College Football on NBCSN

This article is about college football coverage on NBCSN. For NBC's coverage of Notre Dame football, see Notre Dame Football on NBC. College Football on NBCSN is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I and Division I-A college football games produced by NBC Sports and televised on NBCSN in the United States. The network has broadcast college football games from various athletic conferences since 2006.

Versus (2006–2011)
As Versus, the channel had approached the National Football League (NFL) about carrying select games during league negotiations for broadcasting contracts following the 2005 NFL season. The channel was rebuffed for a deal, with the league deciding instead to give a portion of the cable television game rights to its own NFL Network.

Versus approached the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for a deal to broadcast college football games, and was awarded a contract to broadcast games from the Mountain West Conference (MW) in a joint deal between the channel's owner Comcast and College Sports Television, which also led to the creation of the MountainWest Sports Network. For its inaugural season of college football broadcasts in 2006, Gary Bender or Bob Papa served as the play-by-play announcer, with Glenn Parker as the analyst and Argy Stathapulos as the sideline reporter for Mountain West football game coverage.

On June 6, 2007, Versus agreed to a multi-year deal with Fox Sports Net to sub-license up to ten college football games annually from the Pac-10 and Big 12 Conferences, taking the cable rights for both conferences from TBS. The Big 12 sub-licensing deal concluded in 2010, at the same time that Versus increased the number of Pac-10 games sub-licensed from Fox Sports Net to seven per season.

In 2008, Versus announced a contract with the Ivy League to broadcast at least three games each year beginning with the 2008 season, culminating in the annual Harvard–Yale football rivalry. The initial two-year contract was later renewed in 2010.[1]

After the 2010 season, the Pac-10 announced a realignment in which it acquire to teams from the Mountain West (renaming it as the Pac-12 Conference); with addition of rights to one to two extra games to broadcast each week, Fox Sports decided to move some of the Pac-12 games to FX, while Versus would continue holding rights to seven games each season.[2] This lasted until 2012, when the channel lost the conference's games to the newly launched Pac-12 Networks.

NBC Sports Network
To fill the hole created by the loss of Pac-12 football rights, for 2012, the renamed NBC Sports Network[3] by signing a contract to broadcast at least five games per year from the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).[4]The channel announced that it would renew its contract with the Ivy League for two additional seasons, upping the number of broadcasts to six to ten games each season (from three to five games annually); the Harvard-Yale game remained one of the broadcasts NBCSN was guaranteed to air.[5] The channel also increased the number of annual Mountain West Conference football broadcasts by two.

In 2013, NBCSN lost its share of MW rights to ESPN, which had aired a limited schedule of games from the conference in 2012. It also lost the rights to the Atlanta Football Classic to the ESPN networks; the opponents of that game changed from the Southwestern Athletic Conference (which has no unified broadcast agreement) to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (which already had a deal with ESPN) beginning that year.

On April 9, 2013, NBC Sports renewed its broadcasting contract with Notre Dame for ten years through the 2025 season.[6] As part of the contract, NBCSN acquired the rights to broadcast select home games featuring the team.[7][8]

In 2014, NBCSN lost a portion of the CAA rights to the American Sports Network, an upstart sports syndication service launched that year by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.[9] NBCSN also initially declined to renew its television deal with the Ivy League, which would have left that league without a television broadcaster for the 2014 season; the channel's increased emphasis on Premier League soccer matches reduced the number of opportunities for the network to carry college football on Saturday afternoons. However, NBCSN reversed its decision and added select Ivy League games beginning in late October 2014 in a joint agreement with Fox College Sports.

In 2015 NBCSN gained the rights to carry at least one Notre Dame football game on NBCSN in addition to the spring game. They also became the new television home of the Bayou Classic between Grambling State and Southern.

