million viewers in Week 1, up 44 percent over 2023. That was the largest audience for Kickoff Week across ESPN platforms since 2016, according to a ESPN blog. 

Both ABC and ESPN were up double digits over 2023, ESPN reported. ABC scored its most-watched Kickoff Week since 2016 and the second best on record, finishing up 83 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, ESPN was up 23 percent for Week 1 over the 2023 edition. Saturday, Aug. 31st was the most-viewed day of college football ever on ESPN+, and Week 1 included the top 3 regular season college football games ever on the platform.

ESPN platforms also scored the top six games across all networks in Week 1, hitting multi-year viewership highs in key windows. Additionally, this is the first time since Week 1 in 2016 that ESPN platforms have had six games in one weekend all surpass 4.0 million viewers.

Week one’s top performer was USC vs. LSU, which pulled in 9.2 million viewers on ABC. It was ABC’s third best Sunday Opener on record and ABC’s most-streamed college football game on record. Other highly rated games included Notre Dame at Texas A&M (8.2 million viewers on ABC), Clemson vs. Georgia (8.0 million viewers on ABC) and Miami at Florida (6.7 million viewers on ABC.)

In addition “College GameDay Built by The Home Depot” delivered one of its most-watched regular season episodes in the 37-year history of the show. 2.5 million viewers watched as the sport’s premier pregame show made its stateside season debut in College Station, with 3.2 million viewers tuning in for the final hour. Week 1 from Aggieland is the most-watched episode to air outside of Thanksgiving Weekend and was the most-watched regular season episode since November 2016. The audience was up 47 percent year-over-year and demolished the previous Week 1 audience record by double digits.

ESPN’s social media team created more than 1,200 pieces of content across all platforms, registering 58 million engagements – up 68 percent year-over-year – and scored 554 million video views for Week 1. The team’s viral video featuring new teammates Nick Saban and Pat McAfee is College GameDay’s most-viewed TikTok ever with 24 million views and climbing, and boasts a total of 50 million views across all ESPN platforms, ESPN noted in a blog post.  

TNT Sports and the Mountain West Conference (MW) have reached a multi-year agreement for a full slate of live college football games to air exclusively on truTV and Max beginning this season.  

As part of the deal, truTV and Max will present 14 Mountain West college football games during the inaugural season, with coverage kicking off with San José State hosting Sacramento State on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 10 p.m. ET.

The agreement comes at a time when Warner Bros. Discovery has responded to the likely loss of its NBA basketball rights by expanding its portfolio of other sports rights. 

As part of that effort WBD inked a deal to air some College Football Playoff games and on June 27, TNT Sports and the Big East Conference announced a new six-year media rights agreement that will feature more than 65 regular season Big East college basketball games airing across TNT – as the lead network – along with TBS, truTV and Max, beginning with the 2025-26 season. 

The Mountain West deal brings additional live sports programming to truTV – which debuted a dedicated TNT Sports programming block in primetime earlier this year – and Max. This will mark the return of college football to TNT Sports, which last televised games in 2006. 

As part of the Mountain West deal, truTV and Max will be home to four Saturday MW doubleheaders, including September 7, 14 and 21, along with October 12, and single games on Oct. 5, 19, 26, and November 2.

“TNT Sports provides the Mountain West with a third national television partner to showcase the outstanding student-athletes across the league,” said MW Commissioner Gloria Nevarez. “TNT Sports has always been a leader in sports broadcasting, and adding one of the top conferences in the FBS to its lineup will certainly be a benefit to MW and college football fans across the country."

“We are excited to partner with the Mountain West and bring these compelling college football games to truTV and Max,” said Raphael Poplock, senior vice president of acquisitions, business development and partnerships, TNT Sports.  “With this agreement, we will further expand our live sports programming on truTV while creating additional exposure for the Mountain West and its student athletes across our TNT Sports platforms.”

TNT Sports will also present two first-round College Football Playoff games during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In addition to the first-round games, TNT Sports will add two quarterfinal games each year beginning with the 2026 season through the 2028 season.

