This article indicates that it was a conscious decision to go for the big TV money no matter the consequences for attendance. The issues is definitely getting attention.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Cal-football-fans-Put-your-TV-contract-where-the-10859237.php

Hopefully the NCAA realizes the issue and acts. If length of games were returned to the historic norm of 3 to 3:15 in regulation AND if most Saturday evening games in Pac-12 could start at 6:00 PM that could solve perhaps 80% of the problem for true fans who want to come out and support Cal and enjoy the atmosphere of college football in a beautiful setting. It would also solve the problem of BART, which has obviously been a long term choice of a majority of Cal fans coming from more than a few miles away. I don't see how games on TV after 10 PM Pacific have much of an audience and certainly the East Coast folks are already gone to sleep by 1 AM or out at a club/bar on a Saturday night. I mean, how many folks are going to be watching Cal vs Oregon St. @ 11 PM?

GoldenBear76;842794851 said:

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I still have the little pocket schedule from my senior year (1976) and the latest any game started was 3pm, away at little bro. Things have changed quite a bit since.

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And they knew the game times before the season started. What a concept.

No need to go into the whole thing about the AD and Department not listening to people, but do you think that the consideration that bear raid games go so long had any effect on the coaching choices?

Note that late game times were also exasperated by the pass heavy offense under Sonny. Even during games where we had a higher percentage of runs, games ended much earlier. If our new offense is running the ball much more, that will help with the duration.

FiatSlug;842794762 said:

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No, they don't. Vote with your feet.

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The conference is not affected by butts in the seats, and that's who controls the TV contracts/times.

mbBear;842795492 said:

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The conference is not affected by butts in the seats, and that's who controls the TV contracts/times.

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If you think that the conference controls the TV contracts and times, allow me to introduce you to ESPN and Fox Sports, the Pac-12 football overlords.

The Pac-12 conference categorically does NOT control the contract: it is very one-sided in favor of the networks having control. The payoff to the conference is in the form of $$$$$, not control over kickoff times, not control over windows, not control over games played on 5-day rests (as opposed to 6-day rest which occurs with Saturday to Saturday scheduling) and selected for Friday and Thursday scheduling.

But you're right that the conference is not affected by butts in the seats.

Where I (emphatically) disagree with you is the implicit message that the fans should suck it up. The contract was not made with the fans in mind. It assumes that the fans will continue to attend games in big, ever-increasing numbers and that the sport will continue to prosper. The current TV contract actually undermines fan attendance and is simply another cynical attempt by the TV networks to wring money from college football without regard for the long-term health of the sport.

Cal89;842794516 said:

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I'm down in Morgan Hill. I have a 30 minute drive to my mom's in San Jose where we meet-up. From there about 1 hour 20 to 30 minutes to the garage. With the walk to our CMS seats being about 20 minutes, I figure about 2.5 hours each way. For late games, not uncommon for me to get home at 2 am, or even later.

Married and two littles, they don't join those games, and if I go, there is grief. Sick kid or kids, or wife, I for sure don't go. Crazy rain, team playing like crap, or if I've had it with the HC, those unfortunately become factors for me in deciding if I want to hassle with the consequences of getting home so late... My colleagues are often recipients of such tickets.

As the little ones get older, this will be less problematic for me though.

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A similar issue for me in Willow Glen. We only went to 2 of 6 games. Either the game times have to get better, or the games have to championship meaningful, so I can convince my wife to let me go by myself. Either way, we're taking at least a one year break from season tickets, for that reason.

One thing leads to another.

In this case...the networks want football to broadcast for as long as is possible throughout the day. That means an 8am start time and a 10pm end time (11am - 1am eastern).

Due to geography that means a LOT of east coast schools have games starting at 11am local time. I'm sure that on boards of schools similar to Cal's in football profile you will see complaints that ALL THEIR GAMES start at 11am leaving no time to tailgate before the games and having to get up early on a weekend.

