Are you ready for some weeknight Missouri State football? Well, you better be because that’s likely what the Bears’ schedule will look like once it joins Conference USA for the 2025 season.
Conference USA released game times and television assignments for most of its games for the 2024 season on Thursday afternoon, painting a better picture of what the Bears can expect when they join the league.
Conference USA’s media rights deal, announced in November 2022, is a five-year contract with ESPN and CBS that the Sports Business Journal reported would pay each program around $750,000. The deal will put Missouri State football on national television far more than it has as a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
The majority of Conference USA games will be played on Saturdays. At the same time, the league noted in its press release that it would continue the “successful Weekday CUSA model,” during October with CBS Sports Network showing 10 games and ESPN carrying eight during the timeframe on linear networks ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.
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Missouri State football hasn’t played on a linear network since it played on Fox Sports 1 to open the 2018 season at Oklahoma State. Both of its FCS Playoff appearances since were only available via streaming on ESPN+. Its game at Arkansas in 2021 was on SEC+ and the opener at Kansas in 2022 was on ESPN+.
The 10 teams in Conference USA in 2024 are slated for at least four games on TV networks, instead of streaming, and more could be added later. Jacksonville State leads the league with seven nationally televised games. The Bears are unlikely to have one this season.
Game days announced outside of Saturday include Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday along with one Friday night game in early October. The league also has a Friday afternoon game after Thanksgiving and its conference championship is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. at the home field of the regular season champion. All three Friday games are on CBS Sports Network.
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Some September and November games are designated as games on ESPN platforms, which are subject to a 12-day selection window with kickoff times subject to change based on television placement — meaning more games could be picked up by ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.
Conference USA programs will play games on ACC Network, Big Ten Network, FOX and SEC Network this season as a part of other conferences’ television agreements.
As of Thursday afternoon, every Missouri State football game this season is scheduled for Saturdays. Only its trip to FBS Ball State on Sept. 7 has an announced time of 1 p.m. that will be played on ESPN+.