For those that missed the recent press release, we announced an extension of our partnership with Peachtree TV to air three home football games this coming season.

It's an impactful and unique partnership for us in terms of exposure, branding, recruiting, and advertising – allowing KSU's Black & Gold to reach more than 6.2 million people and 2.38 million households in the greater Atlanta area – the nation's ninth-largest media market. Based on available data, we're the only FCS program with a local television agreement in a Top-10 market.

That being said, the ever-changing world of television rights at the college level is complex, and often misunderstood.

Some of the common questions that we've heard from our fans:

• Why was this game on TV, but not that game?
• Why don't we put all the games on Peachtree TV?
• Why are the kickoff times different?
• Why are the announcers always different?

I'm hoping to take this opportunity to answer your questions and bring some clarity and understanding to the topic of television rights.
 
To begin, the right to air live games in the Big South Conference lies with the conference itself. We, as individual schools in the conference, have limited freedom to negotiate our own television deals. This is true for most conferences -- in both the FCS and the FBS.
 
Every home football game (conference and non-conference) involving members of the Big South are the conference's "inventory" for the purposes of TV. The conference, in conjunction with its TV partners -- ESPN, American Sports Network, and other regional sports networks -- tier its available "inventory" into four categories with an emphasis on conference matchups:

• Tier 1: produced by the Big South to air exclusively on the ESPN family of networks, including ESPN3
• Tier 2: produced by the Big South to air on the American Sports Network or other regional sports networks
• Tier 3: produced by the individual schools to air exclusively on Big South Network (streaming)
• Tier 4: inventory is controlled by the host school, but at minimum, must air on the Big South Network

 
The Big South slots EVERY conference game into one of the top three tiers, along with any non-conference home game it may choose. Regardless, all home games involving Big South members receive TV/digital exposure of some sort.
 
Last season, the conference assigned us three Tier 1 games (Liberty, Monmouth, Charleston Southern) and two Tier 2 games (Presbyterian and Gardner-Webb). Our remaining home games (ETSU, Point, Missouri S&T, Clark Atlanta) were assigned as Tier 4.
 
Each school has the following options concerning Tier 4 broadcasts:

• Produce themselves, air them on the Big South Network (BSN)
• Produce themselves, and air them on ESPN3 and BSN
• Produce themselves, and air them locally/regionally on an over-the-air network and BSN

In an effort to increase our exposure in Atlanta and, in evaluating the three options above, we were able to strike a partnership with Peachtree TV to air each of our four Tier 4 games. Last year was the first year of the partnership – I guess you could say it was a "trial run." KSU had not yet explored live network TV for football, and Peachtree TV was venturing into relatively new waters.
 
The partnership was a win-win. It gave Peachtree TV sellable, live sports programming on Saturdays during college football, and it gave Kennesaw State exposure (the equivalent of a three-hour commercial) in one of the nation's largest media markets. Having a local TV presence allows us the power to reach millions of people – alumni, fans, families, prospective KSU students and student-athletes – in the college football hotbed of the Southeast.
 
For these four games, we bore the cost of production, we produced the game with our talented Owl Network video staff in athletics, we selected and hired the announcers, and we worked with Peachtree TV to set the most ideal game times. We also simulcast the broadcast as an online stream on the Big South Network, so those outside the Peachtree TV viewing area could still watch. Due to our contractual obligations with Peachtree TV, the game was blacked out on the Big South Network inside the Peachtree TV viewing area.
 
The ratings in Year 1 were solid, advertising sales were brisk, and Peachtree TV wanted the Owls back in 2017. More on this later.
 
The three Tier 1 games aired exclusively on ESPN3 and were produced by the conference. Meaning, the conference arranged the production and hired the announcers. (The host schools had the ability to set the times for games that aired on ESPN3).
 
The two Tier 2 games aired on the American Sports Network (ASN). In collaboration with the conference, ASN produced the broadcasts, hired the announcers and mandated the game times (mostly these were at noon). It was also ASN's responsibility to find local stations, in the markets of the participating teams and beyond, for those games to air. Thanks to our preexisting relationship, Peachtree TV sought to carry our two Tier 2 games on its network. ASN also cleared those games to a number of other stations regionally and nationally.
 
The Big South Conference works throughout the off-season with its TV partners to set the next season's schedule, with a goal of having it ready to announce by late summer. That announcement would contain TV designations and times for any games that were selected as Tier 1, 2, or 3.
 
As for this season, once the Big South informed us that our three non-conference games (Tennessee Tech, North Greenville, Texas Southern) would be assigned to Tier 4, we offered them immediately to Peachtree TV, which didn't hesitate in clearing those three dates for us.
 
That takes us to where we are today.
 
We know our three non-conference home games will air on Peachtree TV, and we know our five conference games will air through the Big South's TV package – either on TV or online.
 
What we don't know yet are the TV designations for our remaining three non-conference road games in 2017 (at Samford, at Alabama State, at Montana State). The TV rights for those three games, as I've mentioned above, are controlled by the conferences for which they play – Southern (Samford), SWAC (Alabama State) and Big Sky (Montana State).
 
The landscape of television is always changing, and the proliferation of digital and streaming technologies only enhances our ability to consume every game.  The chances are good that our three remaining games will be broadcast in some way – either on TV or digitally – so stay tuned to KSUOwls.com, and to our social media channels (@KSUOwlNation and @KennesawStFB). We'll use those outlets to keep you posted as we know more.
 
I hope that I've been able to shed some light on our broadcast rights, as it pertains to football. We're fortunate the Big South Conference has a comprehensive package, and we're privileged to supplement that through our partnership with Peachtree TV.
 
Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Additionally, if there are other topics you'd like us to address using this forum, please let me know. My email address is mdegeorge@kennesaw.edu.
 
Thanks, and Go Owls!

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