BELLEVUE, Wash.—Sports were a particularly bright spot for the TV industry and streamers in Q3 2023 according to a new report from iSpot.tv that found college football household TV ad impressions climbed 54.5% YoY in Q3 2023 thanks in part to increased exposure on CBS, NBC and CW, along with more ad airings. 

College football also had the most TV ad impressions of any program in Q3. It just barely edged out the NFL, 2.09% of total impressions compared to 2.05% for the NFL. 

Nielsen has separately reported that sports drove a surge in viewing among broadcasters in September of 2023. 

The new iSpot.tv 2023 Q3 TV Transparency report also highlighted the importance of sports for streaming services advertising their services. NFL games delivered 9% of Q3 TV ad impressions for  streaming services (No. 1 among all programs) as advertisers, while college football ranked second with  3.2% of their ad impressions. Notably, eight out of the top ten most-seen streaming service TV advertisers in Q3  are affiliated with parent companies that have secured NFL game rights deals, including  Paramount, NBCU, Disney, Fox, Google, and Amazon. 

In addition, YouTube TV, now home to NFL Sunday Ticket, jumped 31 spots YoY by streaming TV ad impressions, to No. 7 overall.

CBS led all networks with 6.41% of household TV ad impressions in Q3, followed by ABC at No. 2, with 6.32% but overall ad impressions increased only 1.4% in Q3 2023 compared to Q3 2022. That modest increase came at a time when estimated national TV ad spend dipped by 5.95%, iSpot.tv reported. 

The full report, which includes detailed information on advertising categories and individual brands and networks, is available here. 

LOS ANGELES—MetaMedia, which specializes in delivering movies, premium content and live events to cinemas and other venues, has announced that it has been selected the exclusive live streaming provider for Theater Sports Network, which has a theatrical distribution agreement with ESPN to livestream regular season Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) college football and major New Year's Bowl games into U.S. cinemas.

The ESPN and Theater Sports Network agreement covers the New Year's Six Bowl games including the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, the Capital One Orange Bowl, the CFP Semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the CFP Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game, and the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T. In all, the agreement includes approximately 75 games during the 2023-24 college football season.

"We believe that Theater Sports Network has identified an unmet demand for families and fans to view live sports on massive movie theater screens and are thrilled to be selected as their livestreaming partner," said Jason Brenek, CEO of MetaMedia. 

ACC games that air on ESPN platforms are available for Theater Sports Network distribution in the away team markets– or in both home and away markets for neutral site games. The cost of attendance to watch the games will be determined by participating local theaters.

"We believe movie theaters are the next great frontier for live sporting events, and we are elated with this unprecedented agreement with ESPN," explained Scott Daw, president and COO of Theater Sports Network. “We look forward to bringing these games to ACC football fans. We believe that theaters have the ability to generate excitement around live sporting events. These events will replicate the feel of a football stadium experience as fans gather and fill theaters to watch the games on the big screen. As we move forward, we hope to add games from additional college football conferences as well as other live sporting events."

For more information and a schedule of games in specific areas, fans can visit theatersportsnetwork.com.

MetaMedia bills itself as the world's first global, cloud-based entertainment delivery platform for cinemas, drive-ins, and other out-of-home venues. Currently connected to more than 5000 screens across the US and Canada in all the top 50 cities, MetaMedia seeks to expand and redefine the cinemagoing experience. 

BRISTOL, Conn.—In a notable example of the growing amount of high profile sports content available on streaming services, ESPN+ has announced that it will be offering more college football games than ever before with a streaming schedule of more than 500 games. 

The streaming schedule will feature teams from FBS conferences like the SEC and Big 12, The American, C-USA, MAC, and Sun Belt, and FCS schools from the Big Sky, MVFC, Patriot League, SIAC, MEAC and SWAC. 

This fall will also be the first time that ESPN+ will feature SEC games. which will also be simulcast on SECN+.

