Hey, we were sitting next to you across the aisle. I got a kick out of the jump around bit. They looked like they were having fun. I now remember your post prior to the game. I should have put 2 and 2 together when I saw the UW hat.

TV kills attendance in two ways. First, it delivers a vastly superior and infinitely cheaper viewing experience compared to actually going to a stadium. Second, it ruins the pleasure and flow of a live game with all the forced TV timeouts. By November, ever people in Athens would probably prefer to relax at home and watch on TV as opposed to shivering away while waiting for an ESPN minion to give permission to the referees to restart the game about three dozen times.

Three: 8pm kick-offs are major deterrents for the large number of alumni that otherwise travel from Central Ohio when it's a Saturday.

Here's some anecdotal, but verifiable, memories from those 80's. My daughter was born in '81 and we attended games since she could walk. (She was always a favorite of the elder K. Kerr those days.....a wonderful Athenian icon.) Anyway, late season games were never attended to capacity. A November game against Central Michigan had a crowd of about 900 on the alumni side, at best, in the late going on that Saturday afternoon. No TV, no interwebs, no outside distractions to siphon off the crowd, and no MACtion midweek night matches. Attendance was not great in those Brian Burke days. But, it was gameday in Athens.

I agree that the MAC needs the exposure....but it sucks that it comes at the MAC fan's expense.

The people who really like the MAC are the people who are alums/fans of the MAC teams. Joe SixPack in Richmond, VA could care less about NIU at Buffalo.....but he's getting a football game to watch on a Tuesday night and ESPN is getting something to fill the 8-11pm timeslot on a Tues/Wed.

The league is completely selling out their fans for this exposure.

I'm not sure I have a great solution....but I just think it stinks that GREAT MAC games like BG at WMU and UT vs. BG and NIU vs. UT are played in front of less-than-spectacular crowds because it's Tuesday/Wednesday at 8pm.....robbing the real fans of supporting their team in a big game in a gameday festival atmosphere on a Saturday afternoon/evening like the majority of college football fans.

I'm okay with a few spotlight games during the midweek to gain exposure....but 4+ every week for four or five weeks is excessive.

Perfect example last night...just do BG at WMU. That was a great game for the league to showcase two of it's best teams......and going up right against it was NIU/UB in front of about 27 people. I'm sure the only people actually even watching the game were NIU fans.

Same situation on Tuesday....You don't think Peden would've had 18-20k there if Kent/Ohio was played on a Saturday afternoon/evening? Instead there's barely 7k and it's playing opposite of Toledo at CMU (a much better game)

I know the TV money outweighs a lot.....but I just think it's a dis-service to the fan bases....to the people that actually go to the games (or try to)....to put 25% of your schedule during Tuesday nights at 8pm

Like someone earlier posted, when it was a novelty, it was cool. "Hey, ESPN is coming to our campus to put our team on TV...let's pack the stands!" Now it's total overkill when every game after October is a Tues/Wed night.....the original excitement has worn off. I'd love to see what the return-on-investment is for the MAC now compared to what it was when #MACtion started. I can't imagine it's still worth it to pimp out all of these schools and their fanbases each week for a quarter of the season rather than just a select few games.

Need to consider MAC fans who are to distant to attend live.

I can tell you that I love mid-week games. They lend excitement to the work week, make the day pass more quickly due to anticipation....and they leave my weekends more free (don't have to devote about 3 hours to paying attention to vidcast).

We are only given two mid-week home games each season. I don't mind them at all. I love the mid-week away games because I can watch the team and still have a free Saturday. The MAC is certainly not the only conference with non-Saturday games. Even the NFL has games on Monday and Thursday every week and their fans show up.

I treat the Tuesday/Wednesday games as special November scheduling. The only thing it disrupts for me is tailgating, but the silver lining there is a savings of several hundred dollars per game in food and beer. I know others don't have the flexibility in their schedule or live as close as I do, but I know when WVU plays a Thursday night game, the majority of the state shuts down at noon and heads to Morgantown. It's only two nights/year.

Big XII - 5 Thursday games
--- 2 were the opening night
--- 1 was Texas Tech/Texas on Thanksgiving night (a new UT tradition)

Big 10 - NONE

SEC - 2 Thursday games

ACC - 3 Thursday games

Pac 12 - 4 Thursday games, 1 Friday game

AAC - 17 midweek games
7 Thursday games
--- 2 were opening night

10 Friday games
--- 1 was opening weekend
--- 2 were Thanksgiving Friday

CUSA - 2 Thursday games
--- both were opening night

Sun Belt - 12 midweek games
7 Thursday games
--- 1 was opening wknd

3 Tuesday games

2 Friday
--- 1 was opening wknd
--- 1 was Thanksgiving Friday

MAC - 26 midweek games
7 Tuesday games

6 Wednesday games

8 Thursday games
--- 4 were opening night

5 Friday games
---- 4 on Thanksgiving Friday (no Saturday games that week for MAC)
---- 1 on opening wknd

No league pimps itself out for midweek games like the MAC. It's not even close. The AAC has 17 midweek games....and 10 of those are on Friday night. And a lot of these leagues midweek games fall either the opening wknd of the season or Thanksgiving week.

I have no problem with a Friday night game....much more reasonable to get to than a Tues/Wed game.

It's gotten excessive.

Does work. Just takes a little work on a spreadsheet.

We generally know what games will be good each season. EMU vs anyone will not. Kent vs anyone will not. Etc.

This isn't rocket science. All those other leagues figure a way to sprinkle in some midweek games without going overboard and alienating fans from being able to reasonably attend a quarter of their games

The truth of the matter is when it comes down to sports in 2015, much of it has a social aspect. Do you really think all of those students and alumni attending games in Columbus, Happy Valley, Ann Arbor, Gainesville, Austin, LA, etc are there for the football? Many are there for the tailgate, getting together with old friends, and perhaps hoping for a future meet-up or date.

There was some statistic in Major League baseball (a couple of years ago) that stated most of the mid season near-sellouts were directly related to promotional giveaways. With regard to college football, I have tailgated in lots of places, and I would be willing to bet that most of the people whom I were eating and drinking with could hardly name five players on the field.

I also believe there is a direct correlation between how involved your high school student body was in your high school sports programs. It seems to me that most of the die hard Bobcat fans I knew back in the day came from high schools that got behind their sports programs.

Compared to a couple of decades ago, there are many more forms of entertainment and social media that keep people busy, not to mention parents attending their children's youth sporting events. Schools in the Non-Power 5 have an uphill battle to keep the interest of students and alumni who are pulled in so many directions on a Saturday, let alone a weeknight.

Also need to consider the players, recruits and their families. I'd be pretty underwhelmed coming out of the tunnel to a student side that was empty. Yay, I am on national TV(viewership in the 1,000's) but my parents couldn't make the trip to Athens because they have jobs, etc. And the way everyone on here is down on our talent(looking at you Monroe), have these mid-week games really improved our recruiting like some claim?

Castigating fans for the quality of our recruits ???

In fairness that CMU game was also the Saturday of finals, and we even had some players who were not at the game due to "taking finals". Oh how things have changed.