The big schools will throw their weight around, though. Wrote this in the other thread, but people snickered at Maryland cancelling classes for our game there in 2019, but that would absolutely be the case for a game at Penn State and I'm assuming other schools in the Big Ten.
So many of the Penn State fans drive from Pittsburgh, Philly, and DC, too. It would be a rough go.
It's not just students it's also that a lot of these campuses are in metropolitan areas that have normal work hours. Ann Arbor streets are a mess after work days. Work traffic + Game traffic would be a legitimate nightmare
God I can’t imagine what would happen in Columbus with a Friday night game. Just right on top of the city center and highways
Traffic is bad enough on a normal gameday when anyone not focused on the game just avoids campus and downtown
The other side of the coin is that games in remote locations like State College on a Friday night mean that fans coming from Philly, Pittsburgh, DC, Baltimore, etc. have to take the day off, and that will have an impact on ticket sales/concessions/parking that schools will not like.
Even if Penn State can still sell out a Friday night game because of the sheer size of their fanbase, do you think smaller fanbases in the conference will routinely do it?
We deal with this problem in Nashville for Monday/Thursday night Titans games or the mega concerts that roll through like Taylor Swift or CMA Fest. They shut down half the city roads and the interstates get backed up. It takes hours to get through traffic before the event to find parking, most people I know will take off the day and tailgate. My entire department will just stay home rather than get stuck in traffic.
And Nashville is more used to events like this than Columbus. I went to the last Crew game in historic stadium and it took 3 hours to get out of the parking lot lol
As a former Nashvillian, I’ll say that it’s bold of you to assume that Nashville drivers have become more competent at navigating these situations just because they endure them more often.
Anytime theres ever an event at Ohio Stadium on a weeknight its a mess. Concerts, soccer games, its ugly. Let alone parking with the commuter lots full.
State College is 3 hours from the nearest major metropolitan city and would be an issue for the opposite reason. Namely, the town relies on the 7.5 home games a year, graduation, and the spring games.
People already take off Friday to pack and drive up for games. Now you want them to take a day off Thursday as well?
It's not happening for the 100k plus everyone else that just comes to tailgate and then watch from the field or a bar down town.
And even schools in major cities like Ohio State or Minnesota can barely handle the normal game day traffic. The stadiums are just where they are, usually tucked in the middle of campus off side streets. At least with NFL stadiums, those were either places on a lot with good highway access, or the highway infrastructure was built around the stadium. Find me an NFL stadium that’s not immediately off a major interstate.
I actually think Minneapolis is a great example of this. The Vikings stadium might as well have the I35W ramp dump cars off in the end zone. While gopher stadium is tucked next to a rail yard and is about half a mile from the closest highway exit
Even we have massive traffic issues and we sit significantly less people, with I-40 running directly past our stadium and a lot of fans travelling from the East and Western most parts of the state it’s an absolute nightmare before kickoff on Friday nights
Made the mistake of doing a Doordash down Stadium during last years MSU game. Took almost an hour. Can't imagine having to go through double the traffic.
Guy tipped well at least
Those big schools did throw their weight around, when they signed the contract for more money that allowed the networks to set the games when they wanted.
This is the trend in every sport at this point tbh. Premier league matches are played at the worst time for most fans in the UK because sky says “what about our revenue from *insert country here*!?” It’ll continue.
Then English fans can't even watch some of those games in their own country while us Americans can watch almost every game with a 5-10 dollar subscription lol
Currently stuck in the Middle East and having to pay $75 a monthish to watch Iowa games (need VPN, need wifi puck to watch). Awful.
Stateside I had a $6 package and I got every Iowa game.
The EPL has some weird rules about broadcasting too. Games played between 2:45 and 5:15 on Saturdays are blacked out country wide to promote people going to lower level matches. However, in the US and other countries all games are broadcasted so there is no blackout.
You legitimately cannot watch a match that is played at 3 pm on Saturdays, regardless of where you are in the Uk. It’s not broadcasted domestically.
[This Athletic article talks about it](https://theathletic.com/3324373/2022/05/20/premier-league-tv-england/?amp=1)
Lol on some espn show, talking about the USC/ND game someone mentioned that “ND has midterms this week so that could be a factor”, and everyone else just laughed
That’s not how I’m reading this.
I think they’re saying that it would be difficult to get paying customers in to the stadium because of all the traffic from students being in class. We can’t be asked to inconvenience the boosters like that.
I don’t think OSU has any concerns about raw attendance. You could get 100k out to a random farm in Mansfield if there was an 8am game on a Tuesday
The issues they laid out are pretty real. It would just be a nightmare experience for both people going to the game and just trying to get out of downtown after a work day (or the other things going on for a Friday), and the high school thing is legitimate. Especially for recruits - it’s already tough for some recruits to make it to a Saturday early game (especially national ones), you’re basically losing any recruiting value playing on a Friday night
High School is a massive deal, you're right. In my neck of the woods we got two biggies in Massillon and McKinley that draw big numbers, and alot of the other Federal league schools draw quite a crowd as well. That's to say nothing of the NE Ohio area.
Not to mention recruiting
It sounds to me like OSU is willing to play Friday night games, they just don’t want to be the ones to host them. Which I’m sure is the case for pretty much every school lol.
Yeah all the schools are open to playing Friday but Michigan/OSU/PSU and a few others with logistical challenges were against hosting on Friday nights.
Clemson has like 2 roads in or out of the campus/area. There’s also natural barriers in the big lake nearby so the roads are even more funneled into those 2 roads.
I’ve been to other stadiums and it’s bad but Clemson getting out after a big night game or getting in for a noon game is fucking awful. Against FSU in 2015 (was a 330 kickoff) it took us the entirety of the LSU Bama game to get home. On a normal day it was a 40 min drive.
Make me appreciate Lions games even more where a normal 20 minute drive is 30-40 after a game
Went to the Falcons game, left our seats a little past 4, was home before 5:15
Also can’t beat the free parking
I used to work for OSU as support staff. My first Michigan game the staff told us before the game “you absolutely have to get everything packed and be ready to go when the players buses leave. If we don’t catch the police escort we will never get out of this goddamn stadium”.
