KSL says no, so KJZZ steps up to air BYU game

Monday's BYU basketball game will be seen locally on the TV home of the Cougars, KJZZ-Ch. 14.

OK, just kidding with that "home of the Cougars" crack. But the San Diego State-at-BYU game will indeed air on KJZZ on Monday at 9 p.m.. And Ch. 14 is, of course, the TV home of the Utes.

As a matter of fact, KJZZ will air a doubleheader on Monday — the UNLV-at-Utah game is first up at 7 p.m.

Why are the Cougars on Ch. 14 instead of their longtime TV home, KSL-Ch. 5? Well, for one thing, Ch. 5 decided it didn't want to telecast the game.

More importantly, you've got to realize that KSL doesn't own the rights to BYU basketball games. The Cougars' local broadcast rights belong to SportsWest. SportsWest used to belong to Bonneville International, which owns KSL, but Bonneville sold the company to former Jazz president Dave Checketts last year. Which means that SportsWest is in the position of selling BYU games to whatever local station is willing to buy — whether that be KSL, KJZZ or KUWB-Ch. 30. KSL is contractually obligated to carry just five BYU basketball games per season. The three-way deal with KSL, BYU and SportsWest means that Ch. 5 has first right of refusal on Cougar games and can take more than five but doesn't have to.

Lots of local fans were unhappy that there was no TV coverage of Monday's BYU-Colorado State game, and who could blame them? And, frankly, I just roll my eyes at the thought that KSL aired cruddy NBC programming like "Fear Factor," "Third Watch" and "Crossing Jordan" instead of the game.

But, before the season began, KSL made it clear it wouldn't carry any weeknight BYU games during February sweeps. Plus, Ch. 14 had a Jazz game and KUWB-Ch. 30 had a conflict with network programming. The game was also offered to KBYU-Ch. 11, but BYU couldn't work that out. SportsWest even explored the possibility of a cable-only telecast with Comcast, but that also failed.

What fans don't want to understand is that KSL is a business that depends upon its network affiliation. (Ch. 5's parent company had to sell a TV station in Seattle back in 1995 because it lost its network affiliation.) KSL has to keep NBC happy. And the station's current affiliation pact with the network affords Ch. 5 much less leeway in terms of pre-emptions than past deals with either NBC or CBS.

There's no such problem for KJZZ, which is an independent. And a big part of the reason that KJZZ is an independent is that the former UPN affiliate was battling with the network over its many pre-emptions for Jazz and Ute games — when, lo and behold, UPN switched to the newly created KPNZ-Ch. 24.