Just found this information this morning. These numbers are a bit discouraging. Barely 100K "watching" some of these games.

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings /

Interesting but not surprising considering there are a finite number of viewers for college football. Both our game and the MAC championship were evening single slotters with no competition while the C-USA championship was up against Baylor-Texas and the AAC championship in exactly the same time slot on s Saturday afternoon.

Tuesday night games need to go the way of the dinosaur. They may have been beneficial but no longer.

Please explain how they are no longer beneficial.

Slow down, what does the game being on Tuesday have to do with the above?

That's a reasonable question and I'll try to give reasonable answers. At best, we get about 10 to 12K in the seats if the weather is nice. The vast majority of those are local - students and people who drive over to the game or for a short tailgate and the game. The motels and hotels in town as well the restaurants (tax dollars to the community) see very little action compared to a Saturday game. For those viewing at home, the games look like a poorly attended high school game with tons of empty seats. So the first big negative is a hit to local economy which is very dependent on OU. The second negative is the reinforcement of a second class league. Real leagues don't play on Tuesday or Wednesday night. A third reason has to do with basketball. When the Saturday football games go away, it's basketball season. Yes, those early games are on weeknights too but they are inside, last 2 hours and give the fans a chance to see the new faces in a new year. And finally, until someone in athletics is willing to open the books and show us exactly how much cash money we get from each of these weeknight games, I will continue to be a tad skeptical. Now your turn, tell us why these games are worth playing on Tuesday night.

If that is the case, good enough for me. Ticket holders certainly are getting a raw deal.

I'm not averring that reported viewership numbers are wrong, but I'm with you, Rob, in questioning viewership totals.

This causes me to relate a perspective that might give credence to larger-than-reported totals. Starting in 1995 when I accepted the presidency of the Akron-Canton Alumni Chapter (continued thru 2000 when I turned over the reins), I've been a regular attendee at Ohio football games at Akron and Kent and basketball games at those schools and MAC tournament games. Consistently Ohio fans outnumber other teams' supporters and sometimes by wide margins. On some occasions, eyeballing has told me that Ohio fans have outnumbered home team fans at Kent and Akron football games. At the recent Ohio at CSU game, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Ohio fans accounted for 90% of the total attendance.

When Ohio games are telecast nationally, I tend to believe that they draw stronger viewership than those of other MAC teams and perhaps CUSA and AAC teams as well.

Add the number of times during my travels when I consistently sport Ohio logo'd apparel that I hear comments - most often compliments - on Ohio football and basketball teams.

Could an Ohio game on national TV draw as few as 100,000? Sure. But I tend to think such games draw appreciably more.

To what extent does such exposure aid football recruitment? Ohio's coaching staff might be able to offer insights. I do believe that such exposure tends to strengthen bonds with Ohio alumni and contribute to strengthened financial support. If I'm right about that, it could explain continued conference support for Tuesday night games.

Let me add that, as a fan who lives in North Canton, I'd prefer to see a schedule of 6 Saturday afternoon games.

To get a fair look at how the numbers rank versus other games, I separated out the games by Network for ESPN2 and ESPNU. Here are the games on those networks from week 10 onwards (the time for mid-week MACTion):

ESPN2
USC-Colo 1374
Tenn-Missouri 1348
Purdue-Iowa 1218
*BG-NIU 1034
Georgia-Georgia Tech 1023
Maryland-Mich St 1006
AF-Boise 966
Miss-Miss St 930
*NIU-Toledo 856
Cal-Oregon 851
Miami-Pitt 801
Wake-Clemson 780
Memphis-Houston 748
Duke-UNC 742
*BG-WMU 665
*Ohio-BG 622
*Toledo-BG 527
Colorado-Wash St 489
Cincy-Houston 396
UNC-NC St 380
Nevada-San Diego 347
Nevada-Fresno 261

ESPNU
GA Southern-GA 954
Pen St-Northwestern 876
Texas-WVU 685
Iowa St-Oklahoma 554
VA Tech-VA 454
*Ohio-NIU 400
Houston-UConn 373
Miami-UNC 367
W. Carolina-Texas A&M 296
Memphis-Temple 279
UConn-Temple 278
Army-AF 248
New Mexico-Boise 235
NW-Illinois 224
Ark St-App St 200
AF-New Mexico 196
*NIU-Buffalo 191
UL-Lafayette-U.S. Alabama 160
Tulsa-Tulane 147
*Kent-Ohio 146
*CMU-Kent 106
*Ball St-Ohio 101
U. Monroe-Texas St 84
*U.Mass-Buffalo 81

The MAC games on ESPN2 did pretty well, but only the Ohio-NIU game had reasonable viewers on ESPNU. One could also conclude that a few MAC schools were attractive to viewers, those being NIU, BG, Toledo, and Ohio, as games featuring any two of those drew well. Games involving U.Mass, Buffalo, Kent, and Ball State did not draw well, however.

There are probably 100,000 watching in various sports book parlors (more, who knows?) and I would question whether that cohort is of any benefit to Ohio or anybody else besides the casinos.

I'm sure the benefit hypothesis excludes that group, however, so I'll add that IMHO the number of uninvested viewers could be 10 times the cited 100K and I would still question whether the impact on the local community and the fans and alumni who pay the current bills has been offset. The entire arrangement is a perversion of the collegiate sports ideal. Works for ESPN, though.

I do not understand all the venom about ESPN midweek games. Ohio football for the first time in its history has a reliable TV national footprint after decades of amounting to nothing on the major college landscape. Midweek games are a modern approach to consuming college football. Its desirable for recruits over programs that are in the dark be it stuck on regional broadcast or too lousy to show up on the conference TV packages. With only 4 Saturday home games it increases demand for those weekends. The same goes for the bowl games. They've added a post season trip for Ohio fans and additional significance to the Ohio football season. Ohio football is finally something after decades of obscurity.

I agree with this as well. For me, the weeknight games give me a chance to see this team play more often. It's good to get them on a quality broadcast, and I'm always surprised at the number of people I run into who have watched at least some of the game. Plus, it's late in the season, I wouldn't normally travel to Athens that time of year, and I get a work-week break with something on TV I'm actually interested in.

MaACtion gives us exposure on TV...national audience.


Being another game on Saturday means that we are buried with some 40-60 more desirable games above us.


We're in no-brainer land here.

MACtion.


In that year in which we MACC, in which we play MACC-level ball, we will capture a lot (a lot) of attention and quite nice numbers for our MACtion games. It'll be a big, emotional story.

Alumni and friends who you think don't care about OHIO FOOTBALL will come on. It will be a blast.



More reasons that that some of us believe that we should actually do things that could get us a MACC.