[3] Universities found to have seriously violated NCAA rules have occasionally been penalized with a "television ban"; the effect can equal that of the "death penalty".
In 1953, the NCAA allowed NBC to add what it called "panorama" coverage of multiple regional broadcasts for certain weeks – shifting national viewers to the most interesting game during its telecast.
Finally, in 1955 the NCAA revised its plan, keeping eight national games while permitting true regional telecasts during five specified weeks of the season.
However, in the immediate wake of the ruling, most schools still decided to jointly negotiate their television contracts through the now-defunct College Football Association.
"We’re recruiting all over the country, and it's nice to be able to go in someone's home and say, ‘You can turn on the TV and watch the Buckeyes six to eight times a year", said former Ohio State head coach John Cooper.
[14] Television money and generous donors have allowed universities to provide modern facilities and luxurious amenities to college football teams.
The athletes ride to practice in chartered buses and dress beneath a three-dimensional 20-foot lighted longhorn in a locker room that includes a nutrition center, players’ lounge, and "state-of-the-art" ventilation system.
[14] In the 1950s, conventional wisdom suggested that television allowed football fans to watch their favorite teams for free from the comfort of their own homes, and this was to blame for falling attendance.
[19] When Notre Dame left the CFA to sign an exclusive deal with NBC in 1991, it shocked the college football world and marked the true beginning of the modern era.
[20] Then, in 1996, CBS, which had been shut out of the CFA broadcasts in the mid-1990s when ABC held the contract (and coincidentally was in desperate need of live sports after losing its major professional sports rights in 1994), successfully convinced the Southeastern Conference to break from the CFA, signing its own conference deal.
Television has also driven the trend of universities (generally mid-majors) playing football on weekdays rather than the traditional Saturdays, in order to have their games broadcast.
In 2009, Florida President J. Bernard Machen said that due to the presence of ESPN money, the university no longer had control of its athletics department.
[22] Studies have also shown that success of big-time sports programs alters students’ academic behavior, reducing the amount of activity at the library and lowering men's grade point averages with each victory.
[25] The midweek games are scheduled with no consideration of academics, rest, and recovery for athletes and university logistical issues such as competition for parking between faculty, students, and fans.
Fox began a series of virtual reality broadcasts in 2016, which were made available to dedicated VR headsets and smartphones with stereoscopes; these were discontinued by 2018.
Since that time, NBC has carried nationally all of Notre Dame's home games, paying at least $9 million per season for broadcast rights.
CBS shared the NCAA package with ABC in 1982 and 1983 and was also required to locally broadcast four Division III contests each year as part of that contract.
(For the 1982 season, these four contests were instead aired nationwide and produced using the staff of the NFL on CBS, which had been idled due to a players' strike that year.)
TBS became the first cable station to nationally broadcast college football live when it began airing games during the 1982 season.
(TBS subsequently left the field for several years, but again broadcast college football games from 2002 to 2006, showing Big 12 and Pac-10 matchups sublicensed from Fox Sports Net.)
In the wake of the 1984 Supreme Court ruling that broke the NCAA monopoly, ESPN immediately began airing regular season games live, starting with a contest between Pittsburgh and BYU on September 1, 1984.
[40] Some Division III college football games are locally shown live or on tape on public-access television channels in the community in which the home team's campus is located.
Later efforts included Raycom Sports (1979 to 2019),[41] ESPN Plus (not to be confused with the current Internet service by that name) and SportsFever Television Network, which predominantly focused on smaller universities in Pennsylvania.
Hamilton-based CHCH carried Ontario (OUA) university football games (typically involving the hometown McMaster Marauders) through the 1990s until 2001.
RSEQ games are broadcast nationally in French on Radio Canada on a weekly basis, including the playoffs and the Dunsmore Cup in the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Shaw lost the rights to the Canada West Championship when the conference reached an agreement with MRX and Associates to broadcast the final on TSN in 2011 and 2012.
In 2015, Canada West expanded its coverage nationwide with an agreement with Global Television Network, a sister company to Shaw.
Shaw also produced a weekly, 30-minute CIS highlight and features show called the Krown Canadian University Countdown.
[52] As a standalone event and the only substantial football on Sportsnet (rival TSN owns exclusive NFL and CFL rights in addition to its extensive U.S. college football slate), the Vanier Cup has fared far more poorly; the 2017 Vanier Cup only drew 168,000, down almost three-fourths from 2011, when 665,000 viewers saw the game.
ESPN acquired rights to the entire CFP package, consisting of six bowl games and the College Football Playoff National Championship, through the 2025 season.