Sadly that means that the back half of that equation has to be filled by teams in the Pacific time zone. There is one conference in the Pacific time zone that draws national attention and guess what...we're in it. If they want to maintain the all football all day mantra (which they clearly do) that means at least one night game per Saturday. Since we play 9 conference games that means for the roughly last 10 weeks of the season its 6 games per week that can be that night game. That averages out to ~2 night games per year for all schools IF it is evenly distributed...and that doesn't get into weeknight games at all.

Then of course they AREN'T evenly distributed. The prime time matchups are going to be in...prime time. That means the networks are left looking for whats interesting if not top flight that's left over for the night time game that will attract national interest at some level. And that's where Dykes comes in. High powered offense to keep the viewer awake? Check. Crappy defense to make sure the games stay close/interesting? Check. We were playing the perfect brand of football for being just bad enough to not get prime time slots and just interesting enough to make the late night docket.

You can say it wasn't *directly* because of Dykes that you didn't renew your season tickets...but the kind of football Dykes was playing was directly responsible for the kind of start times we were seeing.

Could be worse...in Utah and Colorado they had games starting after 8:00pm local time...now that is brutal.

~MrGPAC

Big C_Cal;842795117 said:

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I agree from a short-term, pragmatic standpoint. However, long-term, too many night games is going to diminish the product. Cal needs to band together with other schools and form a critical mass that will work to cap the night games to 1-2 per season.

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How many after 7PM slots did the P12 fill last year? It MUST be 13 or 26? (7 & 7:30?) I am guessing 13.

Arizona schools need to finish at night because of the death and such, so make them take the first half of the season when they are home. That is roughly 5 or 6 of the games.

The other 7 or so get rotated through the other 10 teams. No team outside of Arizona should play more than 1 7PM or later home game. Perhaps you could arrange it to be that no team plays more than 2 every 3 seasons...


It seems simple to me. Especially with the Arizona schools requirement for safety to play in the evening.

Phantomfan;842795724 said:

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How many after 7PM slots did the P12 fill last year? It MUST be 13 or 26? (7 & 7:30?) I am guessing 13.

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For the 2016 season Pac-12 teams played in 27 games that kicked off at 7:00 PM or later. Kick off times varied as follows:

7:00 PM - 6 games
7:15 PM - 2 games
7:30 PM - 16 games
7:45 PM - 3 games

Non-conference games - 11 of those games were played against non-conference opponents (all in September)
Pac-12 games - 16 of those games were played against non-conference opponents:
2 games were played in September
9 games were played in October
5 games were played in November

Phantomfan;842795724 said:

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Arizona schools need to finish at night because of the death and such, so make them take the first half of the season when they are home. That is roughly 5 or 6 of the games.

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Arizona kicked off 8 games total at 7:00 PM or later. The Wildcats first 6 games of the season (home and away) kicked off at 7:00 PM or later.

Arizona State kicked off 4 games total at 7:00 PM or later. The Sun Devils played all of their late games at home on September 10 (Texas Tech), September 24 (Cal), October 8 (UCLA), and October 22 (Wazzu).

Phantomfan;842795724 said:

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The other 7 or so get rotated through the other 10 teams. No team outside of Arizona should play more than 1 7PM or later home game. Perhaps you could arrange it to be that no team plays more than 2 every 3 seasons...

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16 games in Pac-12 conference play kicked off at 7:00 PM or later. Aside from the Arizona schools as noted above, the frequency of teams playing in these late games were as follows:

[U]5 games[/U]
Cal (3 home, 2 road)
Washington State (2 home, 3 road)

[U]4 games[/U]
UCLA (2 home, 2 road)
[U]
2 games[/U]
Oregon State (2 home)
USC (1 home, 1 road)
Washington (2 road)
[U]
1 game[/U]
Colorado (road)
Oregon (road)
Stanf*rd (home)
Utah (home)

Phantomfan;842795724 said:

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It seems simple to me. Especially with the Arizona schools requirement for safety to play in the evening.

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It is simple. Too bad it's not distributed evenly.

Baldwin runs a spread offense. Pass happy is here to stay. GO Bears!

FiatSlug;842795540 said:

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If you think that the conference controls the TV contracts and times, allow me to introduce you to ESPN and Fox Sports, the Pac-12 football overlords.

