Big West Conference will be on ESPN3

The Big West Conference will add ESPN3 to its video platform. By Will Parris

The Big West Conference announced today that it will have up to 60 games from various sports on ESPN3 over the next eight years, starting this school year.

The conference already has national deals with ESPN and Fox Sports, who will continue to have first rights to broadcast games nationally, but adding ESPN3 gives the conference a new level of online game coverage. For the past few years, the conference has streamed live video feeds of games via Big West TV. Those will continue for games not covered by ESPN, Fox Sports, or ESPN3, though the BigWestTV feed can vary in production quality. The production quality of the ESPN3 platform will have to match ESPN’s standards.

Each game on ESPN3 will include a three-person team: play by play analyst, color commentator, and sideline reporter.

Games featured on ESPN3 will be broadcast from Southern California locations, including UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, UC Riverside, and Cal State Northridge. While ESPN3 games will not be broadcast from the other four conference schools, it is a conference package and all schools will be featured. For example, the games will probably prominently feature teams like Cal Poly, UC Davis, Hawaii, and UC Santa Barbara on the road against one of the other five schools.

A schedule for basketball has yet to be released, but the first event featured on the new ESPN3 platform will be the semifinal and final round of the Big West Women’s Soccer Tournament, all from Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Stadium.

The semifinal begins on Thursday.