Nov. 27, 2007

Darnell Dickson's November 21 story, "A bit of relief from the mtn.", misrepresents some facts, omits others and does not include important context related to the overall story.

Dickson incorrectly stated the Mountain West Conference television contract with CSTV as a seven-year, $82-million dollar deal when in fact it's a 10-year, $120 million dollar agreement.

He also was off the mark in his statement that BYU has found a way to increase television coverage of its own program during the basketball season. "Through the process of examining the contract, BYU discovered there were some additional basketball games it could broadcast," Dickson explains. "The games BYU has the options to broadcast include preseason tournaments on the road or at neutral sites." While it is true BYU may broadcast those games, this is not new information discovered by examining the CSTV contract. Since the league's inception in 1999, Mountain West Conference television partners have always controlled the broadcast rights of all nine member institutions home games. Non-conference road contests fall under the television contract of the respective opponents' conference agreements, and all preseason tournaments on the road or at neutral sites are owned by the organization sponsoring the event.

It should also be noted that Dickson's comment, "No one outside of the Mountain West footprint sees BYU or any other MWC team", is misleading. The MWC had 24 nationally-televised football games on VERSUS and CSTV this fall, more than double what the league had from 1999-2005 under the old television agreement. On the men's basketball side, VERSUS and CSTV will broadcast 27 MWC games, which almost triples the national coverage of the league from its first seven years as a league.

Javan Hedlund
MWC Associate Commissioner - Communications