CBS VP Mike Aresco new Big East Commish

[BlazeOrange]

Maybe I'm dense, but I really don't understand the significance of this. There are plenty of teams across all the time zones that play big time college football. In fact under the current system you can watch college football from noon to after midnight every Saturday. The fact that the Big East will have teams in all time zones doesn't mean that the match-ups will be more compelling than what other networks can broadcast opposite the Big East games.

My take is that NBC sports is new and needs to fill their air time and the Sun Beast is the best available conference (possibly the only available one). Sure the other networks will have more high profile matchups, but this gets them in the game.

Specific to the noon-midnight football, it not only provides the network with content, but allows them to do it under a single contract. To fill that air time with teams from more geographically sensible conferences, they would have to sign two or three leagues - much more $$ going out and more hassle in dealing with overlapping games/airtimes. With a single conference, it will be relatively easy for NBC to program their schedule. They can reduce costs by showing games to a wider audience (cue collective yawn over the RU-SDSU grudge match in the midwest, etc.) instead of having a multitude of less profitable regional broadcasts to staff.