Watching San Diego State football game broadcasts, let us count the ways:

The 2019 season opener against Weber State was on Facebook.

The Week 2 game at UCLA was on the Pac-12 Network.

The Week 3 game at New Mexico State was on something called FloFootball.

Last week’s Mountain West opener vs. Utah State was on CBS Sports Network.

Saturday night’s conference game at Colorado State will be on ESPN2.

Five games. Five different viewing platforms.

“We’ve heard from fans to a certain extent, but you have to remember two of those games were out of our control,” said John David Wicker, SDSU’s director of athletics, speaking to game broadcasts at UCLA and New Mexico State that are controlled by the home team.


When it comes to watching games, fans have two primary concerns — where it’s on and when it’s on.

Those watching from home grumble most about the where, while those who want to attend home games gripe about the when.

The earliest announced kickoff time this season at SDCCU Stadium is 6 p.m., with kickoff for two games not until 7:30.

TV has wagged the dogged for decades when it comes to kick times, and indications are that isn’t going to change in the near future.


The Mountain West is in the midst of negotiating a new broadcast contract, which is expected to last 6-8 years beyond the current contract that expires next year. It’s looking more and more like the conference isn’t going to regain control over kickoffs for football games or tipoffs for basketball.

While earlier kick times for football are preferred by SDSU fans — most responses recently in an informal U-T Twitter poll were for 4 or 5 o’clock — and officials — “Our ideal kick time is 5 or 6 o’clock,” Wicker said — it doesn’t sound too promising for conference teams to regain control of their kicks.

The reason: Money.

“The conference did a survey and everyone was somewhat similar,” said Wicker, who sits on the conference’s five-person television committee. “The bottom line number, that dollar figure, is important, but the kick and tip time is also important.


“It’s going to be trying to strike that balance of maximizing our revenue while giving fans the ability to be in the building at a more typical time.”

Mountain West teams each receive $1.1 million in broadcast revenue, although Boise State was allowed in 2013 to negotiate a side deal (worth an additional $1.8 million) as an inducement not to leave the conference.

“I feel comfortable saying we’re going to see some growth,” Wicker said. “I don’t know what that number’s going to be, but it will be bigger than $1.1 million per school.”

There is more flexibility in kick time for games broadcast digitally, but it appears the next TV deal still will include CBS and ESPN involvement to such an extent that the schools won’t wrestle much control over kicks from the networks.


“For the foreseeable future, there’s going to be some form on linear (broadcast TV),” said Wicker, who expects the deal to be completed before the end of the calendar year.

As far as this season’s SDSU broadcasts go, Aztecs fans will have to go to as many platforms over the final eight games as they did for the first four.

In addition to the Colorado State game, home games vs. Nevada (Nov. 9) and vs. Fresno State (No. 15) also will be shown by ESPN Networks. The platform for the broadcast is not determined until within two weeks of the game.

CBS Sports Network will show three games, vs. Wyoming (Oct. 12), at UNLV (Oct. 26) and vs. BYU (Nov. 30).


The game at San Jose State (Oct. 19) is another Facebook game and the game at Hawaii (Nov. 23) will be shown on Spectrum Sports.

Older fans seemed to take issue more with finding the game broadcasts than younger fans, who likely are more adaptive with the technology.

“With that older generation, it’s just making sure they know how to find it,” Wicker said. “Once you’ve done it once or twice, it’s fairly easy, I would say.”

Broadcasts should be easier to find over the next four seasons.


The Aztecs’ nonconference games on the road next year are at Toledo and BYU, which both have most of their games broadcast on ESPN Networks.

From 2021-23, SDSU has only one conference road game each season and all three are against Pac-12 teams (2021 at Arizona, 2022 at Utah and 2023 at Oregon State). That means fans would be dealing with the Pac-12 Network the way they did this season for the UCLA game.