(09-26-2019 09:58 AM)Kaplony Wrote: (09-26-2019 09:43 AM)JRsec Wrote: (09-26-2019 08:47 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (09-26-2019 08:18 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: With a week 0 or 00 FCS preseason game and a mandate for 10 P5 games, a school could still play as many as 8 home games a year:
HOME:
1 FCS pre-season game
There would be zero interest in a pre-season game, IMO, from fans, coaches, anybody.
And you would be wrong on all counts. Coaches would love a real contest that didn't really matter to see exactly what they might have missed in preparation and who were game time performers and who were not.
AD's would love to have a guaranteed 7th home game and two sport players would love to be able to run track, play baseball, or finish a basketball season without having Spring practice.
The coaches would also love to have a bit of free time in the Spring after signing day to spend with family.
The Spring Game is a tired meaningless scrimmage and the practice spent prior to the Spring game would be more meaningful tacked on to the time allotted for practice prior to the start of the season.
And while those tickets wouldn't be as expensive as the regular season tickets the local merchants would love larger crowds than the Spring game brings and tell me one event in late August it would compete with? Every fan is hankering to see what their team will look like and if that game is against a local FCS or G5 school it will be an event and the fans will turn out.
The upside of it is fairly significant compared to simply having a meaningless Spring scrimmage with a long lay off.
Bolded point #1 counterpoint - the football/baseball players would have to forgo the wooden bat collegiate summer leagues because summer camp for football would open in early July, so I don't think the football/baseball players would be in favor of it.
AD's aren't going to be in favor of it because a lot of times they hold other athletic contests after the spring game and usually they are some of the better attended games of the year because some of the football crowd double dips.
Bolded point #2 counterpoint - I would imagine that since the overwhelming amount of coaches out there have school aged children they would prefer their time off be when the children are on summer break So that they could spend even more time with them and not deny the children the chance to go to the beach, mountains, Disney, etc. because Daddy is working.
The actual college baseball season is more important than the wooden bat league. It's the former that is impinged for the football/baseball players.
The only Spring Sport that is better attended because of the Spring Game is usually 1 softball or 1 baseball game, both of which are better attended at SEC and Big 12 and PAC venues. Basketball first schools don't benefit from Spring Games and Football First fans don't show up in massive numbers for a late season basketball game unless it is a rare year where the basketball team is relevant.
Coaches take vacations when they can and when they do they excuse their kids from school to take them and that's if it doesn't coincide with Spring Break.
I find this funny since it was Dabo who came up with the idea of moving the game to mid to late August.
The changes to football season are coming. They will be piecemealed in so that they can be milked for revenue. But with a looming downturn in football interest (think 2035 when Boomer's will be a non factor and Millennials simply aren't as interested or cash flush enough to participate) the game to keep viewership up will be as many content games as possible.
We'll move from 9P games to 10 fairly shortly (think next contract period in 5 years) and from there the push will be to 12P games over the next decade. That 7th home game will be too important to pass on for AD's, who by the way don't care one way or the other for sports that are revenue losers whether another 2 to 3 hundred attend an event after or before the Spring Game.
August (actually it's pretty rough for them from July until August) is the biggest dead time for ESPN or anyone not carrying MLB. The only thing happening at that time is the LLWS. They are going to get what they want when Boomer money starts drying up and AD's have to find new revenue, or enhanced revenue streams. It is why you see major campuses everywhere increasing the building of dorms and apartments and increasing enrollment at a time that would seem to contraindicate expansion. It's also why you are going to see nationwide what has already begun in places like Louisiana and is underway in Alabama, the downsizing of Higher Educational facilities and the streamlining of administration for existing models, and the corporatization of professional schools like Veterinary Medicine, and Human Medicine, all of which is underway now. The big schools are about to get bigger and the small schools are going to be re-purposed, and some of them are going to go away. And the large state schools are all about to be in competition with each other like never before for students. The demographics are palpable all over the world, especially in Asia.
The GI Bill and the Baby Boom drove the swelling of all of these smaller schools and the creation of new ones. So like streams swelling in periods of torrential rain, these streams are about to dry up and it's happening globally. Southern schools have an advantage in that our cost of living and cost of education is lower so our build up is bigger as we prepare to increase out of state enrollment as well.
I list these things because all of it will be playing into the change that is already underway in preparation for a post Boomer world. And when Boomers are gone the other industry that will be hurt is professional sports. Getting ready to pay college players in some way is another part of the transition that is underway. Pay TV will keep all sports viable for awhile. But the ticket sales angle is T-10 years from crisis.
The networks aren't going to be caught flatfooted. College sports, which are much cheaper to manage and sell, with some incentives for quality players, will be great live entertainment options to sell, without having massive salary overhead, and while avoiding the self held rights of most professional sports.
And as this all happens, small local schools that survive will still need that big buy game to fund what they do. So that 13th game, whether preseason or not, is going to come, and come at the behest of the schools, the states that fund them, and the media that pays for them. And as this happens the networks will have greater leverage to shape not only the post season, but to set standards they desire for the regular season as well. So buckle up.
