Unhappy with CSTV deal? Don't blame Thompson

The venom being spewed at Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson these days over the league's new television deal is unwarranted.

It's not surprising that BYU and Utah fans are mad because they may not be able to see the Utes or the Cougars on TV. I fully understand and sympathize with their frustration and anger.

But it shouldn't be aimed at Thompson for two reasons:

First, Thompson doesn't run the MWC, he manages it. He acts at the behest of the nine member-university presidents.

Second, the MWC was more or less forced into this situation by ESPN, which was offering worse coverage and no more money.

Do Ute and Cougar fans want to watch football games on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday nights? How about a bunch more 10 p.m. starts for basketball?

I recently heard a caller to a local sports talk-radio station insist that Thompson had fixed something that wasn't broken, with the agreement of the on-air host. But it was broken. And getting more broken as time passed.

The deal putting games on CSTV, The mtn. and Versus (formerly OLN) is a work in progress. At some point — particularly with the backing of both CBS and Comcast — we will see more games on TV than ever before.

It's a huge blow to fans that there will no longer be games on free, over-the-air TV. I'm not minimizing that. But BYU and Utah games — like all other TV sports — have been migrating to cable for decades. It's been years since KSL-Ch. 5 carried more than a few Cougar games, and those were the less-desirable games ESPN or ABC didn't want.

A lot of the Utah and BYU games we saw on KJZZ-Ch. 14 were part of the ESPN syndication package.

I'm not happy about it any more than other fans, but it's a fact. Think about it — who would have thought just a few years ago that events like NBA playoffs and the All-Star Game and major league baseball playoffs would be on cable?

Fans ought to consider the financial underpinnings of this, too. The amount of money MWC schools are making from CSTV is a fraction of what BCS schools make off their TV deals. It's also twice what ESPN was offering.

In other words, sticking with ESPN would have made it harder for the MWC to keep up than it is already.

I count myself among you, but we're spoiled fans here in Utah because for so many years so many Ute and Cougar games were available on TV — cable or local. That has not been the case with the other seven members of the Mountain West. For the most part, this CSTV deal is a big upgrade for them.