Nine of the Big East’s 11 teams have schedules out, and….. yep, too many games on Opening Night for FS1 and FS2.
Hello, and welcome to the After Labor Day portion of the 2024 calendar!
I am here today to tell you that you should expect the Big East and Fox Sports to announce whip-around coverage on the first night of the men’s college basketball season.
I didn’t say you had to like it. I’ve seen my comments and mentions turn into a disaster of complaints about it. I’m telling you what the announced schedules are showing us is going to happen.
Whip-around coverage of the league has been broadcast on FS1 over the past couple of Opening Nights, and that’s caused by pretty much one thing: Teams want to play as soon as possible in order to fit in as many games as possible. Once you hit a critical mass of teams playing basketball on one day, there’s just not enough broadcast windows on FS1 and FS2 to get the games on the air. That’s what has caused the whip-around coverage in the past, and it certainly looks like we’re getting it again in 2024-25.
Nine of the 11 Big East men’s basketball teams have announced non-conference schedules so far, so we’re able to draw a pretty solid picture of what’s on deck for Monday, November 4th already.
Here’s what’s set for Opening Night from the nine schedules that are officially out, and yes, all of them are home games and thus fall under the purview of the Big East’s TV contract:
- Butler: vs Missouri State
- DePaul: vs Southern Indiana
- Marquette: vs Stony Brook
- Providence: vs Central Connecticut State
- St. John’s: vs Fordham
- Villanova: vs Lafayette
- Xavier: vs Texas Southern
That’s seven known scheduled games for opening night, and I can’t even confirm when Seton Hall’s season is officially starting, and I doubt they’re waiting until Saturday, November 9th to play anyone. UConn has a game set for November 6th, two days after opening day, according to Sacred Heart releasing their schedule, so it seems like the Huskies won’t be in action on Monday night. By my math, FS1 and FS2 tend to only put on doubleheaders, and that would mean space for four games on Monday night. Seven is, last I checked, more than four, and so, it seems we’ll get whip-around coverage on FS1 and streams of full games on the Fox Sports app.
Now, yes, there is the possibility that Peacock could get involved. NBC’s streaming property is going to broadcast “25 regular season games” this season before the package expands to 60 games in the first year of the new TV deal in 2025-26. I am going to guess that NBC is not in a hurry to make Providence vs Central Connecticut State the very first Big East game that they put on the air, so I would not hold my breath on Peacock preventing whip-around coverage. Even if Peacock does jump in right on opening night, there are seven games to broadcast, and NBC only has so many crews ready to call a game.
So yeah, whip-around coverage should be returning. As always, this will not affect me personally because “being in Fiserv Forum with my season tickets” solves that whole streaming issue, but that’s not going to be the case for most people.
And now, we wait for the official schedule release….