Four Harvard Football Games To Be Televised Next Season

The Harvard football team opened its 2011 Ivy League season with a 24-7 victory over Brown on a rainy Friday night at Harvard Stadium. And in 2012, by tradition, the Crimson will again kick off its Ancient Eight campaign against the Bears, though this time in Providence, R.I.

Yet there’s an additional way this year’s contest against Brown will be different than the 2011 matchup: It will be available to a national television audience.

Harvard’s game against the Bears is one of four Crimson football contests televised this season following NBC Sports Network’s deal with the Ivy League in early May. In the agreement, the NBC Sports Network—formerly known as “Versus”—earned rights to televise Ivy League men’s basketball, and men’s lacrosse games while increasing its football coverage within the conference.

In 2012, the network will show Harvard’s games against Brown, Penn, and Yale—the latter two contests were televised last year, too—while CBS College Sports Network sublicensed the Crimson’s Oct. 13 contest against Bucknell.

In addition to Harvard’s games, four other Ivy football contests will be televised throughout the year. Yale and Penn will appear in three televised contests each, while every Ivy school except for Columbia—which finished 1-9 last season—will play in at least one.