K-State Football Is A Saturday Event
by TB on Sep 4, 2008 4:01 PM CDT
2 comments
Please note: I do not want everyone to think I read Tim Griffin's ESPN Big 12 blog looking for chances to disagree with him. But when I have reasons to disagree, they will be aired. This is one of those times.
Griffin starts every day's links post with a lead-in, a short commentary on some topic or other. Today, his topic is Thursday-night college football games. More specifically...
The bigger Big 12 schools traditionally have not wanted to move their games around. But it would seem that a school itching to build some national notoriety -- are you listening Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Kansas State? -- would like to jump into a programming slot where a lot of people would be watching their games.
Let me just go ahead and say it. K-State home football games are, and should always be, a Saturday event. Period.
Griffin notes that the bigger schools, presumably the Oklahomas and Texases (or is it Texasses?) are reluctant to move their games around. There really is no need for them to be creative about their scheduling. Their games will be on TV more often than not.
Later in the story, Griffin notes that the Thursday-night model has worked well for the schools in the ACC and Big East, whose teams you almost always see on the WWL on Thursday nights. The reason the model has worked well for these schools is precisely the reason it works well for the "big" schools of the Big 12, and why it is a terrible idea for the "smaller" schools of the Big 12:
These schools are, by and large, located in (or near) large cities.
Below is a list of ACC and Big East schools, followed by the city in which they are located, further followed by the city's population:
ACC
Clemson,
Duke,
Georgia Tech,
Virginia Tech,
Big East
Pitt,
Rutgers,
South Florida,
As you can see, only three of those schools -- Virginia, Va. Tech, and
By contrast, let's look at
Population: 51,707
Nearest relevant cities (
Students account for about 7,500 seats in Snyder Family Stadium. That leaves about 42,500 seats for everyone else. The majority of those seats are filled by K-State fans from KC,
For this reason alone, K-State should never give in to playing games on Thursday night. However, there are more reasons. When it was announced that K-State was moving its home game with
The primary argument
Bill Snyder changed that by winning games, division titles, and conference titles. The same can happen under Ron Prince.
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I happen to agree with you on this
Especially after reading Tim Griffin’s response, where I think he misses your point. Thursday night games are really scheduled with east coast schedules in mind, and I think that’s an important point, especially when you consider that much of your fan base generally has a 2+hour drive to get to the game (if there’s no traffic problems).
The other thing that he doesn’t consider is that the Athletic Department can’t just schedule a football game on Thursday night without the cooperation of the central administration. For schools like K-State, with on-campus stadiums, having a Thursday game means shutting down regular university operations at about 3 o’clock on Thursday to accommodate fans arriving for the game, and the administration isn’t going to be happy about doing that when they can have the game on Saturday, when it’s not an issue. The three schools that Griffin mentions — West Virginia, Virginia, and Virginia Tech — all have their stadiums either away from their main campus or isolated enough that it doesn’t have to be a huge disruption.
Got Corn?
by huskerlibrarian on Sep 5, 2008 12:13 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Thursday games
I think both of you have some good points. However, Thursday games really could work out well if they aren’t overdone. ISU has played a few of these over the last few years, some on TV and some not. A lot of people hate them but about an equal number actually like them. The tailgating scene is slightly diminished but, again, there are a lot of people that like an excuse to take off work a little early and the difference isn’t that noticeable. I think the game last night didn’t start until 7:30 central time which gives most people time to get there.
Virginia Tech is a similar small market but I don’t think you could argue that in the early stages of the building of their program they benefited greatly from those games. For schools like KSU or ISU an extra TV game really does help out a lot when we’re competing with the UTs who will be on every week no matter what. I think it’s an idea worth looking at.
by Pauli on Sep 5, 2008 2:22 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
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