Ball State University athletics teams will have a greater chance to appear on national television because of their conference's new television contract.
The Mid-American Conference announced Wednesday it has a new eight-year contract with ESPN that will increase the network's football, men's basketball and women's basketball coverage.
"It's a good agreement for the Mid-American Conference and a good agreement for Ball State," athletics director Tom Collins said. "It's going to stabilize our revenue for the Mid-American Conference and give us more exposure."
Each season will have a minimum six MAC men's or women's basketball conference games that will air on either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, according to the agreement. The MAC will also continue to participate in the ESPNU Bracketbuster challenge -ยก- a regular season event when ESPN schedules games between non-BCS conference teams.
ESPN will continue to broadcast the men's basketball MAC Tournament Championship Game on ESPN or ESPN2. The network also has the option to air the women's basketball MAC Tournament Championship Game on ESPNU, which would be the first nationally televised championship game in MAC women's basketball history.
Collins said he does not know how many Ball State basketball games will be nationally televised but is hoping the Cardinals can get some games on the ESPN networks. He also said getting more basketball coverage was the conference's athletics directors' primary goal entering the negotiations.
"We wanted to make sure we got more exposure and this agreement will do that," Collins said.
Along with the basketball coverage, the network will televise an average of six MAC football games per year, including the conference championship game on ESPN or ESPN2. It will also air at least five MAC games per year on ESPNU.
The MAC will continue to play mid-week games in November that will air on the ESPN networks, but according to the agreement, ESPN will be given more games to chose from for the nationally-televised mid-week games.
"The MAC and its member institutions have always had a shared vision of the benefits of creative scheduling," Burke Magnus, ESPN senior vice president, stated in a press release. "We are excited to continue to provide national exposure of their football, and men's and women's basketball action."
The new football agreement follows a season in which a regular season MAC game between Ball State and Central Michigan University set an ESPN2 record for the highest rated Tuesday or Wednesday college football game in the station's history. Almost 1.7 million homes watched the MAC Championship between then-No. 12 Ball State and University at Buffalo to make it the most watched game in conference history.
Collins said the football team's undefeated regular season was good for the conference, but he said it was not the main reason ESPN agreed to this contract.
"This stuff was in the works long before," he said. "We played our role and other MAC schools played their role."
With the new ESPN agreement, Collins said it will benefit every team in the conference. He also said it will help Ball State coaches with recruiting players.
"Kids want to play on that stage with ESPN and ESPN2," Collins said. "If they look at the schedule, they want to know their is a chance to play on that stage."
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