Update on Cal Football TV times

From Steve Harris:

"Now that Fox Sports Net has made its selections for Pac-10 games this season, we have a good skeleton of the schedule. FSN picked up seven games in its initial selection process for its national broadcasts, and no Cal games were involved. But that doesn’t mean Cal won’t have some of its games aired on FSN eventually.

As many of you know by now, the Pac-10 reserves a substantial chunk of games during the conference season to be claimed by either ABC, FSN or Versus either six or 12 days (usually 12) before they are played. So far, only three Cal games are set in stone for TV: Sept. 5 vs. Maryland (ESPN2, 7 p.m.), Sept. 26 at Oregon (ABC, 12:30 p.m.) and Oct. 2 vs. USC (ABC, 5 p.m.).

Washington announced that the game against Cal on Dec. 5 at Husky Stadium will air on FSN Northwest and begin at 3:30 p.m.

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, which carries some FSN programming, could pick up that Washington game. Or CSN California, which holds exclusive regional rights to Cal sports, could produce its own broadcast if it chooses to do so. Right now, Cal is in discussions with CSN California to see which games it might be able to telecast.

The only games CSN California could pick up before the season are the ones at Washington and Minnesota and at home against Eastern Washington. The rest would first be subjected to the 6/12-day window. Seeing as Cal is considered one of the top contenders in the Pac-10 this season and should begin the year ranked in the Associated Press top 15, it’s a good bet that many of the Bears’ games will be selected by one of the networks as the season goes along.

The situation for the Minnesota game probably won’t be decided until next month. The Big Ten is expected to announce a start time and local TV arrangement for the game in July. Then Cal will see about how it can get the game on locally here."