The Pac-12 has struggled compared to other power conferences when it comes to getting the best national exposure possible on TV. That is what makes Saturday night quite a moral victory for commissioner Larry Scott and the Pac-12, as Oregon and Washington State are set for a nationally televised game between ranked Pac-12 teams.
There will be a Game 7 in the National League Championship Series after the Milwaukee Brewers held off elimination last night against the Los Angeles Dodgers. A Game 7 in a league championship series would figure to be an automatic choice to be placed on network television instead of a cable outlet that has a fraction of the possible viewership, but Major League Baseball will see the deciding game for a chance to play in the World Series air on FOX Sports 1 instead of FOX. FOX will be airing the Oregon-Washington State game.
No sympathy for MLB for LCS Game 7 being on FS 1 (not in millions of homes) for second straight year. Commissioner's office should have insisted Game 7 should be on big Fox and flip flopped with Oregon-Washington State on Fox tonight
— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) October 20, 2018
A rare Pac-12 victory that this did not happen. https://t.co/wq6RmSXeSz
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) October 20, 2018
FOX has battled a handful of scheduling issues when it comes to college football coverage, especially during the baseball postseason. Playoff baseball game s(and regular season baseball games) taking longer to play have led to delays in college football broadcasts, and vice versa at times as FOX and FOX Sports 1 have built up their rights packages. Last year’s regular season game between Penn State and Ohio State, for example, would have been a sure lock for primetime but was moved to a 3:30 p.m. time slot to make way for postseason baseball. That was a bit of a disappointment for the Big Ten considering the importance of the game, but that is the way this all works when conferences divvy up their broadcast rights.
But for the Pac-12 to be able to keep a marquee game in a primetime slot that will gain the maximum audience and not being shoved to a network with a fraction of the audience to make way for a Game 7 in the NLCS is a major victory for the conference. For this week, at least.