Announcers
Main article: List of College Football on NBCSN commentators

2006

 * 1) Gary Bender
 * 2) Bob Papa

2007

 * 1) Ted Robinson
 * 2) Ron Thulin
 * 3) Joe Beninati

2008

 * 1) Ron Thulin
 * 2) Joe Beninati
 * 3) Rich Ackerman
 * 4) Tim Neverett

2009

 * 1) Ron Thulin
 * 2) Joe Beninati
 * 3) Tim Neverett
 * 4) Ted Robinson

2010

 * 1) Ron Thulin
 * 2) Joe Beninati
 * 3) Mike Crispino
 * 4) Wayne Larrivee
 * 5) Ted Robinson

2011

 * 1) Ted Robinson Pac-12
 * 2) Paul Burmeister Mountain West
 * 3) Randy Moss Ivy League

2012

 * 1) Paul Burmeister Mountain West
 * 2) Todd Harris Colonial Athletic Association
 * 3) Randy Moss Ivy League

2013

 * 1) Todd Harris (Colonial Athletic Association)
 * 2) Randy Moss (Ivy League)

2014

 * 1) Todd Harris (Colonial Athletic Association)
 * 2) Randy Moss (Ivy League)

2015

 * 1) Todd Harris, Anthony Herron
 * 2) Paul Burmeister or Mike Corey Ross Tucker (Ivy League)
 * 3) Steve Schlanger/Andy Gresh
 * 4) Dan Hicks (Notre Dame)

2017

 * 1) Paul Burmeister (Notre Dame)

2006

 * 1) Glenn Parker

2007

 * 1) Kelly Stouffer
 * 2) Glenn Parker

2008

 * 1) Kelly Stouffer
 * 2) Glenn Parker
 * 3) Dale Hellestrae

2009

 * 1) Kelly Stouffer
 * 2) Glenn Parker
 * 3) Anthony Herron

2010

 * 1) Glenn Parker
 * 2) Kelly Stouffer
 * 3) Ross Tucker
 * 4) Erik Kramer

2011

 * 1) Glenn Parker
 * 2) Shaun King
 * 3) Ross Tucker

2012

 * 1) Rod Woodson
 * 2) Ross Tucker
 * 3) Akbar Gbaja-Biamila (Ivy League)

2013

 * 1) Anthony Herron (Colonial Athletic Association)
 * 2) Ross Tucker (Ivy League)

2014

 * 1) Anthony Herron (Colonial Athletic Association)
 * 2) Ross Tucker (Ivy League)

2015

 * 1) Ross Tucker or Andy Gresh
 * 2) Doug Flutie (Notre Dame)

2017

 * 1) Doug Flutie (Notre Dame)

2006

 * 1) Argy Stathapolous

2007

 * 1) Lewis Johnson
 * 2) Tim Neverett
 * 3) Krista Blunk

2008

 * 1) Lewis Johnson
 * 2) Tim Neverett
 * 3) Bob Harwood
 * 4) Anne Marie Anderson
 * 5) Lindsay Soto

2009

 * 1) Lewis Johnson
 * 2) Lindsay Soto
 * 3) Lindy Thackston
 * 4) Tim Neverett
 * 5) Craig Hummer

2010

 * 1) Lewis Johnson
 * 2) Lindsay Soto
 * 3) Lindy Thackston
 * 4) Heidi Androl
 * 5) Charissa Thompson

2011

 * 1) Akbar Gbaja-Biamila
 * 2) Anthony Herron
 * 3) Carolyn Manno

2012

 * 1) Anthony Herron
 * 2) Carolyn Manno

2015

 * 1) Kathryn Tappen (Notre Dame)

2017

 * 1) Kathryn Tappen (Notre Dame)

2008

 * 1) Ted Robinson
 * 2) Bill Patrick

2009

 * 1) Al Trautwig
 * 2) Bill Patrick

2010

 * 1) Bill Patrick
 * 2) Kevin Frazier
 * 3) Craig Hummer

2011

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2012

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2013

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2014

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2015

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2016

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2017

 * 1) Liam McHugh

2008

 * 1) Roland Williams
 * 2) Kelly Stouffer

2009

 * 1) Roland Williams
 * 2) Christian Fauria

2010

 * 1) Roland Williams
 * 2) Eric Crouch
 * 3) Glenn Parker
 * 4) Jeremy Bloom

2011

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Roland Williams

2012

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Hines Ward

2013

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Hines Ward

2014

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Hines Ward

2015

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Hines Ward

2016

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Dhani Jones

2017

 * 1) Doug Flutie
 * 2) Chris Simms