In addition, the ESPN+ streaming schedule will feature more Big 12 games than ever before and a variety of top teams, the Disney-owned streaming service reported. 

DALLAS—AT&T's DirecTV and U-Verse have sent letters to the general managers of Tegna stations for permission to show subscribers college and NFL football games this weekend that would otherwise be blacked out in the companies’ retransmission fee dispute.

Tegna’s stations in 115 markets have been dark on DirecTV and U-Verse since Tuesday night.

AT&T is offering to pay the station a full-day’s retransmission fee in exchange for showing the three-hour game. The fee would be the higher fee agreed to when a new distribution deal is reached, according to the letter.

It is unlikely Tegna or its stations have the right to selectively cherry pick programming from a network feed and let a distributor carry it.

One of the letters, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, seeks permission from KHOU-TV in Houston to show Sunday’s Houston Texans game against the Indianapolis Colts broadcast over CBS.

The letter, from Rob Thun, executive VP and chief content officer at AT&T Communications, is addressed to KHOU GM Robert Springer. “While you may be relatively new to the region, you have no doubt witnessed firsthand the deep passion local Texans fans and the team’s many sponsors have invested firsthand, so would hopefully join us in allowing families already hard hit by the pandemic the simple pleasure of watching their favorite team, if only for a few hours.”

The letter also notes that the set top box used by many AT&T subscribers enables them to watch the station via Locast, which streams local station signals. AT&T has made financial contributions to Locast.

“We remain hopeful that we can maintain a productive, professional business relationship with Tegna in common service of the local Houston community and look forward to your immediate and affirmative response,” Thun says in concluding his letter.

In a statement, Tegna said: “We are eager for AT&T U-verse and DirecTV to return our stations to its systems, which is why we have been and remain dedicated to working around-the-clock to reach a fair, market-based agreement. We have made clear that we are prepared to reach a deal at rates that are competitive with the rates that we have agreed to with operators of all sizes over the past fourteen months. We are responding directly to the letter AT&T has sent to our stations, consistent with our efforts to engage throughout this negotiation. If AT&T is now willing to begin good faith discussions, we are confident we can get a deal done quickly.” 

AT&T said it sent similar letters to the GMs of Tegna’s stations in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Tampa, Columbus, Denver and St. Louis.

The letter to Michael Brouder, president and general manager of WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, AT&T seeks the rights to show Saturday’s game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Syracuse Orange. 

“We believe there is absolutely no public interest served by WTHR and its Virginia-based owner Tegna Inc. deliberately blacking out WTHR and intentionally inconveniencing thousands of Indianapolis homes that are ardent supporters of one of Indiana’s most prestigious universities,” AT&T’s Thun wrote. “As a longtime resident and adjunct faculty member at two competing Indiana universities, you have no doubt witnessed firsthand the deep passion local Irish fans and the team’s many sponsors have invested firsthand, so would hopefully join us in allowing families already hard hit by the pandemic the simple pleasure of watching their favorite team, if only for a few hours.”

In a press release, AT&T said it was offering Tegna a chance to give consumers their channels back and that AT&T stands ready to turn programming back on--Tegna just needs to give permission.

“Fans should not be used as pawns in a business negotiation,” said Celeste Boyd-Spear, VP and General Manager – AT&T Heartland States. “Tegna should set aside their differences for a single afternoon and allow everyone to enjoy this game.”

BRISTOL, Conn.—Though some major conferences have been sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, ESPN is ready to televise college football matchups on Saturday and will feature new music and graphics during the games.

ESPN will kick off with Austin Peay playing Central Arkansas in Montgomery Ala., with Matt Barrie and Mike Golic Jr. calling the action from the network’s headquarters in Bristol., Conn. Sideline reporter Lauren Sisler will actually be on the field at Crampton Bowl.

The ESPN production will feature a new college football anthem featuring Juice WRLD & Marshmello’s "Come & Go."

ESPN has also revamped its college football graphic and animation package.

