(11-01-2009 09:14 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Ohio State-Penn State was never going to be a night game. If it was listed as that, it was a mistake. As already mentioned, the Big Ten does not allow night games in November. Also, if a game is going to be a night game, the other team has to be notified so long in advance (they couldn't give a weeks notice).

Correct - the Big Ten doesn't allow any November night games and anything that suggested that OSU-PSU was scheduled for prime time is incorrect. In fact, all prime time games must be set in stone at the beginning of the season. There's flexibility as to which network prime time games might end up on each week, but the Big Ten will never move a game originally scheduled for the afternoon to prime time or vice versa.

Why doesn't the Big 10 allow primetime games in November? For a conference with tons of prestige and history, that seems like a huge PR mistake.

(11-01-2009 11:31 PM)animus Wrote:  Why doesn't the Big 10 allow primetime games in November? For a conference with tons of prestige and history, that seems like a huge PR mistake.

It is precisely because of this prestige and history that the Big Ten does not need to have primetime games in November. Even the rest of the season, they play very few primetime games and all of them are pre-selected before the season. Their afternoon games still get big ratings (Ohio State-Michigan, e.g.). At least some stadiums don't even have lights and get them trucked in

(11-01-2009 11:57 PM)uvaeer Wrote:  

(11-01-2009 11:31 PM)animus Wrote:  Why doesn't the Big 10 allow primetime games in November? For a conference with tons of prestige and history, that seems like a huge PR mistake.

It is precisely because of this prestige and history that the Big Ten does not need to have primetime games in November. Even the rest of the season, they play very few primetime games and all of them are pre-selected before the season. Their afternoon games still get big ratings (Ohio State-Michigan, e.g.). At least some stadiums don't even have lights and get them trucked in

Big Ten does many stupid things. Their Basketball tourney finishes in the afternoon of Selection Sunday. Even the NCAA said that although Purdue won and beat OSU last year they received no bump in the seedings.

(11-02-2009 07:55 AM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(11-01-2009 11:57 PM)uvaeer Wrote:  

(11-01-2009 11:31 PM)animus Wrote:  Why doesn't the Big 10 allow primetime games in November? For a conference with tons of prestige and history, that seems like a huge PR mistake.

It is precisely because of this prestige and history that the Big Ten does not need to have primetime games in November. Even the rest of the season, they play very few primetime games and all of them are pre-selected before the season. Their afternoon games still get big ratings (Ohio State-Michigan, e.g.). At least some stadiums don't even have lights and get them trucked in

Big Ten does many stupid things. Their Basketball tourney finishes in the afternoon of Selection Sunday. Even the NCAA said that although Purdue won and beat OSU last year they received no bump in the seedings.

The Big Ten might be a lot of things - stubborn, elitist, etc. - but from a business perspective, it's definitely not stupid. The basketball conference title game might have some negative impact every once in awhile when it comes to the winner not receiving much of a benefit from the NCAA Tournament committee, but that's more than compensated by the fact that it's the lead-in game to the NCAA Tournament selection show, which is massive exposure for the conference. Any other conference would take that time slot in a heartbeat.

I personally think that the "no football prime time games in November" rule does leave some exposure on the table because there are certainly a lot of late season games that ABC and ESPN would love to broadcast in prime time (i.e. Michigan-Ohio State, Penn State-Ohio State, etc.) - if I were the Big Ten commissioner, I would probably remove that restriction since I don't think that late-October night games are that drastically different than November night games in terms of weather. However, the conference deserves some credit for being pretty adamant about balancing maximum TV exposure with protecting the Saturday game day experience for fans, so it's understandable that the conference doesn't want people to have to sit through extremely cold weather in the dark simply for TV purposes (just as the conference doesn't play weeknight games). The weather is a bigger issue when all of the conference members are in the Upper Midwest. The conference is fortunate enough to have the leverage to tell ABC/ESPN when it wants to play games - the only others who have been able to do that have been the SEC (along with Notre Dame with NBC, who actually freaking got the PGA Tour to move the time of a FedEx Cup event so that a South Bend game could start at its normal 2:30 pm ET kickoff time).

(11-01-2009 11:57 PM)uvaeer Wrote:  At least some stadiums don't even have lights and get them trucked in

Yes, this is a big factor, too. The conference's marquee teams of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State all don't have permanent lights. When a game is scheduled for prime time or the late afternoon (when the 4th quarter is usually played in the dark by October), ABC/ESPN will pay to have temporary lights trucked in.

ESPN's scoreboard shows the UC-UConn game @ 8 on ABC...

(11-02-2009 09:48 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I personally think that the "no football prime time games in November" rule does leave some exposure on the table because there are certainly a lot of late season games that ABC and ESPN would love to broadcast in prime time (i.e. Michigan-Ohio State, Penn State-Ohio State, etc.) - if I were the Big Ten commissioner, I would probably remove that restriction since I don't think that late-October night games are that drastically different than November night games in terms of weather.

