The viewing options for the CAA tournament are still pretty terrible

Despite the CAA growing a lot in recent years and now being recognized by most as a top 10 basketball conference in NCAA, their viewing options for this weekend's conference tournament remain pretty awful.  I feel bad for Mason fans that are not local because your options are slim to continue watching what has become the Patriots' most successful season ever. If the Mason makes it to the conference finals on Monday night, at least that will be on ESPN in glorious HD. 

However for the rest of this weekend's games some of you might need to head to watch party at a local bar in order to watch the game. Here are the viewing options posted on the CAASports.com website:

"The Comcast Network/WSKY/GMU-TV/CAA-TV"

Now you might see Comcast Network and get excited. But hold on a second because it's not the same Comcast you are thinking of where you have watched George Mason games earlier this year along with the  Capitals and Wizards.  The channel you are thinking of won't be broadcasting this game. The Comcast network they are talking about is actually TSN channel based in Philadelphia or some sort of CSN affiliate. I think some satellite subscribers might have that but I don't think I do on my Cox service.

Next you see "GMU-TV", which is a channel some people get as you can see from their website, but I'm really curious to see what the quality would look like on that channel.  Direct TV customers sure won't have this channel

You can pay a fee to watch the online stream that CAASports.com provides but I can tell you from experience it lags and the quality is awful.

However despite all this ESPN comes to the rescue in the end, for some at least. It looks like ESPN3.com will be streaming the games too, which a few more of us have access to with FiOS and Cox cable. If you have Xbox Live hooked up the streaming through there has been pretty good in my experiences. No buffering and a very clear picture.  

I know TV deals are tough to come by for conferences like the CAA but come on now it's 2011 and there are advancements in technology. Would it kill the CAA to up their game on the video streaming and provide free streams to fans for at least the quarter and semifinal games?

At least all the NCAA tournament games can streamed to our iPhones and iPads for free...