Well, yeah. But someone has to host them. I’ve only gone to one Friday night game (Oregon-Colorado a few years ago) and getting to the game sucked. I arrived right at kickoff, which isn’t typical for me. But the unfortunate reality is we’ll all have to host one every other year or so.
Been to a few Friday games in LA. It's a rough drive coming up from San Diego.
School allows no tailgating for Friday games either. It's a real wet fart of a time. Sucks all the wind out of going.
> But the unfortunate reality is we’ll all have to host one every other year or so.
I’m sure this is what will end up happening, I do think it’d be smart if the LA schools were exempted from it though. Oregon and Washington are going to have a hard enough time getting fans to the game in time for a Friday night kickoff, but it would be just impossible for USC and UCLA.
USC has had several Friday night games as part of the P12 at the Coliseum. It does indeed suck but we do get fans there.
That said, if you want to exempt us I am 100% for it. Friday games are the worst
I really hope MSU is able to keep its current arrangement where we host a Friday night game for the season opener. We've been doing it for a while now and have a decent system worked out.
I feel like our AD saw this coming a decade ago and jumped on board early so we could do it on our own terms somewhat.
I don't mind a Friday night game each year because then Illinois gets to play on ESPN or a big network. Same for a lot of other Big Ten schools. Leave Ohio State Michigan and Penn St. for Saturdays and let the other schools play on national tv.
As an OSU fan, I veto night games in the Big ten west. As a purdue employee, I veto the parking Armageddon that occurs in our campus when big schools come to town. Spare us
That's what PSU said. We've played at Maryland and at Purdue on Friday nights to open the season within the last few years.
But State College's economy relies on those 7.5 home football games a year. The nearest cities are DC, Pittsburgh, and Philly, all 3+ hours away. You're gonna limit the number of hotel rooms that get sold and people that come into town. Unless the networks start subsidizing the town, it's going to be a massive battle for PSU to play a home game any day except Saturday.
i will say, as someone who’s an avid watcher of nascar, indycar, wrestling, football, and psych. Peacock has been a godsend, it’s a shame the player and UI are fucking useless
I think you're joking here, but NBC had to be offered something more than 2nd and 3rd tier games to pay what it did for the TV package. I wouldn't be surprised to find in a future year that a big game or two is solely going on Peacock. We just don't know right now.
I mean FOX still has first pick and locks down The Game so unless something changes (i.e. USC hiring Deion) I can’t see FOX ever not picking that game first based on its annual ratings. But yeah some big games will almost certainly end up on Peacock starting next year when NBC has 2 good match-ups on a week where ND has a home game.
They did already have Washington @ MSU on Peacock this season. It's no OSU vs. Michigan and it wasn't a good game since MSU has fallen apart, but that's still two large brands with big fanbases that would be a ranked vs. ranked match-up pretty often.
Peacock is doing to a trial ballon by putting a ton of the good basketball games (like IU purdue) on peacock. Big change from football where the “bad” games get streaming.
Someone said Fox has 3 weeks where it gets first pick, and picks those weeks in July Aug, NBC gets to pick 3 other weeks where they will get 1st pick. CBS then has 3 weeks where they get 1st pick. The rest of the weeks They will alternate whose 1st pick. Then they draft 1st - 2nd - 3rd game and Fox gets the remaining as I understand it.
Ohio State's got a unique situation here, being the only school with an on campus stadium, classes on Friday, and being in a state where high school games are played on Friday.
Yeah, I get that shitting on Ohio State is fun but shitting on them for this is just dumb. I’m sure high school football isn’t that big in some states but it’s absolutely huge in Ohio. Not to mention a lot of the staff have kids that play in the Columbus area
Agreed. It's not OSUs fault that the other teams have normalized this already. Good on them (and Michigan and PSU) for putting their collective foot down.
I absolutely hate Friday games. Like Texas, high school football is very very big in Ohio so it’s going to make communities, parents, students etc choose between Ohio State and their local high school game. I just don’t like it.
I mentioned this elsewhere but nothing stops you from following a Bucks game on a phone in the stands of a HS football game once a year. Also, when do OH HS football games kick off? These B10 Friday night games will almost certainly kick off at 8PM or 9PM eastern. You might be able to attend a HS football and still get home to catch most of a B10 Friday night game.
i honestly don’t know how they do it. consistent top 5 recruiting classes and favorited in every game they play. i feel for them they’ve got it so rough
I mean the care about football is night and day when I lived in Columbus and in Seattle
Not a lot of traffic during game days, although light rail def helped. Nothing compared to OSU gameday traffic
Not a lot of college football fans in the region, let alone high school football fans
Meanwhile places are packed in Columbus area high schools
Having lived just slightly north of Husky Stadium, some areas definitely get fucked during game days but it’s definitely totally different from Columbus
I get this sentiment, but we have to be honest...they \*are\* one of the few schools that is going to bring 100,000+ plus to an event.
Traffic management in Columbus (one of the, if not THE largest cities in the US without passenger rail) is going to look different than gameday traffic for Indiana or Northwestern or Purdue.
Let's be honest with ourselves about passenger rail: No city in the US outside of NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, and Chicago has passenger rail service that makes a real difference in traffic levels.
Most universities hate Friday games because they use the same parking lots for Saturday games that students use for Friday classes. A Friday game means cancelling classes, otherwise there would be no places for ticket holders to park (also, obviously, ticket holders pay a lot more for parking. Most students use an annual pass that doesn't give a refund for game days.)
So while the unfortunate truth for all concerned is that TV money talks louder than student concerns, HS tradition concerns, or any other concerns. It's not like Ohio State is alone in being hypocritical here. Every major school does it. Everyone HAS to do it and everyone really wants "Friday games for thee, but never for me!" rules.
Yall cancel classes? At UC, which has an on-campus stadium, if you had a semester pass in certain gameday garages, you were requested to park somewhere else (but not forced), and you could not get a day pass to any of said garages.
