(01-18-2014 09:21 AM)letsgoblue Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 09:59 PM)pono Wrote:  and I know people freak out when a political type protest is made in connection w a sporting event, but the only way we get our saturday football back is through an organized protest. individuals dropping season tickets will do nothing. there must be a public boycott/demand for refund by a large number of season ticket holders, a gametime sit in of the press box, etc... for the issue to be taken seriously. no one in a position of power or profit will take your frustration seriously until you show that you are willing to spend time and take risks to speak up cohesively.

The only problem with your above idea is, your only hurting the University and the players. Your previous post stated the MAC and ESPN have a contract, not The University of Toledo and ESPN. So, something would have to be done by the entire conferences' schools to wake up the MAC commissioners. And I doubt that's going to happen. The bottom line is: we, and I mean The University of Toledo Rockets, either do what ESPN tells us to do, or we leave the conference.

But the notion of a thousand balding, pot-bellied guys and their wizened wives occupying the press box alongside students who thought it was a Starbucks/global economy protest does make me giggle.

(01-17-2014 03:22 PM)T4C8 Wrote:  http://msn.foxsports.com/ohio/story/mac-...ash-011414

Looks like our game against Missouri might be moving to a weekday to be on ESPN.I just really hope its on Friday if it does get moved.

Friday is not good. Toledo and Missouri cannot compete with high school football in this town. In fact, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday aren't good either. If it's not Saturday, we'll stay home, have some pizza and beer, and watch it on the tube.

(01-18-2014 09:28 AM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  

(01-18-2014 09:21 AM)letsgoblue Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 09:59 PM)pono Wrote:  and I know people freak out when a political type protest is made in connection w a sporting event, but the only way we get our saturday football back is through an organized protest. individuals dropping season tickets will do nothing. there must be a public boycott/demand for refund by a large number of season ticket holders, a gametime sit in of the press box, etc... for the issue to be taken seriously. no one in a position of power or profit will take your frustration seriously until you show that you are willing to spend time and take risks to speak up cohesively.

The only problem with your above idea is, your only hurting the University and the players. Your previous post stated the MAC and ESPN have a contract, not The University of Toledo and ESPN. So, something would have to be done by the entire conferences' schools to wake up the MAC commissioners. And I doubt that's going to happen. The bottom line is: we, and I mean The University of Toledo Rockets, either do what ESPN tells us to do, or we leave the conference.

But the notion of a thousand balding, pot-bellied guys and their wizened wives occupying the press box alongside students who thought it was a Starbucks/global economy protest does make me giggle.

Well, with the increased girth we certainly won't need as many of us to accomplish the mission.

Wish they would keep it on a Saturday, if not, then make it a Thursday and leave Friday nights for local high school football.

Is it possible that espn is doing its part to protect their precious bcs teams by taking our homefield away? We need to do everything we can to win this one on national television so they quit doing this to us. Let's pack the Glass Bowl!!!

Until Toledo starts filling the seats with paying customers, the school will move to any night, or time for a game with increased revenue or exposure. If there was thirty five thousand tickets sold it would be a lot harder to move games than it is for five thousands seats sold and five thousand give aways. And unfortunately the more games on TV the fewer seats will be in the seats.
When Toledo is selling out games to paying customers, things will change. But, what time is the perfect time for UT to play home games? It used to be perfect on Saturday nights. People could go to OSU, UM or ND and still get back in time for UT. But, I see a trend for these big schools to be scheduling more night games for recruiting exposure. So, maybe Thursday night league games aren't a bad idea. TV exposure more often and no competition for fans other than what's on TV.

(01-18-2014 01:58 PM)utrocks84 Wrote:  Until Toledo starts filling the seats with paying customers, the school will move to any night, or time for a game with increased revenue or exposure. If there was thirty five thousand tickets sold it would be a lot harder to move games than it is for five thousands seats sold and five thousand give aways. And unfortunately the more games on TV the fewer seats will be in the seats.
When Toledo is selling out games to paying customers, things will change. But, what time is the perfect time for UT to play home games? It used to be perfect on Saturday nights. People could go to OSU, UM or ND and still get back in time for UT. But, I see a trend for these big schools to be scheduling more night games for recruiting exposure. So, maybe Thursday night league games aren't a bad idea. TV exposure more often and no competition for fans other than what's on TV.

Well it's really hard to sell out games when they are week night games. Especially the big games that are weeknight games in November. Look at the bgSUCKS game on a SATURDAY in 2012. Look at the Cincinnati game on a SATURDAY in 2012.