The Pac-12 conference categorically does NOT control the contract: it is very one-sided in favor of the networks having control. The payoff to the conference is in the form of $$$$$, not control over kickoff times, not control over windows, not control over games played on 5-day rests (as opposed to 6-day rest which occurs with Saturday to Saturday scheduling) and selected for Friday and Thursday scheduling.

But you're right that the conference is not affected by butts in the seats.

Where I (emphatically) disagree with you is the implicit message that the fans should suck it up. The contract was not made with the fans in mind. It assumes that the fans will continue to attend games in big, ever-increasing numbers and that the sport will continue to prosper. The current TV contract actually undermines fan attendance and is simply another cynical attempt by the TV networks to wring money from college football without regard for the long-term health of the sport.

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Pardon my lack of clarity. The TV contract is negotiated and agreed to by the conference not by the school. We will see if the conference passes on the weekday games, and less night games if it means less dollars.
Is the conference smart enough to get how the TV contracts are ruining college attendance? I guess we will see that too.
Cal wins and I'm not overly worried about the attendance numbers at CMS.
What was I saying about "suck it up" that you emphatically disagree with?

mbBear;842796330 said:

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Pardon my lack of clarity. The TV contract is negotiated and agreed to by the conference not by the school.

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Correct; I agree. But the TV contract clearly favors the networks in exchange for more money to the conference. Hence, my comment that ESPN and Fox Sports control the contract and TV times

mbBear;842796330 said:

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We will see if the conference passes on the weekday games, and less night games if it means less dollars.

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In order for this to happen, the contract might have to be re-negotiated. As I understand it, the TV contract specifically allows 8 midweek games among the 54 Pac-12 conference games played each season. The contract also allows for a limited number of 6-day windows and the rest of the kickoff times are on 12-day windows. Based on how TV kick off times are assigned, selection of games by each network is done on a weekly basis. Baseball playoffs figure into this because Fox is the primary network for MLB playoffs once we get to the LCS in each league.

mbBear;842796330 said:

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Is the conference smart enough to get how the TV contracts are ruining college attendance? I guess we will see that too.

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I think it is only now dawning on the Pac-12 that these TV contracts are having a corrosive effect on in-game attendance. It seems clear to me that the Pac-12 assumed that attendance would remain flat at the very least, if not continue to show small incremental increases.

mbBear;842796330 said:

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Cal wins and I'm not overly worried about the attendance numbers at CMS.

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Neither am I. Although, if there is a corrosive effect as I've postulated attendance will not be as good as it was at the height of the Tedford era. I'm almost certain to be right since CMS' capacity was reduced by about 9,800 seats.

mbBear;842796330 said:

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What was I saying about "suck it up" that you emphatically disagree with?

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I had said that fans should vote with their feet. In response you said that the conference is not affected by in-game attendance and that they control the TV contract/times. I took that to mean that fans are going to have to suck it up until the contract expires. I guess that you disagree with that characterization.

If therr are only 8 mid week games, why do we get two of them again???

oskidunker;842796431 said:

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If therr are only 8 mid week games, why do we get two of them again???

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Because we host one and we travel to one.

Every game has a host team and a visitor team. Every Pac-12 team hosts one midweek game in 2 years out of every three. Theoretically, each team should also travel to one midweek game in 2 years out of every three. But I don't think there is any such travel restriction and because Cal is in the 2nd largest Pac-12 market, we are more likely to get a midweek travel game every year (as it has been for the last 3 years).

FiatSlug;842796440 said:

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Because we host one and we travel to one.

Every game has a host team and a visitor team. Every Pac-12 team hosts one midweek game in 2 years out of every three. Theoretically, each team should also travel to one midweek game in 2 years out of every three. But I don't think there is any such travel restriction and because Cal is in the 2nd largest Pac-12 market, we are more likely to get a midweek travel game every year (as it has been for the last 3 years).

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I thought it was evenly distributed on both the home and away games. Maybe not?

