September 2, 1982 (1982-09-02) – November 4, 2006 (2006-11-04)
TNT Sports (formerly Turner Sports) has occasionally televised
college football games on its networks since 1982; that year, under an agreement with the
NCAA,
TBS became the first broadcaster to nationally televise college football on cable. After the NCAA broadcasting package was dismantled in 1984 following a
Supreme Court ruling, TBS would broadcast
SEC football from 1984 to 1992, along with selected
bowl games through 2000.
Regular-season college football returned to TBS in 2002 as part of a sub-licensing agreement with
Fox Sports Net, broadcasting a package of
Pac-10 and
Big 12 games through 2006. In 2024,
ESPN announced that it had reached an agreement with TNT Sports to televise
College Football Playoff games on
TNT beginning that season. This was followed by its acquisition of a
Mountain West Conference package for
TruTV.
History
Early coverage
In
1982,
SuperStation WTBS reached a special "supplemental" television contract with the
NCAA—who controlled all college football television rights at the time—to carry a package of live games on cable. TBS became the first cable network to nationally televise college football games.[1][2] They aired a package of live Division I-AA games on Thursday nights and Division I-A games on Saturdays.[3]
WTBS was only able to show teams that had not been on national television in
1981. There were a maximum of four teams that had been on regional television on two occasions. Meanwhile,
ABC and
CBS had the right to take away a game from WTBS as long as it did so no later than the Monday before the game.
Bob Neal and
Tim Foley were the booth commentators for WTBS during this period. Meanwhile,
Craig Sager,
Paul Hornung[4] and
Pepper Rodgers[5] anchored the pregame show for WTBS.
In 1984, the
Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's television rights model for college football violated the
Sherman Antitrust Act, thus allowing individual schools to sell the television rights to their home games. In June 1984, WTBS sports director
Terry Hanson stated that they planned to compete for the national television rights being offered by the
College Football Association (CFA)—a consortium of major conferences—and would challenge any attempt to impose regional
blackouts. He told the press, "Every organization takes the personality of its
leader. So
we are obnoxiously aggressive."[6] WTBS would acquire a package of games from the
Southeastern Conference (SEC).[7]
TBS dropped regular season college football after the 1992 season, but acquired rights to the
Gator Bowl from 1991 to 1995 (after which the game moved to
NBC),[8][9][10] and the
Carquest Bowl under an agreement with its owner
Raycom Sports (a deal that would be later renewed through 2000).[11][12]
2002–2006: Big 12 and Pac-10 sub-license
In
2002, Turner Sports reached a five-year sub-licensing agreement with
Fox Sports Net (FSN), under which it would broadcast a package of games from the
Big 12 and
Pac-10 conferences.[13] The agreement ended after the
2006 season, after which the package moved to
Versus for 2007.[14]
2024–2028: College Football Playoff and Mountain West
On May 22, 2024,
ESPN announced that it had sub-licensed a portion of the
College Football Playoff broadcast rights to
TNT Sports from the
2024 season—which will be the first to see the CFP expanded into a 12-team tournament—through 2028. Under the agreement,
TNT will broadcast two of the new first-round games annually. Beginning in 2026, TNT will also broadcast two of the
New Year's Six bowls hosting the CFP quarterfinals.[15][16] The telecasts will be produced by ESPN, and it was reported that ESPN would also keep all advertising revenue from the telecasts for at least the first two years of the agreement; sports media writer John Ourand suspected that that the agreement was intended as leverage in carriage negotiations for TNT, and to bolster
Venu Sports—an upcoming sports streaming service that includes ESPN and TNT Sports as partners.[17]
On July 1, 2024, TNT Sports also announced an agreement with the
Mountain West Conference, under which it will carry a package of 14 games on
TruTV and
Max throughout the 2024 season.[18]