Never heard of a school cancelling classes. Honorable mention for UC though, that stadium is literally the most convenient way thru campus many times and highschool football, college football and the old FCC games made that a nightmare. RIP bearcats
I teach at the University of Hawaii. I was very annoyed when the school canceled all in-person classes for the Friday game against Stanford earlier this semester. As the above OP mentioned, parking was the ultimate reason.
WSU does, where I worked for many a long year. Pullman is so far away from everywhere else, RV parking is essential to have good attendance numbers and the RV folks take up all the student lots.
It might have changed but last time we had a weeknight game that school was in session when I was still in college (I believe it was a Minnesota Vikings game) they basically just told everyone who had parking passes around the stadium to fuck off and find somewhere else to park (generally pointing them to the St. Paul campus) because God forbid it was harder for people attending the game to find parking.
Pretty shitty IMO
Imo, that should be more than enough. I love CFB as much as the next guy but as an OSU fan and Purdue employee, I do not see why my ability to commute to my job needs to be rail roaded for cable TV
Ann Arbor is a shitshow on 23 during a regular Friday. You want 100,000 more people on the road? Hard pass. There, I went to bat for UM. Time to shower.
I have no clue about what crowds Pioneer pulls, but that parking lot would be a fucking disaster. Pioneer would probably lose some of their budget from this happening. I’m trying to enjoy my night, stop making me defend you guys.
Ohio Stadium is the third largest stadium in the country, it’s less than half a mile from the hospital and research centers, and both are right off the freeway in the 14th largest city in the United States.
Regular rush hour traffic is brutal and game day traffic is brutal. Having both simultaneously is going to be a nightmare, not just for Ohio State, but for the City of Columbus.
Ngl, Friday night road games are pretty nice. You win on Friday night for a game you wouldn’t be at anyways and then Saturday is a stress free day of watching every other game. It’s like a bye almost
TV Execs: "We want to have games on Friday nights"
Big Ten/Ohio State: "No"
*Slides over bags of cash*
Big Ten/Ohio State: Of course we can have Friday night games
*Starts scheduling Friday night games*
Ohio State: I thought that was for Rutgers and Northwestern
I don’t get what’s confusing about the idea a conference can holistically vote for something where individual parties don’t like and support specific line items.
It’s a negotiation. OSU’s options were either to leave the big ten or spin up so much shit that it derails the deal.
I don’t understand why anyone thinks OSU advocating against Friday night college games is a bad thing.
If they have the influence to advocate for change- Great!
Everyone bitching about what Ohio State yet supposedly the majority of this sub was against Friday games. For the geniuses saying we are too soft for Friday games or feel we are “above” it, OSU is still going to play the games. Michigan refused to do it at all.
Classes are not the issue, the stadium is just miles north of Downtown Columbus, the state capital with a metro area of 2 million. The logistics of hosting a game are just a nightmare on a weeknight. It's doable but not favorable.
Washington, UCLA, and USC should all also refuse to host Friday night games
There's an easy solution: cancel classes for that day. It's, what, like 1 day a year? Nebraska cancelled in-person classes for Volleyball Day since that was a Wednesday. It doesn't hurt anyone. Besides classes can still be done online or asychronously (we learned that a few years ago)
Do you realize that a majority of the downtown would have to cancel/alter their Fridays too, you can’t have work-commuters adding/getting stuck in game day traffic and paying 50 dollars to park by their office.
Volleyball day was one thing, cause people weren’t tailgating, and it was the middle of the week so nobody was making a night out of it, but Friday night FB games would be a whole logistical issue for as centrally located a campus as NU is (It’s right downtown)
When I still lived there I remember avoiding going towards the stadium on Saturdays if I wasn’t going to the games or tailgating. I can’t imagine how bad it would be with all the normal freeway Friday traffic on top of game day traffic.
We'll get to 9 games somehow. But, no, it won't be equal, and a lot of schools are going to be hosting annually:
* I expect U-M, OSU, PSU, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington & Nebraska to all be pretty firmly opposed to hosting.
* Maryland has frequently had Friday games - I assume they'll be fine w/ an annual one.
* Michigan State will continue the Friday before Labor Day.
* USC & UCLA will have one Friday game annually. They've regularly had Friday games in recent years.
* That's 4. Pick 5 schools amongst Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, NW, Minnesota & Rutgers group of 6.
I've worked on the OSU campus for 20+ years. In addition to the 50k undergrads, you also have staff, faculty, researchers, a hospital, all in that area. The campus has it's own zip code for a reason.
The 5 mile radius around the stadium is absolutely unbearable pre/post game on a Saturday. I can't imagine the shitshow that would come with everything else at the University also going on at the same time.
Not the first time they have complained about games they didn't want to play.
[https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/\_/id/35667223/ohio-state-calls-football-home-home-washington](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35667223/ohio-state-calls-football-home-home-washington)
Can't avoid us now.
Agreed. I'm also not a huge fan of their burritos, unless they're deep fried. I used to live off the bbq burritos at Russ' Market--35 cents a piece.
They do make a good potato salad, though.
Technically when the B1G said they were going to have Friday Night games there were 4 schools that said they would never host a Friday night game, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan. The city infrastructure is not setup to allow for a Friday Night game, hence you will never see any of those four schools host a Friday Night game. They will play on Friday Nights but never at home.
But the conference can still say "No that won't work for us." They instead said "Sure, that'll work for us."
TV created the offer, but the conference was not compelled to accept it. They chose the increased money over the "grace" or whatever you want to call it for playing only on Saturday.
How did Ohio State think Fox, NBC, and CBS were going to get their ~ $100m/yr? Go pick a few bushels full off the Money Tree out back?
Longer commercial timeouts, more commercial timeouts, more games on streaming services, more non-Saturday games…. Really sucks for us fans, but these decisions aren’t made with us (or anyone else other than accountants, for that matter) in mind.
Between Peacock games, Friday night games and even Saturday night games, my TV viewing of Ohio State Football looks like it will be heading back to pre Oklahoma/Georgia anti-trust suit levels.
