Ron Kantowski thinks it’s swell The Mtn. finally has a national TV hookup, but wishes the wind would stop knocking the camera around

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.

In keeping with the spirit of the weekend, I thought it would have been really cool if Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson had made his annual State of the Conference address dressed as the Joker.

Then this could have been his opening remark:

“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it, y’know? I just do things. I don’t have a plan.”

That would explain why it has taken the Mountain West nearly two years to secure a national TV provider for The Mtn., the conference’s experimental TV network devoted mostly to minor sports you don’t care about with some football and basketball games mixed in.

It didn’t have a plan. There were a lot of Dark Knights. Or at least Nights.

But if it’s a steady diet of televised Wyoming vs. San Diego State volleyball matches for which you yearn (and yes, Saturday football triple-headers) things are looking up.

Every e-mail the conference has been sending out bears a logo celebrating the Mountain West’s 10-year existence with the reminder that “The Mtn. will be available on DirecTV channel 616 beginning August 27.” I’m assuming that means 2008.

So, as the Joker himself might have put it, “Why ... so ... serious?”

Thompson talked for 40 minutes without cracking a painted-on smile on the second day of the MWC’s football meetings at Green Valley Ranch Station Casino. That’s because about 30 minutes were devoted to TV.

If you thought the Joker was scarred, you should see what this TV deal has done to Thompson’s insides.

“Starting a new TV network is not for the faint of heart,” he said, calling that decision “a bold, risky challenge” that was “needed at the time.”

Not everybody saw it that way. Maybe the games on ESPN were on at strange times on strange days, but at least they were on. Fans quickly became frustrated. They didn’t care about the cash grab — er, extra money the members were getting. If they had a favorite Mountain West team, they couldn’t watch it, as major cable and satellite providers were slow to pick up The Mtn., if they picked it up at all.

The Utah schools went so far as to hire attorneys with the idea of backing out of the contract or getting the games put on the Home & Garden network, because everybody gets the Home & Garden network.

By the end of last year, even the coaches who had put up a brave front were second-guessing the decision to leave ESPN. At the Las Vegas Bowl luncheon, BYU football coach Bronco Mendenhall talked about how important it was for the conference to put its best foot forward in the ESPN-televised bowl games, because who the heck was watching The Mtn.?

OK, maybe he wasn’t quite so blunt. But that’s what he was saying.

“A lot of people thought the distribution rates were way too slow,” Thompson said.

Those would have been the people with television sets.

“Others thought it was about right on time.”

Those would have been the ones who wear the purple golf shirts at MWC headquarters in Colorado Springs.

At least Thompson agreed there was a lot of frustration and consternation among Mountain West fans who wanted their Mtn. but couldn’t get it.

“But that’s not all bad,” he said. “People want the programming and they get mad when they can’t get it. That’s what you want.”

He may come to discover that Mountain West fans also want the programming for free. Many cable and satellite providers have put The Mtn. on a programming tier that costs extra. Virtually every fan within the conference’s broad reach will have access to the games this year — with the exception of some TCU fans in the Dallas area (no cable deal there yet). Wait, weren’t all those TV sets in the nation’s fifth-biggest market the reason that TCU is in the conference in the first place?

True, once in a while it gets windy on the frontier and the camera on top of the press box shakes. But usually by the start of the second half, somebody finds a roll of electrician’s tape to hold it in place, and then the games don’t look like they’re being broadcast by Wayne and Garth from a basement in the Chicago suburbs so much.

At least the games will be available on the dish for the first time. On Saturday (and a few Thursdays). At “very close to the optional preferred kickoff times,” whatever that means. I think it means close to 1 or 7 p.m., or whenever Tennessee and Florida aren’t playing on CBS.

Thompson read a clip from the Charleston, W.Va., newspaper that said West Virginia fans couldn’t plan a wedding or a party because nobody knew what time the Mountaineers would be kicking off. The Mountain West football schedule, on the other hand, has been set since April.

Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. But don’t invite Todd Christensen. I don’t have an Ivy League education, so I don’t always understand his commentary.

In the long run, as Thompson said, time will tell if starting its own TV network was the right approach for the Mountain West. Short term, it was like Gotham City blowing up. It was pretty much a disaster.

But my guess is that fans who have labeled Thompson and his bosses, the MWC presidents, fools for doing it will back way off, now that most can finally get football games on The Mtn. — when it’s not windy outside.