The MAC has officially jumped the shark with this move. Been talking to half of the sales managers in the MAC and they are about as thrilled as us with what transpired today.

Utterly disappointing to say the least. On the bright side, at least we aren't Western Michigan........

Interesting take, one could also interpret my post as: Isn't it nice that our program has reached an elevated point that we have some fans that are willing to travel from a place as far away as Boston to several different venues to see OHIO football for more than half of its schedule. But hey, you know what they say about opinions.

I would hardly call a program that hasn't won a league title in 50 years at an "elevated point." Yes, there have been more wins that losses the last 12 or 13 years and the atmosphere in and around a Saturday home game in Peden is lots of fun but this schedule virtually eliminates the term "travels well" for MAC fans for almost half of the season. So, since you have the ear of the AD, do the rest of us a favor and tell him that this schedule sucks.

If this were true, ESPN wouldn't be as successful as they have been. I doubt they care less about ratings than any other network.

Woof, that is pretty terrible

Agree completely, CBSSN does a much better job. They actually act like they are there to cover a football game and most of the announcer cross-talk is about the game in front of them.

Your analogy is lost on us low-brow folks who like Heineman Niagra and Moyer Chardonnay.

Does Schlitz vs. Old Milwaukee work for those beer drinkers out there?

Think in terms of sustainability.

I don't like this schedule either, mostly for the teams sake because 10 straight weeks of football with no break and some short weeks in there is total BS. From a fans perspective, the lack of Saturdays really sucks too.

However, additional revenue is needed to sustain the program. You complain about the amount of revenue that needs to come from student fees, but you also complain if prices are raised even slightly, then you complain that there aren't enough free benefits with your piddly contribution to the Bobcat club. It's a bit much. You also need to remember that if you are a solid and high-dollar contributor, there still aren't enough of you to sustain the program status quo. Give for the good of the program and buy tickets for the good of the program, but stop acting like your contribution means that there can be Saturday games just because you gave the most. Do your part, encourage others to do the same. If you have good suggestions, by all means, contact your athletic director. Do you think if we had all the money we needed, that we'd still be playing on a goddamn Tuesday night? Football costs money, equipment costs money. maintaining a stadium with turf and a scoreboard costs money. Scholarships cost money.

Taking your ball and going home is only going to make the problem worse, not better.

DFC has some excellent points. Most people on this website including me would prefer more Saturday games in November. However, with the ESPN contract it won't happen in the near future. Many fans will continue to gripe about the 2018 football schedule and the basketball schedule that has league games on Tuesday and Friday. With the MAC going with ESPN, this type of schedule will not change. If you want to voice a complaint, contact the MAC office.

The "solution" for some folks has been to 1) cut back or 2) walk away. Giving more to something that is clearly not sustainable isn't the solution.

Some reasonable points here, but continuing to take Saturday games away is not sustainable in another way: It's suffocating the already small and fragile fan bases across the MAC. Ohio is probably not alone in depending on a majority of season ticket holders who have to drive an hour or more to get to a game. So that money stream is drying up. Count me out for one (based on this schedule, no more Tower Club for me). More importantly, you're eating your seed corn. Students aren't interested in cold-ass weekday night games any more than the rest of us. Even a good team faces a swath of empty seats on a Wednesday. It kills the atmosphere and it kills any chance the programs have of making football games seem like a fun activity for undergrads. You're subsequently left with fewer undergrads becoming alumni supporters. The faustian bargain is paying off now, but it is truly unsustainable in terms of getting butts in the seats.

Eating your seed corn is an excellent analogy of what the MAC is doing. It's very well put and not at all obtuse.;-) Further, your correct abut it being a Faustian bargain. And, to add another level of analogy here, the MAC is building a Potemkin village. It looks good on the outside to the casual viewer, but there's increasingly nothing there when you look beneath the façade. And, with this year's schedule it's clear that this façade is crumbling more and more each year. I'm increasingly of the opinion that our best option might, indeed, be to spearhead a brand new conference made up of the best of the MAC and the eastern most schools in the C-USA. I mentioned in another thread that a split up of C-USA has been discussed as recently as six months ago. Maybe it's a dead issue now, but it seems to me somethings got to give, as the MAC as currently constructed is not sustainable.