BYU, Utah not in control

A couple of weeks ago, I got a voice mail from a reader who was obviously extremely angry at BYU.

To make a long voice mail short, the caller wasn't happy about the Mountain West Conference's new deal with CSTV and its sister cable channel The mtn. — a deal that (as far as we know) puts an end to any local TV telecasts of BYU football and basketball games.

The caller vowed not to spend any money to subscribe to a cable or satellite package in order to pick up CSTV and The mtn. and derided BYU for its greed in creating this situation.

Far be it for me to be the defender of BYU — or fellow MWC-member Utah — but the caller got it wrong. I understand his frustration, but the Cougars and the Utes don't control their own TV destinies.

For one thing, ESPN pretty much forced the MWC's hand on this, and not just by offering half the money CSTV did. The 800-pound gorilla of TV sports was shoving Mountain West teams into bad time slots on bad nights — a situation that was getting worse, not better. Almost exactly two years ago (more than three months before the CSTV deal was announced), I told you that ESPN's new deal with the ACC for more Thursday-night football games was pushing the MWC further into the background.

And, while we as fans don't want to think that college sports are all about money, we also want our teams to be able to compete. The ACC's seven-year football-only deal with ESPN came in at $258 million; the MWC's seven-year deal with CSTV for all sports came in at $82 million. Which makes it hard to compete.

Remember, CSTV's payout to the MWC doubles what ESPN was paying.

It's also important to remember that BYU and Utah are in somewhat of a unique position in the nine-team Mountain West Conference. The Utes and Cougars both have local TV options that aren't available to most of the other members of the league most of the time.

Namely, there's interest by local TV stations in paying to air all of their football games and a lot of their basketball games.

That's not so true in San Diego, Las Vegas, Denver, Laramie, Albuquerque or Dallas.

The MWC-CSTV deal is designed to benefit all nine members of the league. Would it be better for Utah and BYU if they could put games on local broadcast stations? Maybe.

(We'll have to wait to see how this CSTV thing works out before we know.)

But it wouldn't be better for all nine members of the league. And, perhaps, BYU and Utah are sacrificing for the greater good of the Mountain West Conference.

So if you want to be mad because you can't see the Utes or the Cougars on local broadcast stations, I understand. I sympathize.

Just don't be mad at the Cougars and the Utes.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com