Looking at USC under the new TV contract (2012-), I see 9 weeknight games (4 home/5away )... and at Cal, I see 8 weeknight games (4 home/4 away), which seem about right if the goal is evenly distributed. But, Cal had no weeknight away games in 2012 and 2013, and one each year since, so perhaps the evenly distributed away games works out over the length of the TV contract and not a given 3 year period.

Uthaithani;842794531 said:

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What a joke operation at the AD. Basic communication with fans/ donors is a MINIMUM. No wonder they can't sell season tickets when they treat current ticket holders like dirt. Very unprofessional.

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For years now our ADept has shown a lack of basic customer relations skills. There are classes in these skills at some colleges. IIRC SF State has such a class.

FiatSlug;842796427 said:

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Correct; I agree. But the TV contract clearly favors the networks in exchange for more money to the conference. Hence, my comment that ESPN and Fox Sports control the contract and TV times



In order for this to happen, the contract might have to be re-negotiated. As I understand it, the TV contract specifically allows 8 midweek games among the 54 Pac-12 conference games played each season. The contract also allows for a limited number of 6-day windows and the rest of the kickoff times are on 12-day windows. Based on how TV kick off times are assigned, selection of games by each network is done on a weekly basis. Baseball playoffs figure into this because Fox is the primary network for MLB playoffs once we get to the LCS in each league.



I think it is only now dawning on the Pac-12 that these TV contracts are having a corrosive effect on in-game attendance. It seems clear to me that the Pac-12 assumed that attendance would remain flat at the very least, if not continue to show small incremental increases.

Neither am I. Although, if there is a corrosive effect as I've postulated attendance will not be as good as it was at the height of the Tedford era. I'm almost certain to be right since CMS' capacity was reduced by about 9,800 seats.



I had said that fans should vote with their feet. In response you said that the conference is not affected by in-game attendance and that they control the TV contract/times. I took that to mean that fans are going to have to suck it up until the contract expires. I guess that you disagree with that characterization.

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Well, I'm not one of the legal experts on this site, but its a contract-the conference entered into it willingly, and I guess week to week control was something not seen as important.
Right, I took it to mean that the present situation was not to your liking, and yes, you were suggesting re-negotiation.
I see no proof that any conference is acting as if they see TV as a negative part of the college football landscape. Well, let me correct that: holding onto your own rights, creating your own network, could be seen as that. But then again, many believe that the Pac-12 Net acting alone was a mistake, not a brilliant stroke of independence. If I am missing something obvious, I'm happy to be corrected. But I see the conference offices lining up to take the money, and worrying about network revenues.
Ah okay, right. Renewing or not renewing your tickets next year will not affect when the games are played or how early they are selected. And the fans shouldn't have to react to some of the scheduling debacles (ie. SC): we should have an AD who is a worthy advocate-that's unclear at this point, at least for me.

mbBear;842797242 said:

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Ah okay, right. Renewing or not renewing your tickets next year will not affect when the games are played or how early they are selected.

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Not renewing does mean for me, not watching late games out in the cold and getting home on BART at 2am, which happened at two of the three late games in 2016. When I signed up, I expected mostly 1pm games. Those are not happening. 50% of the games were late last year. And the ATO is aware of fans being upset with late games, very minor tweaks are being attempted. Very minor though.

I think the main miscalculation and mistake in the contract was that when the contract was signed, there were no Fox Sports cable channels. When FS was created, there was instantly more inventory to fill, and I'm guessing our contract placed no limitations on night games because we didn't think it would be an issue. The problem is compounded by the fact that some of the desirable daytime windows are granted exclusivity (i.e. no other P12 games to be scheduled as competition at the same time). One possible solution would be to shift one of the exclusive windows to the evening. It is not like the late afternoon games are really exclusive anyway, many other P5 conferences play games at that time.

Cal Geek;842797279 said:

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Not renewing does mean for me, not watching late games out in the cold and getting home on BART at 2am, which happened at two of the three late games in 2016. When I signed up, I expected mostly 1pm games. Those are not happening. 50% of the games were late last year. And the ATO is aware of fans being upset with late games, very minor tweaks are being attempted. Very minor though.

