George Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 Conference do not appear to be closing in on a media rights package. Nothing seems imminent or especially close to being finalized. Kliavkoff must therefore be willing to consider options a lot of people might dismiss as being unrealistic or unwise. The Pac-12 can’t be conventional or “safe,” a point we have emphasized before.
If the Pac-12 wants to take a (necessary) risk, one idea which immediately jumps to the forefront is playing football on Sunday afternoons.
Obviously a lot of people will immediately say, “Nope. You don’t challenge the big, bad NFL.” It’s a reasonable point for all the evident reasons.
However, we need to stop and consider some details here before we shut down this line of exploration.
We’re not dumb enough to say that the Pac-12 should go up against an Eagles-Cowboys or 49ers-Packers game in the 4:25 p.m. Fox window. We’re not suggesting the Pac-12 should try to compete with a Bengals-Chiefs or Bills-Chiefs late game on CBS.
When we refer to the Pac-12’s need to play on Sundays, we don’t think it should be every Sunday.
Here’s what a sensible Pac-12 plan would look like:
After the NFL releases its schedule in the spring (with all the kickoff and television assignments), the Pac-12 can go in and flex a few specific Saturday games to Sunday afternoon with a start time of 2:30 p.m. Pacific time, maybe 2:45 or 3.
This might wind up being a five- or six-game package during the NFL season.
Games would be flexed to Sundays on the weekends when it’s clear that the late-game window (4:25 or 4:05 p.m. Eastern time) is not very good.
If you’re a football fan, you know there are several weekends each NFL season (not just one or two) when that late window is dead. There are no blockbuster, high-end games. It’s Raiders-Cardinals on Fox and Browns-Chargers on CBS, maybe one other game. The NFL usually loads up the early window and leaves that late window very light, with three or four games. If two of the three games — or three of the four — are blowouts, that means there’s only one NFL game anyone is paying much attention to. If that matchup isn’t particularly attractive (Texans-Broncos, for instance), people will certainly be interested in watching a mid-tier Pac-12 game.
That is where the conference can carve out a real niche. We talked about this and much more with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football:
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