Cougs’ tough schedule doesn’t draw cameras

PULLMAN – For a second consecutive week Washington State is hosting a top-20 team in Martin Stadium.

For a second consecutive week, unless you happen to be in Martin Stadium, you almost certainly won’t be seeing the Cougars play.

WSU and California, then No. 10 in the country, drew some national attention as their game didn’t get televised anywhere, outside the closed-circuit replay system.

This week, hosting a 16th-ranked Oregon team, the only broadcast will be coming from a crew that follows the Ducks around, ensuring local, tape-delayed coverage in the Eugene area.

For the Cougars, missing out on television can be bad news for both the athletic department and the football program.

“It just goes to show you how driven those national networks are by markets,” said Pete Isakson, WSU’s assistant athletic director for external relations. “The games they chose involved our bigger-market Pac-10 teams. Advertisers drive this, and we understand that. But it is a little frustrating, because we felt for the Cal game that we had the best matchup in the Pac-10 that week.”

Last week, the Cougars declined an opportunity to move a 2 p.m. kickoff back less than two hours for Bay Area television, and also passed on the idea of making the Cal game a nighttime affair because of homecoming festivities.

This week, WSU opted to keep the 2 p.m. slot with no TV because a late kickoff still wouldn’t get national television coverage. (WSU also tries to avoid scheduling football games over events in Beasley Coliseum, and a monster truck show is set for Saturday night.)

Games picked up by ABC bring in more than $300,000 to the athletic department, and national games on Fox Sports Net bring in at least $265,000.

But games shown on Fox Sports Northwest – the same cable channel, but only shown in the local markets – garner only $30,000 for WSU.

So when Fox Sports Net passed, choosing instead the Washington-California game, the lesser payday was the lone remaining option – and one that wasn’t good enough for WSU administrators.

“We’re in a little bit of a quandary because, yeah, we’d like to get it on TV for all those people who can’t come to the game,” Isakson said. “But at the same time, those folks who can, it’s a terrible inconvenience for them. If we were to err, we would err toward the side of the person buying the ticket.”

WSU does depend on the TV revenue, however. Athletic director Jim Sterk said WSU has averaged about $3.5 million in football-related television dollars over the last five years, but unless an additional game gets picked up nationally, WSU would fall short of that number this season.

“We may have budgeted conservatively, but I know we’re somewhere in that neighborhood,” Sterk said. “So we need to be on against Arizona State.”

That’s because the Cougars won’t likely be on television for their penultimate home game against Arizona on Nov. 4, either. TBS and Fox Sports Net both have games that day, but Washington-Oregon, USC-Stanford and possibly Arizona State-Oregon State could be viewed as likelier TV games.

Both the UCLA road game (ABC) and the Apple Cup (FSN) were picked up before the season.

Note

Backup quarterback Gary Rogers (shoulder separation) again didn’t wear shoulder pads in practice, making it increasingly likely that Cole Morgan will serve as Alex Brink’s primary backup.