One of the newest elements viewers will appreciate is the updated clock and score design, which adds more information about scoring drives and in game statistics to the lower-third of the screen.

“We pride ourselves on being the Willy Wonkas of graphics,” said Dana Drezek, supervisor of motion graphics at ESPN “We set out to make something fun, inventive and visually delicious. With the game scoreboard, we made something akin to an Everlasting Gobstopper. It never disappears, but rather morphs into many different layouts and shapes based on the needs of the game and production. More stats. More content. More possibilities.”

It took teamwork and pivoting to new solutions to build the 3D-heavy package, creating new event and studio graphics packages, the network said.

“When our entire team transitioned to a work-from-home format in March, we made a strategic decision and worked to collectively ensure we crafted efficient, team-based solutions, without compromising the overall aesthetic,” said Lindsay Reiff, supervisor of motion graphics design. “We leveraged a unique, edit-based approach that diversifies the product.”

For the first full weekend of college action, ESPN has four Labor Day weekend games, with Eastern Kentucky at Marshall, SMU at Texas State and Arkansas State at Memphis on Sept. 5 and a Monday night game pitting BYU against Navy.

NEW YORK—The Oct. 12 game between the University of Florida and Louisiana State University will be big beyond just the ramifications it will have on the landscape of college football rankings, but it also will mark the first live, native 4K sports programming offered by ESPN.

The production is a collaboration between ESPN and Samsung and is the first in what is being called the “Samsung QLED 4K Game of the Week.” The remaining 4K games will be determined on a week-by-week basis. In addition, ESPN is planning to include a 4K feed as part of its “Megacast” presentation of the College Football National Championship Game on Jan. 13, 2020.

“After months of planning and technical testing, we are excited sports fans can watch 4K UHD college football games as part of the Samsung QLED 4K Game of the Week,” said Jodi Markley, executive vice president of ESPN content operations and creative services. “As 4K technical resources and workflows become more readily available, we will continue to grow this standard across our operations. 4K images are stunning and we look forward to sharing them with fans.”

The Florida vs. LSU game will air at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN and DirecTV on channel 107.9at.

Harvard University consistently ranks among U.S. News and World Reports Best Colleges not only for its academic stature but also for its top-notch collegiate athletics program. The institution is home to 42 NCAA Division 1 teams spanning basketball, hockey, football, squash, tennis and many other sports. To keep its students, alumni and Crimson fans up to speed on their favorite teams, the Athletics Departments’ multimedia and production arm produces and broadcasts home games in high quality H.264 to ESPN+, regional outfit NESN and the Ivy League’s international streaming platform, and also creates ancillary content, all using a host of gear from AJA Video Systems.

In preparation for streaming to multiple CDNs, the department ramped up its production workflow over a year ago – adding more cameras, graphics and audio equipment and other tools to its arsenal, including the AJA HELO, U-TAP and Ki Pro Ultra. “Streaming to ESPN+ has taken college athletics production to a new level, with standards that are higher than ever before. To keep pace, we needed equipment that’s reliable, affordable and easy to learn and use,” shared Imry Halevi, Assistant Director of Athletics, multimedia and production, Harvard. “If you do the math, we’re churning out more than 300 broadcast-quality streams a year. Having tools like HELO, Ki Pro Ultra and U-TAP that tick all these boxes gives me confidence that we’ll be able to consistently meet the production standards expected of us without ever missing a beat.”

While workflows slightly vary depending upon the sport, the tennis and squash workflows are quite similar. Each squash or tennis court features mounted POV cameras with HD-SDI outputs and a mic output. The audio and video signals go into a rack holding a switcher, video unit and six AJA HELO H.264 recording, streaming and encoding devices. The switcher, with an Intel compute stick that captures scoreboard data, outputs the camera and mic feeds for each court via HDMI to a video unit for Harvard’s international stream while the SDI outputs are fed to each of the six HELOs, one per court, and streamed to ESPN+ in H.264 via RTMP, as well as recorded for archival.