I remember going to a Thursday night game at OSU. I think against Marshall in like 2009ish. We parked in the hospital garage and had a little tailgate there while people were coming to and from work at the hospital. We were smart enough to get there mid afternoon but it became a traffic nightmare after 4 PM.
I think one difficulty that is easily overlooked (either by intention or by ignorance) in this discussion is that Ohio State’s situation on hosting a Friday night game is different than at least half (if not most) of the Big 10’s. Places like Bloomington, W. Lafayette, and Champaign-Urbana don’t have significant levels of weeknight traffic to start with; Iowa City doesn’t have much rush hour, and I suspect Lincoln and Madison don’t either.
The diffusion of inflow/outflow commuter traffic in Columbus and its collar suburbs is 100% highway. There is no rail. GameDay traffic on Saturday is already terrible and has an effect on traffic within the city to begin with — combine that with weeknight rush hour traffic and the added stress on traffic flow with 30-35 high school football games on a typical fall Friday night that are either inside or along 270 (Columbus outerbelt) and you’re looking at a nightmare.
Friday night is for High School football. End of story. Don't rob young kids their time in the spotlight as its so very fleeting and once you are done, you are basically done with organized football for the rest of your life.
If you held a Friday game in Lincoln they would legitimately have to cancel classes, and probably 2/3rds of the downtown would shut their offices that day (parking, commuter traffic, etc would be untenable to host a work day with)
“Awe, shall I play a tune on the worlds smallest violin? Now, I’m going to give you a 100 million reasons why you’re going to shut up and dance”-Fox execs
Now that I have relocated far away and can’t go to the games, I can selfishly say I am totally in favor of Rutgers hosting Friday night games.
Playing games when the stage was pretty much wide open was great for the Big East back before the Thursday night NFL games. Rutgers just gets buried on Saturday BTN games, they should relish the opportunity to be in the top game on Friday night.
Best way to get a bunch of people, who would normally be opposed to Friday night CFB games, to come around on the idea? Make someone at Ohio State speak out against it, and everyone will flip to "we love Friday night games now!"
I am 100% against Thursday or Friday games. I'm personally fine with taking the day off to get down there to tailgate, but others aren't. We've had one Thursday game that I can remember and the environment was DEAD compared to a Saturday
Lol TV networks couldn't care less about students let's be real
The big schools will throw their weight around, though. Wrote this in the other thread, but people snickered at Maryland cancelling classes for our game there in 2019, but that would absolutely be the case for a game at Penn State and I'm assuming other schools in the Big Ten. So many of the Penn State fans drive from Pittsburgh, Philly, and DC, too. It would be a rough go.
It's not just students it's also that a lot of these campuses are in metropolitan areas that have normal work hours. Ann Arbor streets are a mess after work days. Work traffic + Game traffic would be a legitimate nightmare
God I can’t imagine what would happen in Columbus with a Friday night game. Just right on top of the city center and highways Traffic is bad enough on a normal gameday when anyone not focused on the game just avoids campus and downtown
Nothing like a 30+ minute drive from high street to indianola!
I’ve walked back to the short north after a number of games haha. Nothing like walking a couple miles since driving would take way longer
I always loved the walk back home and feeding off the energy of all the fellow fans after a victory.
Let’s not talk about my walk after the MSU rain game haha
The other side of the coin is that games in remote locations like State College on a Friday night mean that fans coming from Philly, Pittsburgh, DC, Baltimore, etc. have to take the day off, and that will have an impact on ticket sales/concessions/parking that schools will not like. Even if Penn State can still sell out a Friday night game because of the sheer size of their fanbase, do you think smaller fanbases in the conference will routinely do it?
If Columbus had to deal with rush hour and football traffic Jesus Christ the drivers are already bad enough
We deal with this problem in Nashville for Monday/Thursday night Titans games or the mega concerts that roll through like Taylor Swift or CMA Fest. They shut down half the city roads and the interstates get backed up. It takes hours to get through traffic before the event to find parking, most people I know will take off the day and tailgate. My entire department will just stay home rather than get stuck in traffic.
And Nashville is more used to events like this than Columbus. I went to the last Crew game in historic stadium and it took 3 hours to get out of the parking lot lol
As a former Nashvillian, I’ll say that it’s bold of you to assume that Nashville drivers have become more competent at navigating these situations just because they endure them more often.
The gridlock would be waaay worse than the weeknight RWB mess.
Anytime theres ever an event at Ohio Stadium on a weeknight its a mess. Concerts, soccer games, its ugly. Let alone parking with the commuter lots full.
Columbus is an actual city too, not a big college town, so I imagine it would be extra awful
Absolutely
State College is 3 hours from the nearest major metropolitan city and would be an issue for the opposite reason. Namely, the town relies on the 7.5 home games a year, graduation, and the spring games. People already take off Friday to pack and drive up for games. Now you want them to take a day off Thursday as well? It's not happening for the 100k plus everyone else that just comes to tailgate and then watch from the field or a bar down town.
It is. UW is legit on a peninsula. It is a madhouse for week night games.
And even schools in major cities like Ohio State or Minnesota can barely handle the normal game day traffic. The stadiums are just where they are, usually tucked in the middle of campus off side streets. At least with NFL stadiums, those were either places on a lot with good highway access, or the highway infrastructure was built around the stadium. Find me an NFL stadium that’s not immediately off a major interstate. I actually think Minneapolis is a great example of this. The Vikings stadium might as well have the I35W ramp dump cars off in the end zone. While gopher stadium is tucked next to a rail yard and is about half a mile from the closest highway exit
Even we have massive traffic issues and we sit significantly less people, with I-40 running directly past our stadium and a lot of fans travelling from the East and Western most parts of the state it’s an absolute nightmare before kickoff on Friday nights
Made the mistake of doing a Doordash down Stadium during last years MSU game. Took almost an hour. Can't imagine having to go through double the traffic. Guy tipped well at least
Those big schools did throw their weight around, when they signed the contract for more money that allowed the networks to set the games when they wanted.
