So, first BYU and Utah hired a lawyer to try to do something about the Mountain West Conference's television situation, and then the rest of the league decided to back them up.
And nobody seems to understand how this is going to help.
Obviously, BYU and Utah are attempting to address the critical drawback to the MWC's deal with Comcast and CSTV — the lack of distribution of The mtn. Specifically, the continuing lack of a deal with satellite providers DirecTV and Dish.
But people who have seen the contract don't see any way to force Comcast (which operates The mtn.) to sign deals with the satellite companies.
(Not surprisingly, no one close to the situation wants to talk on the record.)
Maybe Utah, BYU and the rest of the league are hoping to frighten somebody into budging with the threat of legal action. Maybe it's just a public-relations move — a way for the schools to demonstrate to fans that they're trying to do something to improve the situation.
It would be great if something can be done to, at the very least, get the MWC teams on Dish and DirecTV. Certainly, everyone who's a Ute or Cougar fan hopes so.
Whether there are any legal remedies ... remains to be seen.
It's interesting that the rest of the league joined in Utah and BYU's decision to hire a lawyer, because a lot of other schools are in a different situation than are the two local universities.
You could argue that New Mexico, UNLV and SDSU have never had such great TV exposure. The current deal was a step up.
In Utah, it has been a step down for BYU and Utah.
How one lawyer can represent these somewhat divergent interests ... also remains to be seen.
It doesn't help the credibility of the fledgling channel The mtn. for Kim Carver, vice president and general manager, to release this sort of statement:
"Together, The mtn. and national networks Versus and CSTV have dramatically increased the amount of MWC sports on TV and reach more MWC fans than ever before."
The number of MWC contests has increased, particularly when you look beyond football and basketball.
But to suggest that the current TV deals reaches "more MWC fans than ever before" is ludicrous, laughable and just plain baloney. CSTV is available in only about 20 million households; The mtn. in 1.2 million; Versus in about 70 million.
ESPN and ESPN2 are both available in more than 90 million households. So making that "more MWC fans than ever before" comment just made Carver sound dumb.
Or made it sound like he thinks we are.
Earlier this week, a certain local sports-talk radio host — OK, it was Kevin Graham — actually told his listeners that Mountain West fans have a "right" to see their teams on TV.
I laughed. Hey, Graham is a funny guy! He knows how to stir it up on the radio.
I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.
I rechecked the U.S. Constitution and couldn't find anything about watching the Utes and the Cougars mixed in with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
None of us has "right" to see anything on TV any more than we have a "right" to show up at Rice-Eccles or LaVell Edwards Stadium and watch the Utes or Cougars unless we buy tickets.
The problem is that there are games on TV that a lot of people can't see even if they want to pay for them. But, no, there's no "right" to watch particular sporting events on TV.
How quickly we forget. It was less than six years ago that local football fans were in a tizzy because the BYU-Utah football game was on ESPN2. And a lot of local cable subscribers didn't get ESPN2.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com