West Virginia Football Finalizes New Television Deal with ROOT Sports

According to the West Virginia Athletic Department, the Mountaineers have opted into a new television deal to include two additional televised football games this season to local viewers on ROOT Sports Pittsburgh, according to the school's athletics website.

The new TV deal with include live broadcasts of both the Norfolk State at West Virginia game on Sept. 10 at 1:05 p.m., as well as the Bowling Green at West Virginia game on Oct. 1 at 3:30 p.m.

A new pregame broadcast will also be introduced to the network, airing at 11:00 a.m. on the day of every game this season, including games set to play on alternative networks. This broadcast will take a look at the current day's match-up as well as preview and review the rest of the season.

ROOT Sports Pittsburgh will also be airing one West Virginia football press conference each Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., immediately followed by a one hour segment which will replay highlights of the most recent game played.

This deal comes with the changes in leadership at the university as new WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck is trying to bring West Virginia football to more households in the local region.

He has also scheduled a game to be played at FedEx Field in Maryland next season in order to try to increase a fan base which has some ties to the Washington D.C. area.

ROOT Sports Pittsburgh can be accessed on both DirecTV and Comcast by residents of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and western West Virginia.

The network was formerly known as Fox Sports Network Pittsburgh and is now owned by DirecTV Sports Networks while maintaining affiliation with FSN.

DirecTV purchased FSN Pittsburgh, FSN Northwest and FSN Rocky Mountain in 2008 from News Corp., the change in network name was introduced in 2010.

Daniel Kablack is a writer for Big East Voice, a Big East conference sports news & social network.

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