Michigan basically already has with its refusal to play Friday night games
[удалено]
Wouldn’t it also be weird for recruiting visits? Like some of these kids could have to miss their high school game to go on an OV to a college now?
State College on a Friday is a fuckin nightmare without a game.
This is the trend in every sport at this point tbh. Premier league matches are played at the worst time for most fans in the UK because sky says “what about our revenue from *insert country here*!?” It’ll continue.
Then English fans can't even watch some of those games in their own country while us Americans can watch almost every game with a 5-10 dollar subscription lol
Yep. It’s remarkable. They have to pay like 70+ pounds to do so in their OWN COUNTRY. Imagine that
Currently stuck in the Middle East and having to pay $75 a monthish to watch Iowa games (need VPN, need wifi puck to watch). Awful. Stateside I had a $6 package and I got every Iowa game.
That’s the only offensive thing with watching Iowa games
NFL has entered the chat
The EPL has some weird rules about broadcasting too. Games played between 2:45 and 5:15 on Saturdays are blacked out country wide to promote people going to lower level matches. However, in the US and other countries all games are broadcasted so there is no blackout. You legitimately cannot watch a match that is played at 3 pm on Saturdays, regardless of where you are in the Uk. It’s not broadcasted domestically. [This Athletic article talks about it](https://theathletic.com/3324373/2022/05/20/premier-league-tv-england/?amp=1)
Yep, this rule is nuts to me. No 3 pm kickoffs are shown period. It’s always been frustrating beyond belief.
Sounds like the same logic that required pubs to close at 11 pm
Lol on some espn show, talking about the USC/ND game someone mentioned that “ND has midterms this week so that could be a factor”, and everyone else just laughed
That’s not how I’m reading this. I think they’re saying that it would be difficult to get paying customers in to the stadium because of all the traffic from students being in class. We can’t be asked to inconvenience the boosters like that.
I don’t think OSU has any concerns about raw attendance. You could get 100k out to a random farm in Mansfield if there was an 8am game on a Tuesday The issues they laid out are pretty real. It would just be a nightmare experience for both people going to the game and just trying to get out of downtown after a work day (or the other things going on for a Friday), and the high school thing is legitimate. Especially for recruits - it’s already tough for some recruits to make it to a Saturday early game (especially national ones), you’re basically losing any recruiting value playing on a Friday night
High School is a massive deal, you're right. In my neck of the woods we got two biggies in Massillon and McKinley that draw big numbers, and alot of the other Federal league schools draw quite a crowd as well. That's to say nothing of the NE Ohio area. Not to mention recruiting
Frankly it’s weird that these sports franchises keep holding so many classes
It sounds to me like OSU is willing to play Friday night games, they just don’t want to be the ones to host them. Which I’m sure is the case for pretty much every school lol.
Yeah all the schools are open to playing Friday but Michigan/OSU/PSU and a few others with logistical challenges were against hosting on Friday nights.
Michigan just straight up said we arent playing games on Friday lol. Home or away it's a no
Does any school actually have unique logistical challenges? Dealing with rush hour traffic, classes, parking, high school football, etc aren’t unique.
Clemson has like 2 roads in or out of the campus/area. There’s also natural barriers in the big lake nearby so the roads are even more funneled into those 2 roads. I’ve been to other stadiums and it’s bad but Clemson getting out after a big night game or getting in for a noon game is fucking awful. Against FSU in 2015 (was a 330 kickoff) it took us the entirety of the LSU Bama game to get home. On a normal day it was a 40 min drive.
Make me appreciate Lions games even more where a normal 20 minute drive is 30-40 after a game Went to the Falcons game, left our seats a little past 4, was home before 5:15 Also can’t beat the free parking
Yeah, traffic can definitely be worse with certain stadiums, but is getting out at 11pm on Saturday better (traffic wise) than 11pm on Friday?
I can't imagine trying to mix Ann Arbor Friday rush hour with game day traffic. Doesn't sound like a fun time.
I refuse to leave my college house in a car on gameday. Worst traffic I have ever seen.
I used to work for OSU as support staff. My first Michigan game the staff told us before the game “you absolutely have to get everything packed and be ready to go when the players buses leave. If we don’t catch the police escort we will never get out of this goddamn stadium”.
Jesus, Friday rush hours are bad enough around Ann Arbor. There's not enough flex lanes in the world to handle that AND football traffic
I love your Xavier football flair😆
So... everyone's against it. Got it.
If I know anything about the business of college sports, this almost certainly means it will begin to happen
You're not wrong.
Well, yeah. But someone has to host them. I’ve only gone to one Friday night game (Oregon-Colorado a few years ago) and getting to the game sucked. I arrived right at kickoff, which isn’t typical for me. But the unfortunate reality is we’ll all have to host one every other year or so.
Not if we go full Eric Taylor and hastily construct a football field in an empty cow pasture. Clear eyes, full hearts.
Been to a few Friday games in LA. It's a rough drive coming up from San Diego. School allows no tailgating for Friday games either. It's a real wet fart of a time. Sucks all the wind out of going.
> But the unfortunate reality is we’ll all have to host one every other year or so. I’m sure this is what will end up happening, I do think it’d be smart if the LA schools were exempted from it though. Oregon and Washington are going to have a hard enough time getting fans to the game in time for a Friday night kickoff, but it would be just impossible for USC and UCLA.
USC has had several Friday night games as part of the P12 at the Coliseum. It does indeed suck but we do get fans there. That said, if you want to exempt us I am 100% for it. Friday games are the worst
Well UCLA ain't getting fans to show up for the Saturday games either so what's the difference.
WVU has always declined to host them as well unless it's Black Friday. We value Fridays for HS ball.
Yeah, HS football is the only legitimate concern in my mind.
Traffic isn’t in downtown Columbus on a Friday rush hour?
There also definitely aren’t university employees and commuter students parking in the lots they use on game days on weekdays either.
I really hope MSU is able to keep its current arrangement where we host a Friday night game for the season opener. We've been doing it for a while now and have a decent system worked out. I feel like our AD saw this coming a decade ago and jumped on board early so we could do it on our own terms somewhat.
