Possible scheduling solutions (LONG)
I don’t like 11:00 games either. Even noon would be a significant improvement. I don’t know how much longer the TV contracts run, but the one thing that gives me a ray of hope is the way the conference has made it a priority in basketball to get all of the conference games on TV in their own window. That’s why most of our weekday home games start at 6:00 or 8:00 rather than 7:00. Obviously, football games are longer and can’t be spread out through the whole week so there will necessarily be some overlap, but improvements could be made. For example:
The next ABC/ESPN contract could be written not to require exclusivity. Would it result in less money? Probably so, but if the concern is that they are fragmenting the Big Ten audience, I think that’s somewhat overblown. They already have (or had) weeks where Big Ten games are on both ESPN and ESPN2 at 11:00, sometimes with another couple of games on BTN. Non-exclusivity would allow games to start at noon local time in both the Eastern and Central time zones. The noon Central games would still be over by about 3:00 or 3:15, so those fans inclined to do so could flip over to the 2:30 game and not have missed much. BTN already shows games on overflow channels, so it shouldn’t be too hard to adjust to two different start times.
If the Big Ten was willing to change a couple of scheduling traditions you could have a nationally televised game on Thursday night and windows on Saturday of 11:00, 2:30 and 6:00. That’s three Saturday slots for what would normally be four other conference games and one non-conference game, so there could still be an exclusive window during the day for ABC/ESPN. Yes, the league would have to allow night games in November and I am sure that there are some schools where there would be logistical problems with weeknight games, including here, but it could probably be worked out most places if it was scheduled before the start of the year and rotated so no team played at home on a Thursday more than once a year.
If the schedule was extended a week or two to provide teams with an additional bye week, there would be fewer games each week and make a larger number of games available in “exclusive” windows. (That also would address the concerns that some have about the long pre-bowl layoff.)
Even if they need to have an exclusive window for ABC/ESPN, that window could be at 11:00 rather than 2:30. My guess is that most schools (and all those in the Central time zone) and their fan bases would prefer the bulk of the games at 2:30 (or 3:30) versus 11:00am (or noon).
By adopting one or more of these ideas, I think the schedule and the fan experience would be improved.