One of the weirder stories in college sports in this month of May is the report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel about the dysfunction in Big Ten offices and the confusion that dysfunction has created in Big Ten athletic departments. The dysfunction itself isn’t especially weird — there’s plenty of that to go around in college sports — but what stands out is how surprised some Big Ten athletic departments seemed to be in the face of the realization that yes, a lot more Big Ten football games would be played at night in November with USC and UCLA aboard.
True, it has been a point of great importance for Big Ten schools to not deal with night kickoffs in November, when the weather is colder and fans would like to be home from their Saturday game day. For USC fans who aren’t fully familiar with Big Ten culture, the Big Ten likes and values playing its late-season games in the daytime, when the weather is more manageable and fans don’t have to wait all day for kickoff. Let’s put it this way: Big Ten fans embrace early football games a lot more than SEC fans do. It’s a mixture of weather and culture.
However, as much as Big Ten schools might cherish daytime November football, they all had to realize that with two West Coast schools joining the conference, there would be a lot more night football in the Big Ten with USC and UCLA in the fold. They surely had to know this, right?
Apparently, they thought nothing would change, per Pete Thamel of ESPN:
“Within the industry, though, there was an expectation that, considering the scope of the deal, all schools would play in prime time.
“‘The fault here is with the administrators on campus,’ said another industry source. ‘How did the presidents, chancellors and athletic directors not know this? The universities all signed off on the deal.'”
USC and UCLA increased the value of Big Ten football. The arrival of these new schools boosted the size of the TV contracts. Of course NBC Sports was not going to settle for a minimal night-game package which ceased to exist in mid-November, when late-season matchups draw even more eyeballs (in many cases) than September night games.
Big Ten schools were caught off guard, but they shouldn’t have been.
[lawrence-auto-related count=1 tag=696090378]