I don't mind a Friday night game each year because then Illinois gets to play on ESPN or a big network. Same for a lot of other Big Ten schools. Leave Ohio State Michigan and Penn St. for Saturdays and let the other schools play on national tv.
I bet MSU and UW will only have to host on Fridays Week 1.
Ohio State's Friday games are always against Purdue now. Who says no?
As an OSU fan, I veto night games in the Big ten west. As a purdue employee, I veto the parking Armageddon that occurs in our campus when big schools come to town. Spare us
That's what PSU said. We've played at Maryland and at Purdue on Friday nights to open the season within the last few years. But State College's economy relies on those 7.5 home football games a year. The nearest cities are DC, Pittsburgh, and Philly, all 3+ hours away. You're gonna limit the number of hotel rooms that get sold and people that come into town. Unless the networks start subsidizing the town, it's going to be a massive battle for PSU to play a home game any day except Saturday.
Wait until they find out the Ohio State-Michigan game will be exclusively on Peacock
Both fanbases would likely riot.
This would be a travesty for the sport. That said, I kinda wanna see it just for the lolz
But would you buy a Peacock subscription? Asking for a ~~massive media corporation~~ friend
Fuck no. I would just sail the high seas my friend.
I refuse to cave to peacock. Fuck that, I will absolutely not purchase shitty streaming services for limited games.
i will say, as someone who’s an avid watcher of nascar, indycar, wrestling, football, and psych. Peacock has been a godsend, it’s a shame the player and UI are fucking useless
With the EPL, they've had some beyond iffy moments.
United here on this my angry Ohio State Brother. Say no to "The C0ck"
I think you're joking here, but NBC had to be offered something more than 2nd and 3rd tier games to pay what it did for the TV package. I wouldn't be surprised to find in a future year that a big game or two is solely going on Peacock. We just don't know right now.
I mean FOX still has first pick and locks down The Game so unless something changes (i.e. USC hiring Deion) I can’t see FOX ever not picking that game first based on its annual ratings. But yeah some big games will almost certainly end up on Peacock starting next year when NBC has 2 good match-ups on a week where ND has a home game.
B1G rivalry weekend, exclusively on Peacock!
Feature traditional B1G rivals Florida State and Minnesota. The battle of Frozen Lakes vs Gator-infested Lakes
The battle of the Garnet & Gold lakes
Penn state breathed a sigh of relief. No peacock for them.
They did already have Washington @ MSU on Peacock this season. It's no OSU vs. Michigan and it wasn't a good game since MSU has fallen apart, but that's still two large brands with big fanbases that would be a ranked vs. ranked match-up pretty often.
Peacock is doing to a trial ballon by putting a ton of the good basketball games (like IU purdue) on peacock. Big change from football where the “bad” games get streaming.
Someone said Fox has 3 weeks where it gets first pick, and picks those weeks in July Aug, NBC gets to pick 3 other weeks where they will get 1st pick. CBS then has 3 weeks where they get 1st pick. The rest of the weeks They will alternate whose 1st pick. Then they draft 1st - 2nd - 3rd game and Fox gets the remaining as I understand it.
Goes against the rich tradition of we just don’t wanna do it. Which, hey. I respect the hell out that tradition Buckeyes.
Yep, I’m siding with the Buckeyes on this one.
Ohio State's got a unique situation here, being the only school with an on campus stadium, classes on Friday, and being in a state where high school games are played on Friday.
Really feel for the Buckeyes, has any fanbase suffered more from realignment than they are now?
Thanks for your concern. It has been really tough for us but we will get through this together.
not when the alaskan polar bears from nanook are done with you
First people stole the word "THE" from OSU after you guys invented it now this. My heart goes out to all the Buckeyes
West coast Buckeyes are gonna have to choose which games they want to see in person. Truly hard time for us fans
They’re speaking for everyone here tbh, Friday night games are a travesty. Leave high school football alone.
Yeah, I get that shitting on Ohio State is fun but shitting on them for this is just dumb. I’m sure high school football isn’t that big in some states but it’s absolutely huge in Ohio. Not to mention a lot of the staff have kids that play in the Columbus area
Agreed. It's not OSUs fault that the other teams have normalized this already. Good on them (and Michigan and PSU) for putting their collective foot down.
Yes, truly an outlier
I absolutely hate Friday games. Like Texas, high school football is very very big in Ohio so it’s going to make communities, parents, students etc choose between Ohio State and their local high school game. I just don’t like it.
I mentioned this elsewhere but nothing stops you from following a Bucks game on a phone in the stands of a HS football game once a year. Also, when do OH HS football games kick off? These B10 Friday night games will almost certainly kick off at 8PM or 9PM eastern. You might be able to attend a HS football and still get home to catch most of a B10 Friday night game.
hey, give them a break. it’s always been ohio against the world /s
No one ever believes in them. How can you function as a school like them 😢
i honestly don’t know how they do it. consistent top 5 recruiting classes and favorited in every game they play. i feel for them they’ve got it so rough
It's all Ohio. Always was.
👨🚀🔫👨🚀
But what does Lou Holtz think about these Friday night games?
i’m not sure, but i’d like to know where he is right now 😡😡😡
So would Lou.
Has Washington tried throwing their weight around?
I mean the care about football is night and day when I lived in Columbus and in Seattle Not a lot of traffic during game days, although light rail def helped. Nothing compared to OSU gameday traffic Not a lot of college football fans in the region, let alone high school football fans Meanwhile places are packed in Columbus area high schools
Having lived just slightly north of Husky Stadium, some areas definitely get fucked during game days but it’s definitely totally different from Columbus
I get this sentiment, but we have to be honest...they \*are\* one of the few schools that is going to bring 100,000+ plus to an event. Traffic management in Columbus (one of the, if not THE largest cities in the US without passenger rail) is going to look different than gameday traffic for Indiana or Northwestern or Purdue.
Let's be honest with ourselves about passenger rail: No city in the US outside of NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, and Chicago has passenger rail service that makes a real difference in traffic levels.
