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Ohio Football Topic
Topic: Tuesday night games
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Toast
1/12/2016 10:25 AM
the midweek games are garbage... people that actually attend games want more Sat. games and tailgating. No one is tailgating on midweek games and hardly any one is attending...

Name someone that was recruited because they watched a midweek game on ESPNU.
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L.C.
1/12/2016 11:05 AM
Toast wrote:expand_more
...Name someone that was recruited because they watched a midweek game on ESPNU.

If you look at historical recruiting rankings, there is a very clear jump in overall MAC recruiting that happened immediately once the mid-week games started. Here are the Scout.com rankings:
http://www.scout.com/a.z?s=354&p=9&c=14&view=2&yr=2005
2005 - dead last
2006 - beat out Sunbelt
2007 - back to last
2008 - last again
2009 - last again
------->Mid-week MACtion starts in 2009 season
2010 - ahead of Sunbelt, close to WAC
2011 - ahead of Sunbelt and WAC
2012 - ahead of Sunbelt and WAC, close to MWC
2013 - ahead of Sunbelt and CUSA (WAC no longer exists)
2014 - ahead of Sunbelt, barely behind CUSA
2015 - ahead of Sunbelt, CUSA, MWC, and AAC
Current rank for 2016 - ahead of Sunbelt and CUSA

With the horrible MAC TV commercial, the drop in 2016 MAC recruiting does not surprise me. Do players want to avoid the spotlight, say nothing, and play in generic uniforms on frozen tundra? I think not.
Last Edited: 1/12/2016 11:06:18 AM by L.C.
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bshot44
1/12/2016 12:45 PM
I think there is a happy medium here.

Cramming four midweek games down our throats is overkill IMHO.

I don't mind maybe one home and one away midweek game.

But for me, a season ticket holder, I'm going to be completely selfish and complain that I pay for six games but can only realistically show up for 4.

And for what? So we get a handful of alumni and gambling degenerates tuned in on a Tuesday night for Ohio vs Ball State at an empty Peden Stadium????

Wouldn't be better to play that game at 2pm on a Saturday and have the stands packed with alumni/fans and give recruits a chance to visit the campus on the weekend and experience a typical Saturday in Athens for a Bobcat game......not inconvenience them into a weeknight trip to an empty, dead stadium.

I understand the importance of exposure, etc and the almighty ESPN $$$. But to hold us hostage for 25% of our season is too much.

It needs to be cut down
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L.C.
1/12/2016 1:24 PM
They can't be having teams hop back and forth from Tuesdays to Saturdays without ending up with some of those dreaded short weeks, but they ought to be able to have half the league stay on Saturdays till mid-November while the other half switches to mid-week games early, then back to Saturdays in late November. The problem with that is that ESPN might not get the good games between the top teams, and they might end up broadcasting Miami-UMass or Ball State-EMU.
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OU_Country
1/12/2016 1:29 PM
bshot44 wrote:expand_more
I think there is a happy medium here.

Cramming four midweek games down our throats is overkill IMHO.

I don't mind maybe one home and one away midweek game.

But for me, a season ticket holder, I'm going to be completely selfish and complain that I pay for six games but can only realistically show up for 4.

And for what? So we get a handful of alumni and gambling degenerates tuned in on a Tuesday night for Ohio vs Ball State at an empty Peden Stadium????

Wouldn't be better to play that game at 2pm on a Saturday and have the stands packed with alumni/fans and give recruits a chance to visit the campus on the weekend and experience a typical Saturday in Athens for a Bobcat game......not inconvenience them into a weeknight trip to an empty, dead stadium.

I understand the importance of exposure, etc and the almighty ESPN $$$. But to hold us hostage for 25% of our season is too much.

It needs to be cut down

I like the idea of a happy medium for the reasons you stated. I also think it's a lot easier to sell people on the "big deal" of having a home ESPN game if there aren't 3-4 of them on a team's schedule. Having 2 games of midweek MACtion allows for teams to get that exposure without having almost the whole conference schedule moved to Tues/Wed in November. This is all useless though, because until the contract runs out, nothing is changing.

I also agree with Alan, that in terms of attending games, when games go to week nights, I essentially start into basketball season since it happens at about the same time. I still watch football on TV, but two trips to Athens in 3 days is pretty rare for me. It would have to be a BIG football game on a week night.
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bshot44
1/12/2016 3:16 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
They can't be having teams hop back and forth from Tuesdays to Saturdays without ending up with some of those dreaded short weeks, but they ought to be able to have half the league stay on Saturdays till mid-November while the other half switches to mid-week games early, then back to Saturdays in late November. The problem with that is that ESPN might not get the good games between the top teams, and they might end up broadcasting Miami-UMass or Ball State-EMU.
Other leagues are able to figure it out. Even the P5 leagues that do Thursday night games find a way.

