As long as the Bobcats continue to be one of the better teams in the league, the MAC will more than likely schedule them for the mid week games later in the season. Toledo is also scheduled for five mid week games and Western Michigan has four mid week games, with a game on Friday August 31. Get used to it. We may not like it, but if you check the schedule it is usually Eastern Michigan playing a few Saturday games in late in the season.
This is just factually false. Kent & BG ... two of the worst teams in the MAC the last two years ... were on national midweek TV games 7 times each .... the same exact amount of time Ohio was featured. ESPN doesn't really care who's good. They're only interested in filling out a programming grid during weeknights in late fall.
Total garbage.
I think those are exceptions. Typically, the better teams play in the middle of the week on TV. For scheduling purposes, it can't be only the better teams, and I'm sure there have been seasons where the league has guessed wrong about could be a better game on TV. But I am fairly confident that Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois in general over the last several years have had the most midweek games because they have had the consistently better teams. [/QUOTE]False.
From a previous post I made a few weeks ago
[QUOTE=bshot44] Last two years of National TV Midweek MACtion (excluding ESPN3 "broadcasts")
Pretty damn even for the most part considering that some teams play more midweek games than others. For instance, Toledo had 5 last year ... while Buffalo only had 3. Again, there is no method to the stupidness. Just whatever ESPN needs to fill their time slots.
Ohio (7)
2 CBSSN
5 ESPN
Akron (6)
6 ESPN
Kent (7)
5 ESPN
2 CBSSN
Miami (4)
3 ESPN
1 CBSSN
Buffalo (4)
2 CBSSN
2 ESPN
BG (7)
7 ESPN
WMU (8)
7 ESPN
1 CBSSN
EMU (6)
4 CBSSN
2 ESPN
CMU (6)
2 CBSSN
4 ESPN
NIU (7)
4 CBSSN
3 ESPN
Ball (6)
2 ESPN
4 CBSSN
Toledo (9)
8 ESPN
1 CBSSN
You can do the math and add this year's appearances ....
Kent, Ball St, Buffalo, Miami, BG and some other dreadful programs are getting on national TV during this midweek misery a lot more than you might expect.
Again ... it's all about filling the programming grid for ESPN. They don't care who plays UNLESS you get the random flier where it's WMU nationally ranked.
They put as much effort/enthusiasm into Ohio vs. Toledo on a Tuesday night as they do for Kent vs. Miami.
The novelty has worn off ... it's not "cool" to be on ESPN anymore. It's a yearly thing and the core fanbases of these schools don't care to show up anymore. It cheapens the experience for that core of fans and the players who are playing over half their season on weeknights in empty stadiums.
Again ... I totally understand the money portion.
But please ... stop the justification saying only good teams get on these midweek broadcasts. It's just not true.