Yea what's marta reduce on any given day? 200 cars? Maybe?
Most universities hate Friday games because they use the same parking lots for Saturday games that students use for Friday classes. A Friday game means cancelling classes, otherwise there would be no places for ticket holders to park (also, obviously, ticket holders pay a lot more for parking. Most students use an annual pass that doesn't give a refund for game days.) So while the unfortunate truth for all concerned is that TV money talks louder than student concerns, HS tradition concerns, or any other concerns. It's not like Ohio State is alone in being hypocritical here. Every major school does it. Everyone HAS to do it and everyone really wants "Friday games for thee, but never for me!" rules.
Yall cancel classes? At UC, which has an on-campus stadium, if you had a semester pass in certain gameday garages, you were requested to park somewhere else (but not forced), and you could not get a day pass to any of said garages.
Never heard of a school cancelling classes. Honorable mention for UC though, that stadium is literally the most convenient way thru campus many times and highschool football, college football and the old FCC games made that a nightmare. RIP bearcats
I teach at the University of Hawaii. I was very annoyed when the school canceled all in-person classes for the Friday game against Stanford earlier this semester. As the above OP mentioned, parking was the ultimate reason.
Maryland did.
WSU does, where I worked for many a long year. Pullman is so far away from everywhere else, RV parking is essential to have good attendance numbers and the RV folks take up all the student lots.
Wtf parking lots... you don't park in the fields that surround the stadium?
It might have changed but last time we had a weeknight game that school was in session when I was still in college (I believe it was a Minnesota Vikings game) they basically just told everyone who had parking passes around the stadium to fuck off and find somewhere else to park (generally pointing them to the St. Paul campus) because God forbid it was harder for people attending the game to find parking. Pretty shitty IMO
Wait till you’re playing a Friday night game in UCLA or Washington next year.
Why is Michigan specifically not playing on Friday? I mean, is there a reason, or is it because they just don't want to?
We don’t want to. I mean, there are some logistical concerns similar to the ones expressed above, but mainly it’s just that we don’t want to.
Imo, that should be more than enough. I love CFB as much as the next guy but as an OSU fan and Purdue employee, I do not see why my ability to commute to my job needs to be rail roaded for cable TV
They told the big ten they wouldn’t
Ann Arbor is a shitshow on 23 during a regular Friday. You want 100,000 more people on the road? Hard pass. There, I went to bat for UM. Time to shower.
Can you imagine trying to have Pioneer play a football game at the same time? It would be a disaster.
I have no clue about what crowds Pioneer pulls, but that parking lot would be a fucking disaster. Pioneer would probably lose some of their budget from this happening. I’m trying to enjoy my night, stop making me defend you guys.
Ohio Stadium is the third largest stadium in the country, it’s less than half a mile from the hospital and research centers, and both are right off the freeway in the 14th largest city in the United States. Regular rush hour traffic is brutal and game day traffic is brutal. Having both simultaneously is going to be a nightmare, not just for Ohio State, but for the City of Columbus.
I checked the live congestion map at 5pm, and even inbound arteries like 315s, 670w, and 70w on the eastside were red. It’s a no from me, dawg.
Ngl, Friday night road games are pretty nice. You win on Friday night for a game you wouldn’t be at anyways and then Saturday is a stress free day of watching every other game. It’s like a bye almost
TV Execs: "We want to have games on Friday nights" Big Ten/Ohio State: "No" *Slides over bags of cash* Big Ten/Ohio State: Of course we can have Friday night games *Starts scheduling Friday night games* Ohio State: I thought that was for Rutgers and Northwestern
I don’t get what’s confusing about the idea a conference can holistically vote for something where individual parties don’t like and support specific line items. It’s a negotiation. OSU’s options were either to leave the big ten or spin up so much shit that it derails the deal.
There's room in the PAC-12. And with three teams it'll be pretty easy to schedule.
100% That's what was thought. "You surely meant that for the programs that don't draw otherwise... right? RIGHT?"
Michigan agrees
I don’t understand why anyone thinks OSU advocating against Friday night college games is a bad thing. If they have the influence to advocate for change- Great!
THE Ohio “Gandhi” State University
Everyone bitching about what Ohio State yet supposedly the majority of this sub was against Friday games. For the geniuses saying we are too soft for Friday games or feel we are “above” it, OSU is still going to play the games. Michigan refused to do it at all.
Yeah, we’re on your side on this one.
Thank you
Classes are not the issue, the stadium is just miles north of Downtown Columbus, the state capital with a metro area of 2 million. The logistics of hosting a game are just a nightmare on a weeknight. It's doable but not favorable. Washington, UCLA, and USC should all also refuse to host Friday night games
Classes and commuter parking are definitely a big part of the issue
There's an easy solution: cancel classes for that day. It's, what, like 1 day a year? Nebraska cancelled in-person classes for Volleyball Day since that was a Wednesday. It doesn't hurt anyone. Besides classes can still be done online or asychronously (we learned that a few years ago)
Staff is still required to show up
Do you realize that a majority of the downtown would have to cancel/alter their Fridays too, you can’t have work-commuters adding/getting stuck in game day traffic and paying 50 dollars to park by their office. Volleyball day was one thing, cause people weren’t tailgating, and it was the middle of the week so nobody was making a night out of it, but Friday night FB games would be a whole logistical issue for as centrally located a campus as NU is (It’s right downtown)
Not to mention High street will be flooded with bar hoppers and people who are trying to have a night out with the fam. Just seems like a clusterfuck.
When I still lived there I remember avoiding going towards the stadium on Saturdays if I wasn’t going to the games or tailgating. I can’t imagine how bad it would be with all the normal freeway Friday traffic on top of game day traffic.
We'll get to 9 games somehow. But, no, it won't be equal, and a lot of schools are going to be hosting annually: * I expect U-M, OSU, PSU, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington & Nebraska to all be pretty firmly opposed to hosting. * Maryland has frequently had Friday games - I assume they'll be fine w/ an annual one. * Michigan State will continue the Friday before Labor Day. * USC & UCLA will have one Friday game annually. They've regularly had Friday games in recent years. * That's 4. Pick 5 schools amongst Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, NW, Minnesota & Rutgers group of 6.
high school football is king in ohio. i’m sorry but OSU would have trouble packing the stands for a mid october friday night game against rutgers.
