The ACC announced game times and television information for several of its game for the first week of the season today. Among them were the first two home games for Virginia Tech against Appalachian State and Arkansas State.
The home opener against App State will be at 12:30 p.m. EDT Sept. 3 in Blacksburg and be syndicated on ACC Network. The change comes with the Hokies' game against Ark State. It will be at 4 p.m. EDT Sept. 17. It will also be syndicated on ACC Network, but instead of being shown on local over-the-air stations it will be on regional sports networks on cable:
New to this year will be the addition of a second ACC Network production which will air on the Regional Sports Networks throughout the ACC footprint. [...] ACC network syndicated games will have a new, later kickoff time of 12:30 p.m.; while the Regional Sports Network package will be no earlier than 12:30 p.m., with several games slated for 3:30 p.m. or later.
To me, anything that puts more ACC games on TV is a good thing. And this actually seems pretty similar to the SEC deal that puts one game a week on Fox Sports. Without this deal, is there any way the Hokies' game against Ark State gets on TV? I doubt it. It would have definitely been on ESPN3.
Many of the conference's early games have also already been selected for ESPN or ESPNU, but Tech's game at East Carolina has not. I'm not sure if that means the game WON'T be televised on the ESPN family of networks, but right now that remains a possibility.
Since the game is at ECU, there's a chance it could wind up on CBS Sports, which has an agreement with Conference USA. The start time and television information for the ECU game was no announced Wednesday.