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Being in Philly, you aren't going to get "cold" points (but I know that its all what you are use to) lol. However, seeing the late games have kept me up until 3am watching, I know that sucks. But I also remember the days of going to a bar and trying to see if they could find the Cal ("you mean UCLA?") game on satellite. So, it has come a long ways, but its a mixed bag. If you have seen minor tweaks, then you are being generous...I don't see anything happening until there is negotiation.

All I know is that I have had season tickets since the stadium opened. For the last two years each time that I considered flying up to Berkeley from Southern California it turned out to be a night game. Now I never planned on going to every game but I did plan on two or three each year. Each time that I made plans it turned out to be at night. So for the last two years I've had season tickets and did not go to one game. So no season tickets this year.

mbBear;842797242 said:

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Well, I'm not one of the legal experts on this site, but its a contract-the conference entered into it willingly, and I guess week to week control was something not seen as important.

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I'm not a lawyer or legal expert, either. But it seems fairly reasonable to see the Pac-12 football TV contracts as being a quid pro quo: the networks pay the Pac-12 a bunch of money for quite a bit of freedom in deciding which games will kickoff at specific times on a Saturday. ESPN also is allowed to choose midweek games for a Thursday or Friday night broadcast.

mbBear;842797242 said:

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Right, I took it to mean that the present situation was not to your liking, and yes, you were suggesting re-negotiation.
I see no proof that any conference is acting as if they see TV as a negative part of the college football landscape. Well, let me correct that: holding onto your own rights, creating your own network, could be seen as that. But then again, many believe that the Pac-12 Net acting alone was a mistake, not a brilliant stroke of independence. If I am missing something obvious, I'm happy to be corrected. But I see the conference offices lining up to take the money, and worrying about network revenues.

---

I am suggesting re-negotiation. I think the Pac-12 would be well motivated to do so if they are at all concerned about in-game attendance. But I'd guess that the TV money appears more valuable to the Pac-12 and so, negotiations will probably have to wait until 2024.

The other Power 5 conferences have a structural advantage over the Pac-12: they aren't mostly in the Pacific time zone. A smaller group of SEC, ACC, B1G, and Big 12 games appear after 7:00 PM in their local time zones. Half (50%) of the Pac-12's 54 conference games started at 7:00 PM or later. No other Power 5 conference has been subject to such a large share of its inventory being put off to the later hours.

mbBear;842797242 said:

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Ah okay, right. Renewing or not renewing your tickets next year will not affect when the games are played or how early they are selected. And the fans shouldn't have to react to some of the scheduling debacles (ie. SC): we should have an AD who is a worthy advocate-that's unclear at this point, at least for me.

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My view is different: if you buy season tickets you validate the structure of the football TV contracts. Then again, maybe that's what the networks want you to do. They want the ratings and don't give a fig what happens to Pac-12 in-game attendance; that's the Pac-12's headache.

Either way, I'm disappointed in the result. I'm more disappointed that Cal and Wazzu have had a disproportionate burden in playing 8 of 12 games with kickoff times that were no earlier than 7:00 PM (although, to be fair 1 of those was in Australia and kicked off at 12:00 Noon local time). Mike Williams couldn't really help that. The TV contracts left kickoff times virtually out of his hands.

No, this one lies at the feet of Larry Scott and others (Kevin Weiberg, possibly) in the Pac-12 office. There was no protection for any team being forced to face a disproportionate share of late kickoffs. I would point out that Stanf*rd only had two games that started at 7:00 PM or later: OCT 8 vs. Wazzu (7:30 PM) and OCT 29 at Arizona (8:00 PM). Otherwise, Stanf*rd had kickoffs at -
12:00 Noon - Sat., OCT 22 vs. Colorado
12:30 PM - Sat., NOV 5 vs. Oregon State
1:00 PM - Sat., NOV 12 at Oregon
2:30 PM - Sat., NOV 19 at Cal
4:30 PM - Sat., OCT 15 at Notre Dame
5:00 PM - Sat., SEP 17 vs. USC. Sat., SEP 24 at UCLA, Sat., NOV 26 vs. Rice
6:00 PM - Fri., SEP 26 vs. Kansas State, Sat., OCT 1 at Washington

Washington State was the other Pac-12 school that was bestowed upon with six (6) kickoffs at 7:00 PM or later. To wit -

7:00 PM - Sat., OCT 22 at Arizona State
7:15 PM - Sat., SEP 10 at Boise State
7:30 PM - Sat., OCT 8 at Stanf*rd, Sat., OCT 15 vs. UCLA, Sat., NOV 12 vs. Cal
7:45 PM - Sat., OCT 29 at Oregon State

Something like 7 of the Pac-12 schools only had 1 or 2 games that kicked off at 7:00 PM or later.