I think if the MAC really wanted to do it, they could find a way.

They are totally handcuffed by the carrot at the end of the stick that ESPN is dangling (the almighty $$$$)

And because the MAC is about 1000th on the priority list for ESPN, they aren't doing anything/or have incentive to do anything to make it more fan friendly/better for the league.

We are just a can of stale green beans in the ESPN basement pantry
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C Money
1/12/2016 3:53 PM
bshot44 wrote:expand_more
They are totally handcuffed by the carrot at the end of the stick that ESPN is dangling (the almighty $$$$)

Somewhat relevant
http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/basket...
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bshot44
1/12/2016 5:12 PM
C Money wrote:expand_more
They are totally handcuffed by the carrot at the end of the stick that ESPN is dangling (the almighty $$$$)

Somewhat relevant
http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/basket...
Good article. Really pounds home the point that college athletics is totally driven my $$$$$$$$$

Which sucks.

But it's the truth. ESPN can throw cash around and all these mid-major schools are almost forced to take it (and what comes with it) just to survive.

Sucks the MAC is at the end of the ESPN puppet strings
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L.C.
1/12/2016 5:35 PM
With contact values falling, the MAC's long term contact isn't looking so bad. They are higher than CUSA in TV revenue, and lower than CUSA in travel expenses, by far.
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oldkatz
1/12/2016 10:30 PM
Never did get an answer about how much OU gets for those mid-week games. What is the amount for the MAC....for OU???????
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L.C.
1/13/2016 7:42 AM
oldkatz wrote:expand_more
Never did get an answer about how much OU gets for those mid-week games. What is the amount for the MAC....for OU???????

It's in that article C.Money posted the link to, $670,000. To put that in perspective, it's a bit less than Ohio would get for playing one more "money game". Thus the MAC could give up the Tuesday night games, trade in the FCS game for another money game, and play 5 home games a year, and come out in about the same place from a money perspective.

So, is it better to have two Tuesday home games and be on TV, or one Saturday home game, and never be on TV?
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bshot44
1/13/2016 9:09 AM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
Never did get an answer about how much OU gets for those mid-week games. What is the amount for the MAC....for OU???????

It's in that article C.Money posted the link to, $670,000. To put that in perspective, it's a bit less than Ohio would get for playing one more "money game". Thus the MAC could give up the Tuesday night games, trade in the FCS game for another money game, and play 5 home games a year, and come out in about the same place from a money perspective.

So, is it better to have two Tuesday home games and be on TV, or one Saturday home game, and never be on TV?
I'd backpeddle on the "never be on TV" part.

Between American Sports Network and other avenues like CBS Sports Network, TWC and FS-STO and some others, there are TV options the league could explore.

And honestly if the finances were the same, I'd surely rather have another Saturday home game than a Tuesday night game.....even if it wasn't televised.
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L.C.
1/13/2016 10:30 AM
bshot44 wrote:expand_more
.....And honestly if the finances were the same, I'd surely rather have another Saturday home game than a Tuesday night game.....even if it wasn't televised.

You mean you'd rather have one Saturday home game instead of two Tuesday home games? That seems to be the choice for the same money - five home games, all on Saturdays, or six home games, four of them on Saturdays, and two mid-week games.
[Not that you can actually choose, since the choice has already been made].
Last Edited: 1/13/2016 10:30:46 AM by L.C.
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OhioCatFan
1/13/2016 11:04 AM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
. . . they ought to be able to have half the league stay on Saturdays till mid-November while the other half switches to mid-week games early, then back to Saturdays in late November. The problem with that is that ESPN might not get the good games between the top teams, and they might end up broadcasting Miami-UMass or Ball State-EMU.
+1 I think this is a good idea. Usually you've got a pretty good idea who the top teams will be going into the season, so you could arrange the games so that some of the projected top-teams were available for weekday games in both the first and second halves of November. This would be hard work for the league office and require "out of box" thinking. Neither hard work nor innovation seem to be hallmarks of the MAC front office.
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C Money
1/13/2016 11:12 AM
IIRC, Akron did not play a mid-week game this past season.
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Brian Smith (No, not that one)
1/14/2016 11:47 AM
C Money wrote:expand_more
They are totally handcuffed by the carrot at the end of the stick that ESPN is dangling (the almighty $$$$)

Somewhat relevant
http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/basket...
The real news to me was that Old Dominion spent the most money on its athletics program in the C-USA.
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bshot44
1/14/2016 12:27 PM
OhioCatFan wrote:expand_more
This would be hard work for the league office and require "out of box" thinking. Neither hard work nor innovation seem to be hallmarks of the MAC front office.
Nothing more true has even been stated
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