Philadelphia is most definitely a pro sports town, even though Temple is off to a 3-0 start this season with wins over Penn State and Cincinnati in the first two weeks. Today the Pope is visiting the City of Brotherly Love, and the local media outlets are going all out in providing as much coverage of the Pope’s trip as possible. That means college football is being bumped off the airwaves from the main networks.
Notre Dame’s home game against UMass is being moved from NBC 10 in Philadelphia to the My Network TV affiliate, which also carries a 10 o’clock newscast with the NBC affiliate’s staff. It is not often Notre Dame football gets moved from its NBC home, but when the Pope comes to town even the Irish give up their seat.
Other college football games in Philadelphia are also being moved around. The Florida-Tennessee game appearing on CBS is moving over to CW this afternoon. WPVI, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia, will still air the Michigan-BYU game, but that broadcast will be joined an hour into the game at 1 p.m. eastern. The mid-afternoon Virginia Tech-East Carolina game and Arizona-UCLA game scheduled to appear in primetime on ABC tonight will be moved to the Live Well Network, which means a number of college football fans may learn today that they have the Live Well Network.
Fans hoping to catch Texas Tech-TCU or Oregon-Utah on FOX today in Philadelphia look to be out of luck. The local FOX affiliate in Philadelphia will not carry either game today in lieu of Pope coverage. There are no broadcast alternatives available on TV either, leaving fans needing to go to some sort of streaming option.
Fortunately, technology has helped the few of us college football junkies get around the onslaught of Pope coverage today in Philadelphia. Having the ability to stream games on various devices comes in handy on this sort of rare college football Saturday.