Are you ready to watch Missouri State football on a weekday night? You should be, because that’s probably what the Bears’ schedule will look like when they join Conference USA for the 2025 season.
Conference USA announced game times and television rights for most games for the 2024 season on Thursday afternoon, providing a clearer picture of what to expect when the Bears join the league.
Conference USA’s media rights deal, announced in November 2022, is a five-year agreement with ESPN and CBS that will pay each program roughly $750,000, according to the Sports Business Journal. The deal will give Missouri State football more national broadcast coverage than ever before as a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
The majority of Conference USA games will be played on Saturdays, the league said in a press release, and will continue its “successful weekday CUSA model” by broadcasting 10 games on CBS Sports Network and eight games on ESPN in October, with linear networks ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU broadcasting those games during those times.
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Missouri State football hasn’t aired on Fox Sports 1 since the 2018 season opener against Oklahoma State. Each of the team’s FCS playoff appearances since then have only been available to stream on ESPN+. The 2021 game against Arkansas was on SEC+, and the 2022 opener against Kansas was on ESPN+.
Each of the 10 teams in Conference USA in 2024 is scheduled to have at least four games broadcast on television networks rather than streaming, with more likely to be added later. Jacksonville State leads the league with seven games that will be nationally broadcast. The Bears may not have a single game broadcast this season.
Besides Saturday, the other announced game dates are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and one Friday night game in early October. The league will also play games on the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, with the conference championships scheduled to be played on Friday, December 6th at 7 pm on the home field of the regular-season champion. All three Friday games will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
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Some September and November games have been designated as ESPN platform matches, with a 12-day selection window and kickoff times subject to change based on television placement, meaning more games may be featured on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.
This season, Conference USA programs will have their games broadcast on the ACC Network, Big Ten Network, FOX and SEC Network as part of television agreements with other conferences.
As of Thursday afternoon, all of Missouri State’s football games this season are scheduled for Saturdays, with only the Sept. 7 trip to FBS Ball State announced to be broadcast on ESPN+ at 1 p.m.
