Mormons and Catholics unite in independence

In a move we knew was pretty much inevitable, BYU’s newly independent football program has inked a deal with staunchly independent Notre Dame to play a six-game series that Baptists won’t give two shits about.

Not to be outdone by their Catholic brothers in South Bend, Boston College has announced that they have signed a six-game women’s soccer series with BYU-Hawaii.  At this rate, HBO’s “Big Love” will have a storyline that has the Henricksons (all wives included) vacationing in Vatican City.

Wow, this new college sports landscape sure does make for strange bedfellows.  But here’s a union that’s not so strange: BYU and ESPN.

The two sides have entered into a agreement whereby ESPN gets exclusive rights to BYU home football games across all its channels from 2011 through 2018.

It’s a solid deal that guarantees BYU visibility while the school navigates the waters of independence.  However, it’s not the massive windfall that some predicted would happen if the school kept all its games on its own BYUtv network.

Also, the deal doesn’t mean that BYU will get showcased on ESPN the way Notre Dame sits front and center on NBC.  The terms of the agreement say that in contests where BYU is the designated home team, an annual minimum of three games will be on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC, with those games being broadcast on Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays.

There is also an annual minimum of one game on ESPNU with ESPN3 and ESPN GamePlan having the right to simulcast any ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC telecast involving BYU.

So in years where a few of BYU’s juicier games might be on the road, ESPN could opt to only show the Cougars four times the entire season, and not necessarily in the choicest time slots.  BYUtv would pick up the other games that ESPN bypasses.  Like I said, this isn’t the tulips and lollipops scenario that some people told me would come to pass.

But in the end, BYU is way ahead of where it was with that crappy TV payout the Mountain West was giving its teams (but not making SEC or Big 10 money).  So far in this evolving realignment saga, BYU has come out looking pretty damn good.