The ACC and The CW Network announced a broadcast rights deal this week that got fans talking. The CW secured exclusive rights to 50 of the conference’s football, basketball, and women’s basketball games each season through 2026-2027.
This deal came together when The CW “acquired the rights to these live ACC football and basketball games from Raycom Sports who sublicenses the rights from ESPN” according to the news release. Essentially, it seems like that means games on The CW replace the Regional Sports Networks that previously distributed the games. Raycom Sports will continue to produce all the games.
From a fan perspective, it means that more games could be easier to find via linear, cable, or streaming options because The CW is a national network. In Charlottesville, for example, the digital broadcast can be picked up over the air on display channel 29-3 and digital channel 35.5. The CW Channel Finder link is here. The CW Plus is listed as Xfinity 812 in HD and Nexstar (The CW’s majority parent company) reached a deal earlier this year to continue carrying its programming on YouTube TV. There’s also the ability to download The CW app and stream the network that way (FREE with no log-in).
For more information on The CW and Nexstar’s vision, you can check out this article from August 2022 in The Hollywood Reporter.
The first ACC football game to air on The CW will be Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati on Saturday, Sept. 9. Games will continue to air every Saturday throughout the season in the afternoon and in prime time. There will be a total of 13 football games, 28 men’s basketball games, and 9 women’s basketball games on The CW. Basketball games will air December, January, and February with men’s basketball doubleheaders on Saturday afternoon and women’s basketball games on Sunday afternoon.
“We are thrilled to be adding The CW to our weekly television lineup for ACC football and basketball games,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in the news release. “The CW’s national distribution will directly benefit our student-athletes, teams, alumni and fans. We appreciate ESPN and Raycom working together and look forward to the partnership with The CW.”
“We are committed to making The CW a destination for live, appointment-viewing sporting events,” Dennis Miller, The CW Network President, said in the news release. “The ACC is home to some of the most decorated college football and basketball teams in the country and we look forward to welcoming these avid sports fans to the network as we continue to broaden our audience.”
Those avid sports fans immediately began to discuss the deal when it was announced. For two threads on the topic, click here and here. Some posts from The Sabre fans follow:
- “Who?” ~ YabaDabaHoo
- “Well, on the good side, I’ll have to find fewer odd ball feeds to watch a few of our games. I get the CW over the air. Woo hoo. On the bad side … next up would be either Laff or GritTV.” ~ GoochlandHoo
- “Let’s just mark the calendars down now for the BC game to be on it. That had been on RSN every year I can think of.” ~ HooAlum
- “Exclusive: ACC to air all Virginia Tech games on Cartoon Network.” ~ CSL66
- “This is the old Raycom-RSN deal. If you’ve been paying attention the RSNs aren’t doing so well, people need to get paid. Canary in the coal mine for ESPN btw. Rights are clearly being traded and sold. What I care about is that all of the games are on TV – hard for me to get back to the hook on the regular these days. Maybe the ACC had approval rights on the transfer, maybe it didn’t.” ~ Capital City Hoo
- “They have bad reception & right now in a squabble w/Direct TV & others. Off the air in Roanoke area because of contract issues.” ~ me chuckles
- “That’s embarrassing and screams ACC is low budget. Nothing says says you’re conference is great like being put on a tv channel that makes teen dramas.” ~ hoolu
- “SEC games after game day on ESPN and ACC games after gossip girl re-runs on The CW. That’s terrific for branding.” ~ CharlestonSC
- “Don’t know if it’s a gift for fans or just putting different wrapping paper on what we were going to get anyway. Nice press release, but what does it really mean? In other words, what difference does this really make?” ~ UVAFan2626
With that conversation still going, let’s check out the Fans of the Week (coming soon to The CW Network live from the JPJ?).
Fan(s) Of The Week
Smile!
Student Fan(s) Of The Week
Thumbs up if you love the Hoos.
Feature Photo Of The Week
Virginia announced that Chase Coleman has been added to the men’s basketball staff as a graduate assistant. Congrats Chase!
Not sure what all the hate is about. This is a definite win. Now when those random games are slated for RSN we can actually watch them without having to buy a subscription to something or have Direct tv or cable tv