NOTE: This musing also appears today on our sister site, Leblanguage. Please visit it regularly for coverage of media, sports and life.
Forget what your calendar and thermometer might otherwise be telling you. Autumn has officially begun, and it’s not just because pumpkin lattes are back on Starbucks’ menus and garish Halloween displays are bemusing Home Depot shoppers (because who among us doesn’t want to drop $299 for an animatronic Chucky or Pennywise while they’ve dropped by for some gardening mulch?).
Anyone who follows college football knows darn well what season we’re now in, and for the remaining Saturdays of 2024 that outside thermometer will be largely immaterial. More than ever, there will be a game to watch from somewhere from just about noon Eastern time till well past midnight, and on weeks when the University of Hawaii isn’t hosting a name school like the Big Ten’s UCLA (yeah, I bet it seems as strange to read those words together as it was for me to type them) to force-feed them into a wider-appeal time slot, that post-midnight window could extend even further.
Today alone, there will be 73 different games available to watch somewhere. We know that because ESPN has diplomatically launched what fans claim to have been seeking for decades–a comprehensive place to see all of their options at once. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Caitlin Huston dropped some details earlier this week:
ESPN is launching a Where to Watch feature on its app and online…The feature allows fans to search for specific events to find out where the games are playing, whether it be on the ESPN platforms or on broadcast, cable and regional sports networks and streaming services. Where to Watch is available on every screen on the ESPN App and on ESPN.com.
“Simplifying discovery of sporting events and where a fan can watch has become increasingly important as sports viewing has become fragmented across networks and platforms,” said Brian Marshall, vice president, Sports Product & Technology, Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology. “ESPN has always been the first stop for sports fans, and as we continue our evolution as the preeminent digital sports platform, we are proud to meet the needs of fans with new features to improve the discoverability of live sports and simplify their consumption journeys.”
Naturally, I bookmarked said site myself and scrolled through the options. Even someone who prides themselves on knowing as much about networks and platforms as anyone else such as moi learned about a few which I had never heard of that will provide live games today.
There’s FLO Sports, which will tee up three different games this afternoon, the most prominent of which will be that crucial Holy Cross-Rhode Island showdown for New England bragging rights. In case you were wondering as well, THE STREAMABLE’s Lauren Forrester offered her own thumbnail description earlier this week:
FloSports is a subscription video streaming service with unlimited access to live events across 25+ sports, plus over 300,000 hours of sports competitions live or on-demand, exclusive behind-the-scenes coverage and interviews, original programming, news, expert commentary, films, documentaries, weekly studio shows, podcasts, and more.
When you sign up, you have the choice of picking “your sport.” The lineup includes baseball, basketball, bowling, cheer, combat, cycling, dance, football, football, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, racing, rodeo, rugby, soccer, softball, swimming, track, volleyball, wrestling, and more. Once you choose a sport, you can choose from the “Monthly” plan ($29.99/month) or the “Yearly” plan ($12.49/month). The annual plan lets you save $210 per year. Both annual and monthly subscribers have access to premium content across the entire FloSports network.
Oh. Well, since I’m not an alumnus of either school, I think I’ll pass on that one.
There’s conference-specific sites like the RMAC Digital Network, your hub for all thinks Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which will offer a livestream of the Fort Lewis-William Jewell tilt. The MIAA Digital Network, where you’ll find everything worth watching from the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, ready to tee up tonight’s “premium” game between Ferris State and Pittsburg State.
Well, at least I know these options exist.
For the less adventurous among us, Where To Watch lays out the choices among the more familiar destinations, which this year has been expanded even further to include options like the Mountain West Game of the Week on Max (that’s Texas A&M-Commerce at San Diego State, two heavily mountainous locales) and the Scripps Sports Network (which is touting the Missouri State-Montana battle). And the CW is reinforced with their own new package. FRONT OFFICE SPORTS’ Amanda Christovich laid out some details in this morning’s newsletter:
Oregon State and Washington State, the conference’s two remaining members, could have allowed the Pac-12 to disintegrate. Instead, they’ve developed a plan to keep the group alive: The conference went to court to win control of the Pac-12 assets and intellectual property (yes, that means the two schools get to keep the name “the Pac-12,” even though the colloquial nickname has become the “Pac-2”)… Under the conference banner, the two schools negotiated a scheduling partnership deal with the Mountain West, allowing them to fill the majority of their schedules with the nearby quality Group of 5 teams. The conference also inked a modest media deal to show home games on the national stage.
And today at 3:30 PM Pacific, those pesky Beavers will open their home schedule versus the Vandals of Idaho State on the same place you can find LIV Golf and a reboot of Trivial Pursuit.
Admittedly, those options are outliers. The more familiar destinations that are part of larger media companies are the dominant destinations. 51 of today’s 73 games will be airing on a network or platform connected to ESPN. And as Huston’s article spelled out, those looking for help in solving the navigation dilemna will note those games will have a distinct advantage over the others’:
(T)he Where to Watch feature…offers one-click access to ESPN network streams for pay TV authenticated users and ESPN+ subscribers and links to certain partner networks.
You didn’t really think ESPN would be THAT magnaminous in their quest to control America’s couch potatoes, did you?
Anyhoo, those features will be most helpful to those who are a bit more mobile by choice or necessity. Thanks to technology, virtually all of those options will be available on phones and devices. I, for one, will be spending most upcoming Saturdays at my Home Depot, so I know I’ll be utilizing those functionalities. And if the action warrants, I promise to share with Beetlejuice and Frankenstein’s monster.