TexasAgInTheBay said:
I don't understand the Cal fanbase's dislike of night games. Most other places prefer night games because the fans are rowdier.
Maybe its a Bay Area thing. People seem to genuinely not like night time or be able to stay up late here. Is it morning Cardio obsession? Or having to be on calls with NYC in the morning? Anyway, this place has the worst night life of any place I've lived BY FAR. Most of SF looks like an empty, deserted city by 9pm every night. The South Bay and the Peninsula aren't any better. Maybe I'm not frequenting the right places. I only go the East Bay for Cal games; maybe its all happening there.
Most things happen early in the bay area. Yes, as far as the work day goes, it's either NYC or London times that match up with mornings here. Or, yes, mornings are when people are active whether it's the gym or a run.
After covid, some parts of the city became even more dead due to work from home. People are working from home from Fridays so places like the financial district are a ghost town.
I live about 1 - 1.5 hrs from campus, depending on the traffic. A 7:30 start is fine but it's when they finish, the time it takes to get out of Berkeley and then the trek home.
The Sonny era was the worst because games would almost go for 4-5 hours. I think it was the 2016 game that had a 7:30 kickoff. This was when we beat a #11 ranked Texas 50-43 with Davis Webb and Chad Hansen. It went for 4 hours finishing at 11:30. Usually everyone would go home but we went out for drinks at Tap Haus to celebrate. Had a great time and then of course had to finish it up with a burrito from La Burrita. We must've finished up around 2 AM. I walk to the lot where I've parked and they're closed and locked up! My car was literally trapped! Sadly, I ended up taking an uber home (got home at 3 am) and coming back the next day to get my car. After that, I noticed they explicitly told people when the lot closed (thanks to me).
But even with reasonable ending times, I'm getting home at midnight. With the last SDSU game, the refs threw so many flags it just extended the game by 30 minutes (also now includes the 2 minute timeouts).
Overall, from a viewers perspective, they need to shorten games somehow. Reviews take too long, commercial breaks are too long. They have so much filler at the stadium that's filled with bad ads (personal injury lawyers) -- I can do away with the little kids roaring competition as well or watching Bart lines virtually race.
If the game isn't a particularly exciting one with a good crowd, it's a much better experience watching from the comfort of home.