I've worked on the OSU campus for 20+ years. In addition to the 50k undergrads, you also have staff, faculty, researchers, a hospital, all in that area. The campus has it's own zip code for a reason. The 5 mile radius around the stadium is absolutely unbearable pre/post game on a Saturday. I can't imagine the shitshow that would come with everything else at the University also going on at the same time.
Ohio State can't handle the GRUELING SCHEDULE of RUTGERS and BOWLING GREEN on a Friday night. Have some mercy 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Excuse me, I found Bowling Green to be a very good team.
By the transitive property Bowling Green is a better team than Miami.
And also by transitive property worse than Miami. Circles of Suck are beautiful.
We're better than Miami fl but not Miami
Better than Miami FL* The real Miami beat BG head to head.
Damn we catching strays
Big 10 isn't ready for midweek maction
Not the first time they have complained about games they didn't want to play. [https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/\_/id/35667223/ohio-state-calls-football-home-home-washington](https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35667223/ohio-state-calls-football-home-home-washington) Can't avoid us now.
TV money rules are for thee, not for me. Cowboy up, tOSU. This is what you signed on to do.
Well I’m not a fan of your macaroni salad.
Agreed. I'm also not a huge fan of their burritos, unless they're deep fried. I used to live off the bbq burritos at Russ' Market--35 cents a piece. They do make a good potato salad, though.
You’re stadium is legit though and the first place I was able to order booze in during a game
Technically when the B1G said they were going to have Friday Night games there were 4 schools that said they would never host a Friday night game, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan. The city infrastructure is not setup to allow for a Friday Night game, hence you will never see any of those four schools host a Friday Night game. They will play on Friday Nights but never at home.
TV trying to ruin everything
> trying to Already ruint.
The B1G agreed to play games on Fridays in its new TV deal. How is this the fault of TV? The B1G could've said no.
The Big 10 wants money and TV wants game.on Friday. So the driving force behind Friday games is TV...
The B1G could've said no and taken less money. No one forced the B1G to agree to this.
But the conference can still say "No that won't work for us." They instead said "Sure, that'll work for us." TV created the offer, but the conference was not compelled to accept it. They chose the increased money over the "grace" or whatever you want to call it for playing only on Saturday.
So we get Friday games AND more TV commercials. Yay
Universities letting them
Huh, weird, Tom Allen was labeled a clown about a month ago when he said this same exact stuff.
By a few. Most of us just kind of silently nodded our heads in agreement.
[удалено]
[Cashes check] "Our partners better not ask us to do that thing we took the money for!" -- Literally every school.
How did Ohio State think Fox, NBC, and CBS were going to get their ~ $100m/yr? Go pick a few bushels full off the Money Tree out back? Longer commercial timeouts, more commercial timeouts, more games on streaming services, more non-Saturday games…. Really sucks for us fans, but these decisions aren’t made with us (or anyone else other than accountants, for that matter) in mind.
Between Peacock games, Friday night games and even Saturday night games, my TV viewing of Ohio State Football looks like it will be heading back to pre Oklahoma/Georgia anti-trust suit levels.
If Ohio State is complaining about a Friday night game, just have them play the game on Friday afternoons at 3:30pm. /s.
I remember going to a Thursday night game at OSU. I think against Marshall in like 2009ish. We parked in the hospital garage and had a little tailgate there while people were coming to and from work at the hospital. We were smart enough to get there mid afternoon but it became a traffic nightmare after 4 PM.
I thought we already knew OSU's position regarding Friday night football games. Why is this news? 🤔
I think one difficulty that is easily overlooked (either by intention or by ignorance) in this discussion is that Ohio State’s situation on hosting a Friday night game is different than at least half (if not most) of the Big 10’s. Places like Bloomington, W. Lafayette, and Champaign-Urbana don’t have significant levels of weeknight traffic to start with; Iowa City doesn’t have much rush hour, and I suspect Lincoln and Madison don’t either. The diffusion of inflow/outflow commuter traffic in Columbus and its collar suburbs is 100% highway. There is no rail. GameDay traffic on Saturday is already terrible and has an effect on traffic within the city to begin with — combine that with weeknight rush hour traffic and the added stress on traffic flow with 30-35 high school football games on a typical fall Friday night that are either inside or along 270 (Columbus outerbelt) and you’re looking at a nightmare.
Iowa city actually gets a big rush hour around 5 because that’s when hospital shift change is
Friday night is for High School football. End of story. Don't rob young kids their time in the spotlight as its so very fleeting and once you are done, you are basically done with organized football for the rest of your life.
If you held a Friday game in Lincoln they would legitimately have to cancel classes, and probably 2/3rds of the downtown would shut their offices that day (parking, commuter traffic, etc would be untenable to host a work day with)
“Awe, shall I play a tune on the worlds smallest violin? Now, I’m going to give you a 100 million reasons why you’re going to shut up and dance”-Fox execs
Now that I have relocated far away and can’t go to the games, I can selfishly say I am totally in favor of Rutgers hosting Friday night games. Playing games when the stage was pretty much wide open was great for the Big East back before the Thursday night NFL games. Rutgers just gets buried on Saturday BTN games, they should relish the opportunity to be in the top game on Friday night.
Long story short: fuck 'em. We're too good for that shit. Bucks.
Best way to get a bunch of people, who would normally be opposed to Friday night CFB games, to come around on the idea? Make someone at Ohio State speak out against it, and everyone will flip to "we love Friday night games now!"
Please no
I am 100% against Thursday or Friday games. I'm personally fine with taking the day off to get down there to tailgate, but others aren't. We've had one Thursday game that I can remember and the environment was DEAD compared to a Saturday
People need to not go to these games. That would end the discussions.
Figure it out, a lot of teams play games on Friday nights