What a difference a football season makes.

When the mtn., the Mountain West Conference's exclusive sports network, was launched, Brigham Young University and University of Utah athletic officials insisted that the network's limited reach was a bug that would be worked out, that fans needed to be patient with the startup created by CSTV and Comcast.

Now, BYU and Utah have retained Kelly Crabb, the same attorney who represented Beijing's Olympic Organizing Committee in broadcast rights negotiations, to research the schools' options for getting their games broadcast to more of their fans' homes than they can through the mtn.

All we can say is, what took you guys so longfi BYU fans who don't have Comcast have been complaining about being blacked out since the new network showed its first game.

The intention of the mtn. was good: Get away from ESPN's arbitrary schedule demands while securing more broadcast money for the schools. The agreement called for BYU and the other MWC schools to receive $11 million a year for exclusively broadcasting the games on the mtn. or one of its sister channels.

Unfortunately, reality never lived up to expectations. While various cable providers have carried the mtn., BYU and Utah fans who only have DirecTV, Dish Network or no cable were left in the cold. They either had to subscribe to Comcast, watch the game somewhere that carried the mtn. or be content with listening to play-by-play on the radio and watching highlights on the evening news.

We understand why it might be serve Comcast's interests that the games are not available on satellite: satellite is a direct competitor. With the mtn. as a cable TV exclusive, more people may sign up for Comcast.

But BYU and Utah appear to be tired of the small audience. It would have been better if the universities had pushed for broader viewership before entering the deal, or at least when fans first started complaining, but it's not too late to change things. The bottom line is that the fans' best interests should come first.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A6.