Not a fan of anything other than Saturday football for the Rockets. But the painstaking fact is why it should be such an insurmountable task to get 26,000 butts in the GB for a top 5 team. Especially with a metro population of 500,000 plus within 30 miles of the university. This game should be sold out weeks in advance, whether it is on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night.

(01-17-2014 08:25 PM)owen Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 03:33 PM)RangerRocket Wrote:  Getting rid of my season tickets and buying a fan plan is starting to look like a good option. Tired of the weeknight games. Kills the whole gameday experience.

I have tickets going unused for the 1st time in multiple games

I will definitely drop season tix if this moves to a weeknight

Time for you to renew your bgsu tickets then !!!

(01-18-2014 03:12 PM)FMRocket Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 08:25 PM)owen Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 03:33 PM)RangerRocket Wrote:  Getting rid of my season tickets and buying a fan plan is starting to look like a good option. Tired of the weeknight games. Kills the whole gameday experience.

I have tickets going unused for the 1st time in multiple games

I will definitely drop season tix if this moves to a weeknight

Time for you to renew your bg tickets then !!!

Yeah because running from a problem always solves them?

It's difficult to get to games during the week, at least by the part of the crowd that has a job and/or family. If UT, the MAC whoever feels that the ESPN income and exposure is worth more than the whole purpose of the game, then how else are people supposed to react?

Buying tickets isn't a donation. Why buy a product that you have no use for?

(01-18-2014 03:15 PM)eastisbest Wrote:  

(01-18-2014 03:12 PM)FMRocket Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 08:25 PM)owen Wrote:  

(01-17-2014 03:33 PM)RangerRocket Wrote:  Getting rid of my season tickets and buying a fan plan is starting to look like a good option. Tired of the weeknight games. Kills the whole gameday experience.

I have tickets going unused for the 1st time in multiple games

I will definitely drop season tix if this moves to a weeknight

Time for you to renew your bg tickets then !!!

Yeah because running from a problem always solves them?

It's difficult to get to games during the week, at least by the part of the crowd that has a job and/or family. If UT, the MAC whoever feels that the ESPN income and exposure is worth more than the whole purpose of the game, then how else are people supposed to react?

Buying tickets isn't a donation. Why buy a product that you have no use for?

There's the rub !!!
UT and the MAC with ESPN income(very little that we know of) and exposure vs. the whole purpose of the game. Regardless of what view is taken, the GB should sellout for Mizzou and I was initially making a dig at a fan for contemplating dumping his season tix.

I think that someone could do some research that would show these ESPN weekday games have little effect on recruiting or other positives for a university. In fact, for MAC schools I believe you could show a very definite negative effects.

(01-18-2014 05:28 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  I think that someone could do some research that would show these ESPN weekday games have little effect on recruiting or other positives for a university. In fact, for MAC schools I believe you could show a very definite negative effects.

There is no doubt that weekday games greatly diminish the game day experience for those who attend those games in person and they also limit the numbers of those who are able to attend in person. That is the negative side of the coin and the one that most fans who complain about the weekday games are most acutely aware of.

However, it is a mistake to assume that there are no positives in the national exposure to millions of viewers over the course of the season that these weekday games provide. To the conference and the MAC universities this exposure far outweighs their cost of sacrificing even a significant percent of their gate attendance at these games and potentially alienating a significant portion of their fan base----otherwise they would not continue to following this path. As to recruiting, look at the current roster and see how many players come from areas outside the geographic MAC footprint. There are a lot and I have to believe that would not be possible on the current scale without the national exposure that weekday day games provide.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating scheduling weekday games, but I am pointing out that from the perspective of the schools and the conferences, there are benefits to be gained from these schedules as well as costs from them and therefore we are likely to see them continue so long as the TV powers want to show them.

Personally, I am disgusted by how the big TV dollars have changed college football from a collegiate sport to a mega dollar entertainment business industry over the past few decades and in the process IMO have done much to help corrupt the university system in the US as well------and weekday games are just one small aspect of that larger problem.

However, once you decide to prostitute yourself (as university's have agreed to prostitute their football and basketball programs) then you have to be willing to lay like the customer wants you to lay---and that is what weekday games are really all about.

It would be very interesting to hear Coach Campbell's take on playing week night games, pros and cons.