FiatSlug;842797745 said:

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I'm not a lawyer or legal expert, either. But it seems fairly reasonable to see the Pac-12 football TV contracts as being a quid pro quo: the networks pay the Pac-12 a bunch of money for quite a bit of freedom in deciding which games will kickoff at specific times on a Saturday. ESPN also is allowed to choose midweek games for a Thursday or Friday night broadcast.

I am suggesting re-negotiation. I think the Pac-12 would be well motivated to do so if they are at all concerned about in-game attendance. But I'd guess that the TV money appears more valuable to the Pac-12 and so, negotiations will probably have to wait until 2024.

The other Power 5 conferences have a structural advantage over the Pac-12: they aren't mostly in the Pacific time zone. A smaller group of SEC, ACC, B1G, and Big 12 games appear after 7:00 PM in their local time zones. Half (50%) of the Pac-12's 54 conference games started at 7:00 PM or later. No other Power 5 conference has been subject to such a large share of its inventory being put off to the later hours.

My view is different: if you buy season tickets you validate the structure of the football TV contracts. Then again, maybe that's what the networks want you to do. They want the ratings and don't give a fig what happens to Pac-12 in-game attendance; that's the Pac-12's headache.

Either way, I'm disappointed in the result. I'm more disappointed that Cal and Wazzu have had a disproportionate burden in playing 8 of 12 games with kickoff times that were no earlier than 7:00 PM (although, to be fair 1 of those was in Australia and kicked off at 12:00 Noon local time). Mike Williams couldn't really help that. The TV contracts left kickoff times virtually out of his hands.

No, this one lies at the feet of Larry Scott and others (Kevin Weiberg, possibly) in the Pac-12 office. There was no protection for any team being forced to face a disproportionate share of late kickoffs. I would point out that Stanf*rd only had two games that started at 7:00 PM or later: OCT 8 vs. Wazzu (7:30 PM) and OCT 29 at Arizona (8:00 PM). Otherwise, Stanf*rd had kickoffs at -
12:00 Noon - Sat., OCT 22 vs. Colorado
12:30 PM - Sat., NOV 5 vs. Oregon State
1:00 PM - Sat., NOV 12 at Oregon
2:30 PM - Sat., NOV 19 at Cal
4:30 PM - Sat., OCT 15 at Notre Dame
5:00 PM - Sat., SEP 17 vs. USC. Sat., SEP 24 at UCLA, Sat., NOV 26 vs. Rice
6:00 PM - Fri., SEP 26 vs. Kansas State, Sat., OCT 1 at Washington

Washington State was the other Pac-12 school that was bestowed upon with six (6) kickoffs at 7:00 PM or later. To wit -

7:00 PM - Sat., OCT 22 at Arizona State
7:15 PM - Sat., SEP 10 at Boise State
7:30 PM - Sat., OCT 8 at Stanf*rd, Sat., OCT 15 vs. UCLA, Sat., NOV 12 vs. Cal
7:45 PM - Sat., OCT 29 at Oregon State

Something like 7 of the Pac-12 schools only had 1 or 2 games that kicked off at 7:00 PM or later.

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Right...the Networks don't care about attendance. If the television schedule is affecting attendance for a given school, then its up to the AD to bring that to the attention of the Conference (if they are ignoring or ambivalent about the problem) and find creative solutions, including to your point, attempts at re-opening negotiations.
I think its a good point about the built-in disadvantage of the conference and the Pacific Time Zone. I would imagine that even within the conference, Utah and Colorado are less likely to play late games because they would actually be starting an hour later local time.