OSU and Michigan would be a disaster at night. Too many drunk idiots starting fights. The PSU vs OSU games in October in recent years have been problems as well...

To be honest with you, that rule is probably in place to keep ABC from making the OSU vs Michigan game an 8PM game. The Big 10 is pushing to make it noon every year in order to help contain the drunken idiots.

Who cares really, its a bit weird, but it opens up later slots for other games.

(11-02-2009 10:19 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  ESPN's scoreboard shows the UC-UConn game @ 8 on ABC...

Sweet. 2nd ABC game for the Huskies this year.

It's just a pity it took Jazz Howard's death, along with unbeaten UC, to get ABC to look at this game as a telecast possibility...

UConn at UC would be a good venue for College Gameday on Saturday, but they are going to Colorado Springs for Army-Air Force.

(11-02-2009 02:58 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  It's just a pity it took Jazz Howard's death, along with unbeaten UC, to get ABC to look at this game as a telecast possibility...

No disrespect meant to Jasper Howard, but I hope that ABC is not attempting to drum up viewers for a football game based on the death of a player and rather it is more about how well UC is doing and them playing a quality league opponent.

I'm sure they will pay tribute to Howard during the game, and rightly so. But I would like to think the main reason they are coming to UC is because the Bearcats are ranked so high and playing so well.

Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that this game would have been chosen for ABC without the way UConn handled all the controversy. Nobody could have handled it any better than Edsell did, and he did it with a lot of class...

UC being unbeaten helped considerably. But the controversy surrounding UConn has brought out the big spotlight...

(11-03-2009 02:11 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that this game would have been chosen for ABC without the way UConn handled all the controversy. Nobody could have handled it any better than Edsell did, and he did it with a lot of class...

UC being unbeaten helped considerably. But the controversy surrounding UConn has brought out the big spotlight...

I'm not going to argue with you over this but obviously I disagree with your viewpoint.

(11-03-2009 02:29 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 02:11 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that this game would have been chosen for ABC without the way UConn handled all the controversy. Nobody could have handled it any better than Edsell did, and he did it with a lot of class...

UC being unbeaten helped considerably. But the controversy surrounding UConn has brought out the big spotlight...

I'm not going to argue with you over this but obviously I disagree with your viewpoint.

This game wouldn't be on ABC if UC wasn't a Top 10 team. UC is the draw here, not UConn. The Howard story is 3 weeks old at this point.

(11-03-2009 03:06 PM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 02:29 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 02:11 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that this game would have been chosen for ABC without the way UConn handled all the controversy. Nobody could have handled it any better than Edsell did, and he did it with a lot of class...

UC being unbeaten helped considerably. But the controversy surrounding UConn has brought out the big spotlight...

I'm not going to argue with you over this but obviously I disagree with your viewpoint.

This game wouldn't be on ABC if UC wasn't a Top 10 team. UC is the draw here, not UConn. The Howard story is 3 weeks old at this point.

Of course it has nothing to do with UCONN as the football team LOL. Your insight is always amazing as usual.

(11-03-2009 03:54 PM)SF Husky Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 03:06 PM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 02:29 PM)bearcatfan Wrote:  

(11-03-2009 02:11 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Unfortunately, I doubt very seriously that this game would have been chosen for ABC without the way UConn handled all the controversy. Nobody could have handled it any better than Edsell did, and he did it with a lot of class...

UC being unbeaten helped considerably. But the controversy surrounding UConn has brought out the big spotlight...

I'm not going to argue with you over this but obviously I disagree with your viewpoint.

This game wouldn't be on ABC if UC wasn't a Top 10 team. UC is the draw here, not UConn. The Howard story is 3 weeks old at this point.

Of course it has nothing to do with UCONN as the football team LOL. Your insight is always amazing as usual.

The game has interest because it's featuring a Top 5 team. Do you honestly believe ABC is putting this game on because of unranked, 4-loss UConn?

After a murder, the class with which the entire UConn team handled that, and the 2 close losses, by identical 28-24 scores, with the winning TDs being scored in the latter stages of the 4th quarter in both games? You must have grown up under a very heavy gravity quotient, otherwise you wouldn't be so dense, MS. I'd say UConn was a major factor in the decision to put this game in the primetime slot. Sure UC being unbeaten was a factor in the decision. But UConn was a major factor as well...

It's definitely both. If all networks cared about was putting on the top teams, we'd never have a week where #1 wasn't a national game and that's not the case. It's definitely the combination of UC's great season and UConn's tragedy that makes the game appealing to ABC. That's not to say it couldn't have ended up on without the tragedy, but there's no denying the game's case is stronger with that angle.