I don't like the power that ESPN has been given, but I'm much more worried about the power of the NCAA. As the organization capitulates more and more to the Big Money conferences for survival it is going to become more difficult for us to compete in recruiting. I genuinely fear that the day is not that far out where we'll be right back where we were 15 years ago--with hardly a chance of beating teams in the Big Money conferences.

(01-18-2014 09:26 PM)Toledo Football 1st Wrote:  I don't like the power that ESPN has been given, but I'm much more worried about the power of the NCAA. As the organization capitulates more and more to the Big Money conferences for survival it is going to become more difficult for us to compete in recruiting. I genuinely fear that the day is not that far out where we'll be right back where we were 15 years ago--with hardly a chance of beating teams in the Big Money conferences.

These days the NCAA pretty much serves at the pleasure of the Big Money Conferences; however, the whole operation is driven by their member universities' lust for the BIG TV dollars to which they have become totally addicted and of course, their greed knows no limits.

Beginning in 1951 while TV was still in its infancy the NCAA took control of TV access to college regular season football games and thus held real power, however, several resulting lawsuits culminating with one anti-trust suit against the NCAA filed by the University of Oklahoma that in the early 1980's ended the control of the NCAA over TV access, and hence much of their power over the schools. Once the NCAA monopoly on TV access was broken, the system has steadily evolved into what we see today in which the Power Conferences and the big TV money that they command rule the roost and the NCAA is more of a servant and enabler than a master.

Yeah. Either way, big money takes control. Money begets money. There should be another anti-trust lawsuit to move the focus from money back to the tradition of collegiate competition on a more level playing field. As some argue, it may never be, and maybe never has been, a truly level playing field, but giving favoritism to once set of conferences over others is wrong.

National TV games are soooo overrated. 1. Recruiting has become much more sophisticated over the years. By the time kids finish high school, AAU, and all of the football camps; they are very aware that schools like Toledo exist. 2. Outside of MAC fans watching a midweek game, most people are only watching because they are gambling. 3. It ruins actual, not announced, home attendance. No one wants to attend a Wednesday night game at 8:00 in November or an afternoon game in Akron on Black Friday. This leads to the real matter. Toledo needs to leave the MAC and either find a higher profile conference or drop to FCS. The MAC, despite a lot talk, was embarrassing during the bowl season. The conference demonstrated that it is worse than the Sun Belt. I'm not saying that Toledo is anymore special than any other MAC team, but if you combine the MAC bowl performances and the new playoff system next year, the writing on the wall is clear, and that is the MAC is a Dead End! There will never be another MAC team to get major bowl consideration ever, because no MAC team will ever be ranked high enough to make a playoff game. So IMO, the only option is to leave. Leave and either join a high profile conference with more interesting opponents that doesn't have to play games during week, or drop to FCS where Saturdays are assured.

Toledo needs to find 9 or 11 schools that ARE DEVOTED to playing Division I FBS football and form a new conference. Maybe a couple other MAC schools, maybe not. Then let the rest of the MAC drop down to the FCS level where they really belong. Perhaps maybe the new conference will raise the level of some of the Olympic sports like softball.l

(01-19-2014 10:30 AM)falconplucker Wrote:  National TV games are soooo overrated. 1. Recruiting has become much more sophisticated over the years. By the time kids finish high school, AAU, and all of the football camps; they are very aware that schools like Toledo exist. 2. Outside of MAC fans watching a midweek game, most people are only watching because they are gambling. 3. It ruins actual, not announced, home attendance. No one wants to attend a Wednesday night game at 8:00 in November or an afternoon game in Akron on Black Friday. This leads to the real matter. Toledo needs to leave the MAC and either find a higher profile conference or drop to FCS. The MAC, despite a lot talk, was embarrassing during the bowl season. The conference demonstrated that it is worse than the Sun Belt. I'm not saying that Toledo is anymore special than any other MAC team, but if you combine the MAC bowl performances and the new playoff system next year, the writing on the wall is clear, and that is the MAC is a Dead End! There will never be another MAC team to get major bowl consideration ever, because no MAC team will ever be ranked high enough to make a playoff game. So IMO, the only option is to leave. Leave and either join a high profile conference with more interesting opponents that doesn't have to play games during week, or drop to FCS where Saturdays are assured.

Where is there to go? If you're not in a Power 5 conference it doesn't make any difference if you're in the MAC,CUSA, Mountain West or whatever. You won't get the big money or the big games. Quite honestly, I'd like to see the P5 conferences be in their own division and the rest of us in another division above the old I-AA.