For the Mountain West Conference, the 2007 football season begins Thursday with UNLV traveling to Logan to take on Utah State while Oregon State hosts the Utes.
The question is: When does the season begin for fans of Mountain West Conference football?
Since the launching of The MountainWest Sports Network (commonly known as the mtn.) on Sept. 1, 2006, fans have had limited access to their favorite teams.
Thousands of fans have voiced their displeasure through e-mails, irate phone calls and petitions pleading for a deal to strike between the network and satellite carriers Dish Network and DirecTV.
Kim Carver, vice president of the mtn., has recently stated that she doesn’t know whether there will be a deal in place before the season starts.
Carver also announced an advertising campaign featuring former college greats Ty Detmer and Alex Smith urging fans to call their networks and persuade them into making a deal with the mtn.
As it stands, in Salt Lake City, the mtn. is exclusively available to subscribers of Comcast cable, which shares ownership of the mtn. with CSTV Networks, Inc. — another college sports network owned by CBS.
“I think it sucks,” said Tommy Fox, a 26-year-old senior at the U.
The Salt Lake native subscribes to Dish Network and says he is forced to go elsewhere to watch games on the mtn., which will air six of the Utes’ 12 games this season.
Additionally, those who subscribe to Dish Network and wish to see the handful of games that will air on CSTV must pay extra because it’s a premium channel.
“I think it’s ridiculous that they have all these channels that nobody even watches and they can’t get the mtn. (on satellite networks),” Fox said.
Fox remembers watching past games on ESPN or ESPN2, channels featured on both cable and satellite lineups. While the contract with the mtn. brings more money to each university in the MWC, the conference loses national exposure.
“It’s unfortunate for us because we don’t get the coverage that we deserve, and conferences like the WAC get on ESPN,” Fox said.
Subscribing to Comcast doesn’t guarantee a package that includes the mtn., as parts of Bountiful, St. George and Idaho are out of the network’s range.
Fans who don’t get the mtn. often choose whether it’s worth buying a Comcast subscription, which starts at $33 per month — a steep price to pay just for a few football games.
“I wouldn’t buy it,” said Ashley Powell, a geography student at the U. “If I wanted to watch a game, I’d probably just go to it or find some other resource. It’s not that big a deal.”
Powell admits that she isn’t the biggest fan to begin with, which raises another question: Does anyone really care?
An online petition found at addthemtntosatellite.blogspot.com has fewer than 11,000 names. While that might seem like a significant number, remember: the MWC spans the entire western half of the United States.
Whatever the magic number is, 11,000 isn’t getting the job done so far.
Also, last season, attendance for all nine schools in the conference hovered around 69 percent of stadium capacity. Utah ranked the highest at 96 percent and BYU came in second with 93 percent.
But UNLV (52 percent), Wyoming (60 percent) and Air Force (64 percent) struggled to fill the seats each week.
Perhaps all the angry letters, e-mails and phone calls would make more sense if the stadiums consistently sold out and those who were left outside still wanted to watch the games.