Why all Pac-12 Tournament games may not be on your TV

The Pac-12 Networks started putting only regional content on its regional feeds (i.e. Pac-12 Arizona) in November, but it may be most noticeable this week.

We have more on this in Wednesday’s edition, but the bottom line is that if you’re a Cox subscriber anywhere in the West who wants to see all the tournament games -- or a UA fan living outside of Arizona and using one of the smaller providers -- look out.

You might have to go elsewhere to catch the Wildcats, and possibly to view some other Pac-12 Tournament games.

Some key points here:

If you get Cox, you only get the regional feed. In Arizona, this means you’ll get Pac-12 Arizona which is fine if you ONLY want to watch UA and ASU games.

If have Cox and you want to watch Wednesday’s Colorado-WSU game to see who the Wildcats will be playing Thursday, you’ll have to find a restaurant or some other location that carries the Pac-12 Network (national) feed, probably via Dish Network or Comcast (DirecTV, as half the world seems to know, does not carry any of the Pac-12 Networks).

If you get Cox outside of Arizona, you’ll get whatever the regional feed is. Cox subscribers in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego, for example, only get Pac-12 Los Angeles so would only see games involving USC or UCLA.

While most providers within the Pac-12 footprint offer a regional and the national Pac-12 feed, some others similarly only offer the regional feed, too. If you’re a UA fan living in Oregon and using Clear Creek Television, for example, you’ll only get Pac-12 Oregon – and therefore won’t see the Wildcats unless they are playing the Ducks or Beavers.

If you get Dish Network anywhere, you’re OK to see all of the games because Dish only carries the national feed. However, if you’re a UA diehard, you might miss some UA secondary programming carried on Pac-12 Arizona, such as a swim meet or a replay of a UA football scrimmage.

If you get Comcast in Arizona, and your subscription includes both Pac-12 Arizona and Pac-12 Network, you’re probably in the best spot. Except for the fact that you’ll only get SD on the Pac-12 Network feed, so you won’t see Colorado-WSU in HD.

Similarly, Comcast subscribers living outside of Arizona will have to turn to that Pac-12 Network national feed to get UA games when the Wildcats aren’t playing a team from that area. But the national feed is in SD only.

So why is all this happening?

The Pac-12’s original vision was to put out seven feeds, one national and six that would each cover the two schools in its geographic area. But because it didn’t have enough content when the networks started up, it often spread out-of-region games to other regional feeds.

Now, it says it does have more than enough content (850 events in all per year) so has to spread them out.

The problem was that the Pac-12’s original vision included each provider carrying at least the national and a regional feed, and maybe even all seven. The conference says it charges the same amount to providers no matter how many feeds it shows, so the problem is that the providers don’t want to tie up bandwidth with the extra feeds.

As of now, most providers within the league’s “footprint” do carry the national and regional feeds, with Cox a notable exception. Dish only carries the national feed and only a few providers (notably, Centurylink) carry all seven.

Sometimes, a second feed requires a subscription to an additional tier, however.

I asked Pac-12 Networks president Lydia Murphy-Stephans why the league couldn’t filter in high-profile events such as tournament games to all the regional networks anyway, considering the nature of the current problem, but she said it would be contrary to the “integrity” of the regional idea.

The conference instead is trying to work with the providers to carry both the national and regional feed, or at least take the national feed if they are only going to carry one. The conference is asking fans to ask their providers to carry what they want.

Some subscribers will have a workaround to all this by logging into Pac-12.com or the Pac-12 Now app but in many cases, access via the internet is the same as offered by cable/satellite. An exception is Comcast, which offers subscribers all seven channels online.

Attached is a PDF listing all the providers in the West and which versions of Pac-12 Networks they carry.

Ryan Anderson was named to the all-District IX team by the United States Basketball Writers Association, with Dana Altman the region's coach of the year and Dillon Brooks the player of the year.

District IX is Arizona and all states bordering the Pacific Ocean.

So who's the favorite to win the Pac-12 Tournament?

Doug Haller of the Republic says UA will win it.

So does Pat Rooney of the Boulder Daily Camera, citing UA's usual fan advantage in Las Vegas.

But the CU Independent says Colorado will beat UA in the quarterfinals.

And KO says he doesn't have a favorite, just that one of the top five seeds will win it.

Pac-12 coaches recognized Elgin Cook's sometimes under-the-radar play.

Cal is hoping to keep on a roll this week.