“Most anyone who is streaming is using RTMP because it gives you the highest quality stream at the most affordable price point. We could use a satellite truck, fiber or managed IP transmission to get our signals from point a to point b, but none of these would be as practical or cost effective as RTMP,” Halevi shared. “This is in part why we have 14 HELOs and are eager to add more; they make it easy to change RTMP information, which is crucial when we’re getting new RTMP stream information for every tennis and squash match. We can easily log into each HELO via the web UI, and create a new RTMP URL and ID, which is unique to HELO.”

All footage that the team captures is archived and has been since the 1920s, partially as a means of preserving Harvard’s history, but also to aid in content creation. “We want people to know what makes Harvard Athletics special and to do that we need to create great content, which often means we lean on archived footage. We never know what footage we’ll need, when we’ll need it and how we’ll use it. By giving us the ability to stream and record at the same time, HELO gives us a peace of mind in that we know we’ll have a high-quality file accessible as you can set different compression levels for each stream.”

Halevi and team also deploy two HELO units across their basketball and hockey/football control rooms for streaming needs outside traditional live production. Connected to DirecTV receivers, the devices come into play when the team needs to capture footage from away games in H.264. “We love having HELOs in our control room,” he added. “It’s great to be able to schedule recordings with HELO’s built in calendar support, stream and record at the same time, preview videos and be able to see the video signal coming in.”

To meet requests for uncompressed ProRes and/or DNx footage should melts be needed, the team also keeps a Ki Pro Ultra 4K/UltraHD/2K/HD recorder/player in its hockey control room. Additionally, Halevi recently added AJA U-TAP SDI USB 3.0-powered SDI capture devices to his collection of gear to double the number of feeds that his team could capture when live streaming with Wirecast on MacBook Pros. “Most capture solutions available today come with Thunderbolt ports, which is partially what made U-TAP so appealing. It allows you to take advantage of the MacBook Pro’s USB 3.0 ports to double the amount of inputs and outputs you can tap into,” Halevi explained. “The units were super easy to get up and running on, and we didn’t need to adjust or install anything; they just worked out of the box.”

When the department needs new technology, Halevi often looks to AJA first because of his experience with the gear and the company’s reputation for building reliable products. He concluded, “I love that AJA engineers are listening to the industry and building tools that really meet our needs and always work – and that they’re open to and accepting of customer feedback. You speak up about what you’d like to see and often it pops up in a firmware update down the line.”

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.

Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high-quality, cost-effective products to the professional broadcast, video and post production markets. AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com. 

Streaming provider fuboTV announced that it plans to carry Fox Sports’ (FS1) UHD-HDR coverage of selected NCAA football games starting with San Diego State-Stanford matchup on Aug. 31.Other games to be covered in ultra-high definition, high dynamic range include W. Michigan vs. Michigan Sept. 8 and Fresno State at UCLA on Sept. 15, as well as other PAC12 and Big 10 games during the season.

The collaboration extends fuboTV’s relationship with Fox Sports when fuboTV launched its 4K HDR Beta service carrying FS1’s coverage of the World Cup in July as well as FS1’s coverage of a recent Yankees-Red Sox duel in UHD HDR. This is the second year FS1 has covered NCAA football games in UHD HDR. 

[Read: Dish Kicks Off 4K Broadcasts Of Fox Sports College Football]

To view the games in fuboTV’s 4K HDR10 Beta format, subscribers will need to have a 4K HDR-enabled television, HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 compatible cable and run the fuboTV app on a streaming device that supports the format, which includes Android Mobile Phones with HDR10 displays and Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV and Roku devices. Bandwidth speeds of 30Mbps-40Mbps or higher are recommended. 4K HDR-capable TVs may also need calibration to present the content correctly. For subscribers without 4K HDR hardware, this content will continue to be available in its usual formats.

fuboTV says it will also offer additional sports and, for the first time, entertainment programming in 4K HDR Beta in the coming months.