I know a lot of people think the Friday night game on Fox is wrong. I think it's strange sure, but it does get the P12 a primetime national spot with a national audience. Obviously, Stanford can't draw to a 5pm PT kickoff, but not sure they'd do much better on Saturday. Maybe more UCLA fans would drive up? But lets not jump to conclusions based on poor attendance on the farm...
But here's the thing - to get a big TV contract, Scott had to think outside of the box a little. Part of that was getting the championship game placed where it has a national audience. Because of this, running the game up against either the SEC championship or Big Ten championship was pretty much a non-starter. It could be done, but we'd be getting ACC treatment.
So given the constraint of not running against the BT and SEC, I see two ways to avoid (one is the current option) that and one extra choice -
A) Friday evening. 5pm is best for the networks, so that's when it is. TV money is $30+ million for one game. tickets were $80 so that would have barely broken ~$4million for 50k in attendance.
B) Play at 8pm PT on saturday night. This would give the P12 a national uncontested slot. Furthermore, the ACC and BT kick at 8pm local as well, it's just ET. So that is NO WORSE FOR P12 fans to attend than BT or ACC fans. But east coast TV viewership might taper off.
C) Play at 1pm PT, opposite of the SEC championship game. Fox and ESPN are our partners, CBS is NOT. Fox and ESPN have championship games at 5pm PT, so that's fully booked. Decent timeslot for national viewership and for fans, but SEC championship game is a de facto natty feeder game.
So what would you guys prefer? Just throwing this out there because everyone complains, but I think a lot would still complain at every chance when other reasonable alternative are chosen.
Also, I don't see that later on a friday is an option, though maybe an hour later would work.. You do a 7pm PT start, and it might as well be at 8pm on Saturday both attendance wise and viewer-wise.
But here's the thing - to get a big TV contract, Scott had to think outside of the box a little. Part of that was getting the championship game placed where it has a national audience. Because of this, running the game up against either the SEC championship or Big Ten championship was pretty much a non-starter. It could be done, but we'd be getting ACC treatment.
So given the constraint of not running against the BT and SEC, I see two ways to avoid (one is the current option) that and one extra choice -
A) Friday evening. 5pm is best for the networks, so that's when it is. TV money is $30+ million for one game. tickets were $80 so that would have barely broken ~$4million for 50k in attendance.
B) Play at 8pm PT on saturday night. This would give the P12 a national uncontested slot. Furthermore, the ACC and BT kick at 8pm local as well, it's just ET. So that is NO WORSE FOR P12 fans to attend than BT or ACC fans. But east coast TV viewership might taper off.
C) Play at 1pm PT, opposite of the SEC championship game. Fox and ESPN are our partners, CBS is NOT. Fox and ESPN have championship games at 5pm PT, so that's fully booked. Decent timeslot for national viewership and for fans, but SEC championship game is a de facto natty feeder game.
So what would you guys prefer? Just throwing this out there because everyone complains, but I think a lot would still complain at every chance when other reasonable alternative are chosen.
Also, I don't see that later on a friday is an option, though maybe an hour later would work.. You do a 7pm PT start, and it might as well be at 8pm on Saturday both attendance wise and viewer-wise.