According to CBS Sports.com, the Big 12 TV partners had issues with (1) BYU's policy of not playing games in any sport on Sunday, (2) BYU requesting that an unknown minimum number of games be nationally televised, and (3) BYU requesting any game that wasn't picked up by ESPN or FOX be shown on BYUTV. I could see issue #2 being a problem because the 2:30pm (CT) Big 12 window on ABC isn't guaranteed to be a full national telecast, same goes for any football telecast picked up by FOX Sports Net.
What I don't understand is why the Big 12's TV partners wouldn't agree to third-tier TV rights (games not televised by ESPN or FOX) being picked up by BYUTV, which might be one or two games a year at the max. What's different than say when Nebraska was in the Big 12 and having 3 non-conference games on PPV versus one or two BYU games regulated to third-tier rights being shown on BYUTV? The Big 12 has never shared third-tier TV revenue, so that's not an issue.
The Big 12 TV partners objecting to BYU's policy of not playing on Sunday's is baffling to me. The Big 12 Basketball Tournament wraps up on Saturday night, so that won't be a problem. I don't recall the Big 12 playing that many regular season college basketball games on Sunday's to begin with and please don't tell me that ESPN or FOX Sports had an issue with televising potential BYU baseball games on a Sunday afternoon or any other Olympic Sport for that matter.
So the Big 12 TV partners said no to a national brand like BYU and said yes to TCU, who outside of football really brings nothing to the table and the Big 12 already had the Dallas/Fort Worth market covered? The more things change, the more they stay the same in the Big 12.
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