https://athlonsports.com/college-footbal...ball-games

Quote:A 51-17 Toledo rout of Bowling Green 18 years ago would be of little historical consequence, but its placement on the calendar gives it relevance that resonates throughout college football each October and November. The Rockets' blowout win on that Wednesday night, Thanksgiving eve 2000, planted the seed for a phenomenon.

Interesting article but strongly disagree. Frigid weeknight football has decimated attendance and alumni engagement for low revenues to appeal to people who’ll never donate to your program. Now we have weeknight MAC games played on espn+, which could easily be played on Saturday. And classic rivalries like Toledo-BGSU should always be played on Saturday’s (drew 50% more on Saturday than last year’s weeknight game).

That’s what happens when one network owns college football.


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ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

Funbelt and MACTION need to have their limits. No team should have to play more than 1 home game on a weeknight. I'd be in favor of scheduling the MACTION games in mainly in October and letter the warmer Funbelt climates play the November dates.

The frequency of these games is killing the fanbases and has eroded what was special about these games in the first place: the opportunity to be on a national showcase in prime time.

(10-11-2018 08:53 PM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

Same thing has happened to App and GS. Game hasn't been held on a Saturday since our last season in FCS.

They should cap these at one game/year for each school

If you personally don't like the midweek games that's fine, it's your experience of the situation. But IMO it's hard for anyone on this forum to claim that they are bad for the MAC or SB or their member schools.

Surely, when signing these deals with ESPN that allow for a lot of midweek games, these schools took into consideration the impact on attendance and the like and decided that the benefits of the TV deal outweighed the demerits.

(10-12-2018 08:14 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  If you personally don't like the midweek games that's fine, it's your experience of the situation. But IMO it's hard for anyone on this forum to claim that they are bad for the MAC or SB or their member schools.

Surely, when signing these deals with ESPN that allow for a lot of midweek games, these schools took into consideration the impact on attendance and the like and decided that the benefits of the TV deal outweighed the demerits.

ad verecundiam, FTW!

(10-11-2018 09:37 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Funbelt and MACTION need to have their limits. No team should have to play more than 1 home game on a weeknight. I'd be in favor of scheduling the MACTION games in mainly in October and letter the warmer Funbelt climates play the November dates.

The frequency of these games is killing the fanbases and has eroded what was special about these games in the first place: the opportunity to be on a national showcase in prime time.

I agree with you. Tuesday and Wednesday night football is good for the MAC, but only in limited doses. One home game a year is the limit.

As someone who lives a day's drive from my alma mater and whose Saturdays are tied up with kids' soccer and field hockey, I have trouble making it to games even on Saturdays and often even have trouble watching them live on screen bigger than my phone. Personally, I love the mid-week games because I can watch them in their entirety live on a big screen, but I recognize both the benefits and the challenges presented.

(10-11-2018 08:16 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  https://athlonsports.com/college-footbal...ball-games

Quote:A 51-17 Toledo rout of Bowling Green 18 years ago would be of little historical consequence, but its placement on the calendar gives it relevance that resonates throughout college football each October and November. The Rockets' blowout win on that Wednesday night, Thanksgiving eve 2000, planted the seed for a phenomenon.

Interesting article but strongly disagree. Frigid weeknight football has decimated attendance and alumni engagement for low revenues to appeal to people who’ll never donate to your program. Now we have weeknight MAC games played on espn+, which could easily be played on Saturday. And classic rivalries like Toledo-BGSU should always be played on Saturday’s (drew 50% more on Saturday than last year’s weeknight game).

Did not realize this. That's a bummer as the whole point of weeknight games is network tv exposure. Were previous weeknight games relegated to ESPN3 streaming exclusives under the old contract?

(10-11-2018 08:53 PM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

2018 Troy @ South Alabama - Tuesday
2017 South Alabama @ Troy - Wednesday
2016 Troy @ South Alabama - Thursday
2015 South Alabama @ Troy - Saturday
2014 Troy @ South Alabama - Friday

Completely ludicrous.

Gripe to your Athletic Director, they pitched a huge fit in the MWC about late games and things have been changed enough to make it tolerable.


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MAC November games have historically drawn poorly even in Saturday. Taking the Mouse money and whatever gate you get is revenue positive

(10-12-2018 09:57 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  MAC November games have historically drawn poorly even in Saturday. Taking the Mouse money and whatever gate you get is revenue positive

yep.

That's the only path to a large passive audience so you take it.

Now I do think no team should have to play more than two weeknight home games in a season and no more than three over two years.

The upside is I took my wife on a cruise during the long week before a weeknight game this year. Last year we went to Boston and Montreal. Nice to be able to work in a vacation during the season.

(10-11-2018 10:20 PM)seaking4steel Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 08:53 PM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

Same thing has happened to App and GS. Game hasn't been held on a Saturday since our last season in FCS.

Yeah man...the attendance for our rivalry suffers from weekday games.

That's why you don't have a sole television partner. Break it up. Talk to CBS, talk to NBC, talk to Fox. Keep the deal with ESPN going, but talk to other networks too and try to get a deal with one of them in addition to ESPN. Seemed to work for C-USA for awhile.

(10-12-2018 10:57 PM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 10:20 PM)seaking4steel Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 08:53 PM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

Same thing has happened to App and GS. Game hasn't been held on a Saturday since our last season in FCS.

Yeah man...the attendance for our rivalry suffers from weekday games.

That's what I don't get, the casual ESPN viewer who'll turn on MACtion won't have a clue that Miami-Ohio or WMU-CMU are big rivalries for us. Scheduling those games for November makes very little sense unless you want some extra drama late in the season, but even still that's pretty weak. If ESPN wants rivalries for marketing purposes they could just schedule minor rivalries like Miami-Ball State or BG-Kent.

(10-13-2018 01:43 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  That's why you don't have a sole television partner. Break it up. Talk to CBS, talk to NBC, talk to Fox. Keep the deal with ESPN going, but talk to other networks too and try to get a deal with one of them in addition to ESPN. Seemed to work for C-USA for awhile.

I believe CBS Sports has first option on weeknight games ESPN slates for ESPN3, I like their game day productions a lot more since they don't spend most of the broadcast pimping out P5 matchups.

(10-13-2018 03:35 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  

(10-12-2018 10:57 PM)EagleNationRising Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 10:20 PM)seaking4steel Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 08:53 PM)kevinwmsn Wrote:  ESPN needs to allow USA Troy game to be on Saturday, this will be the 4th year in a row for midweek battle. I will give up a ESPN game to have it back on Saturday.

Same thing has happened to App and GS. Game hasn't been held on a Saturday since our last season in FCS.

Yeah man...the attendance for our rivalry suffers from weekday games.

That's what I don't get, the casual ESPN viewer who'll turn on MACtion won't have a clue that Miami-Ohio or WMU-CMU are big rivalries for us. Scheduling those games for November makes very little sense unless you want some extra drama late in the season, but even still that's pretty weak. If ESPN wants rivalries for marketing purposes they could just schedule minor rivalries like Miami-Ball State or BG-Kent.

Now that is a good point. The MAC could schedule the 3rd Saturday in October as their "Rivalry Week" and then start the process of pivoting into the midweek scheduling, and make up a set of secondary "kind of rivalry" games to conclude the #maction season.

If Miami / BallSt is the secondary to the Battle of the Bricks, then there'd have to be another East/West crossover, and that can't be a locked crossover, so it might be a rotation of "secondary rivals" ... but even if, like many "rivalry weeks", some of the secondary rivalries would be more serious than others, as long as the main real rivalries were played in a real rivalry week, that'd be OK.