ESPN’s respect from Big 12 Basketball ran Deep Wednesday night

It included the biggest game at night – No. 9 TCU at No. 12 Kansas State, perhaps the top women’s play on slate. It was referred to the streaming service. It was not one of the 20 women’s games that Big 12 came on national TV this season, and apparently no movement was made to get that game for a bigger limelight.

The schedule was baked back in October, and unlike the football plan, it does not appear to be see-ins or windows to make network changes.

But this is Big 12, the most respected basketball conference in college basketball, right? So on a Wednesday night with 10 games, where is Espn’s love?

Elsewhere.

Look at the ESPN family of the network and you will find that ESPN released an NBA doubleheader, ESPN2 showed an ACC/SEC Doubleheader, and Espnu showed two mid-major games, followed by an ACC game on the west coast.

The SEC network owned by ESPN had a double head. The ACC network, also owned by ESPN, had a triple.

So … ESPN couldn’t push one of these ACC or SEC games on one of the ESPN channels for their respective networks and give the limelight to a BIG 12 game? Apparently not.

Last week, our Pete Mundo made a podcast about whether ESPN sabotaged the Big 12 basketball by not putting the league in a larger limelight. I made aware of my PostScripts column that it is not so much sabotage as it is prioritization. It is not surprising to me that ESPN, for example, would put the NBA on the main network.

But – and no violation of Chattanooga, Wofford, Arkansa’s State and Marshall – ESPN relegated Big 12 to Plus, but raised these four schools to Espnu. One of these slots should have gone to BIG 12 if the conference is really a priority for the network.

You can continue and continue with the lack of a “Big 12 network”, but remember that Oklahoma and Texas are basically mixed with their own offerings that they did not give up, especially the Longhorn network. You cannot have that kind of network unless all the programs are ready to share the rights of their third layer.

With next year’s TV deal, ESPN has all the third levels and can send as much as it will to plus. The network only goes to underlicenses so many BIG 12 games. After all, it needs some programming. But lots of these conference basketball games will still end up on the streamer.

The big 12 have to push the envelope wherever it can. The league has already slipped some of its men’s games for Sunday. It may be necessary to push some to Thursday as a way to push the network to more traffic on the linear channels. The league has already moved a few women’s games to Friday night, which has helped.

It is disappointing that the Big 12 on a night who got a single game on any of ESPN’s linear channels on Wednesday, especially with a game like K-State and TCU, a hit about the top 15 teams.

For other, ESPN, you missed a great game. Kansas State won – at least that’s what the scoreboard says on your site. Some of us actually see the games.