No more sailing the seven seas to catch that rousing Saturday battle between Syracuse and Boston College. Starting next fall, you’ll be able to watch games on The CW as part of the ESPN app (ESPN Unlimited tier only).
The ACC did a good job to get these second tier games off of regional networks to a national broadcast partner and this opens up those games to more fans across the country.
ESPN also plans to make finding the ACC games easy for fans telling Sports Business Journal that “Their (The CW)
college football would sit alongside our college football, and it will be branded in the environment that it’s CW Sports.”
I know a lot of people think the CW deal is beneath the ACC, but it’s a national network and a much better option than more ACCNX games and now it’s a little easier for more fans to catch these games. The CW is also being mentioned as a possible new broadcast home for the Holiday Bowl.
In other streaming news, Duke made a lot of people confused with their three game Amazon deal, but at closer look it’s not simply the Blue Devils doing whatever they want. In exchange for the deal on these neutral site games against Gonzaga, Michigan and UConn, Duke has committed to play in a certain number of ESPN owned MTEs (like the Champions Classic and Jimmy V Classic).
It’s an interesting move from everyone as we don’t know the full details. Duke can test out Amazon to see if there is value in continuing to play games off the ESPN platform and ESPN locks in the Blue Devils for specific events they not only broadcast, but generate revenue from.
If it works, there could be new potential for Syracuse to explore neutral site games in basketball and football that could come with more money than simply playing on the ESPN family of networks. In today’s landscape, revenue generation is the name of the game so we will certainly be following
