New TV deal for Gonzaga
And then there were none.
Which, in this case, turns out to be a “mind-boggling” number for Gonzaga University athletic director Mike Roth, who, on Wednesday, announced the most ambitious men’s basketball television schedule in the school’s history.
Under a unique deal that also involves KHQ-TV and Fox Sports Net, every one of the Bulldogs men’s basketball games, home and away, will be televised locally and in the Seattle area for at least the next four years.
“It really is mind boggling,” Roth said of the agreement, which includes two 2-year renewals that could extend the deal to eight years. “The first year of our deal with (KH)Q-6, we had four or five games we weren’t televising. The second year, there were two or three, and last year that was only one.
“Now, there’s zero. I mean, it’s hard for me to comprehend.”
The new contract puts the Zags in impressive company, considering Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Maryland were the only schools in the country to televise every one of their men’s basketball games last season.
“We already knew we had one of the best television contracts in the country,” Roth added, “and today it got better.”
Still to be determined are the play-by-play announcer and color commentators who will work GU’s home games. During last season’s final year of its original 3-year television contract with KHQ, Greg Heister handled play-by-play duties while former Bulldogs star Jeff Brown and former Washington State and NBA standout Craig Ehlo did color commentary.
“That’s one of the next things we’ll do is finalize the talent,” Roth said, adding that’s an issue where he will probably defer to KHQ and Fox Sports Net.
“That’s part of their business,” Roth continued. “They’ll tell me who they want to do the games, but if we have a serious problem with them, I’m sure they’ll respect that. This is a real partnership from that standpoint.
“It’s a relationship that has worked extremely well over the last three years, and we expect it to work extremely well for the next four-plus years.”
Despite that relationship, GU opened up the bidding for its television rights once its original deal with KHQ expired.
“We wanted to find out what else was out there,” said Roth, who refused to say which other companies bid on the contract. “And we were very, very pleased to have Q-6 come back to us again, wanting not only to continue to do our games but to continue to increase the number of games that they do.”
A key to the contract, Roth admitted, was exposure in the Seattle area.
“That first year (with KHQ), we were just happy to get any of our games on TV,” he said. “Then that second year we realized we have a significant population of GU fans and alums in the Seattle market that were saying, ‘You’ve got your games on over there, how can we get them on over here?’
“Seattle is our second most important market, outside of Spokane.”
Under the new contract, KHQ will retain exclusivity of GU coverage in its normal viewing area, with FSN guaranteeing coverage in the Seattle market. There is also a chance, according to Roth, that Gonzaga basketball could reach nearly 5 million homes throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Alaska and the western provinces of Canada.
KHQ president Lon Lee said he approached Fox Sports Net about becoming partners in an effort to satisfy GU’s desire to become more visible on the west side of the state.
“There were others (bidders) involved,” Lee explained, “and we knew if it was just us, we weren’t going to make it. Fortunately, (Fox Sports Net) was right there. It wasn’t a tough sell.”
Lee also said that under the new agreement, GU games not already committed to other networks will be televised locally on either KHQ or Fox affiliate KAYU-TV, with PAX serving as a third option in case there are scheduling conflicts with the other two local stations.
“It’s just a terrific deal,” Roth said. “There are only a handful of programs in the county that get 100 percent of their games on TV, and now we’re one of them.”
Monetary details of the new contract were not made public.