Looks like that shiny new ACC-ESPN television media rights contract is already paying off handsomely for the conference. On Wednesday, the conference announced that there will be a record number of hoops games on national television for the 2011-12 season:
"An all-time high 189 national television appearances highlight the 2011-12 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball schedule released today by Commissioner John Swofford. In addition, each of the league's 96 conference games will be broadcast live.
In the first year of a new 12-year agreement with ESPN, all of the league's conference games schedule will be carried by either ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3.com, the ACC Network or the ACC Regional Sports Networks (RSN). All conference games carried by the ACC Network, or the Regional Sports Network (RSN), will also be broadcast live nationally on ESPN3.com, as will selected games by ESPN."
Highlights of interest include ACC Sunday night hoops on ESPNU (moved from Raycom) and the rights to all ACC Tournament games on one of the ESPN family of networks with no blackouts. In addition, with Raycom's continued commitment to air select conference games, every conference game and the entire ACC Tournament will be aired by either ESPN or Raycom.
Not only will the conference air a record number of games this season, but so will Boston College hoops.
A season ago, the Eagles appeared on TV 13 of 16 times during the ACC portion of its schedule, appearing on ESPNU five times, ACC Network four times, RSN twice and FESN/NESN and ESPN each one time. In contrast, this season all 16 games will be televised, including seven games on the ACC Network (four outright, three ACC Network split), four on ESPNU, three on RSN, one on ESPN/2 and one game televised exclusively on ESPN3.com. In addition, 12 of the Eagles' 16 ACC contests will be shown online at ESPN3.com.
It might not be pretty this year, but at least you can catch even more BC hoops on TV in 2011-12.