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It's a long article and behind a paywall but here's most of the section talking about the Friday night scheduling.
"The original Big Ten schedule included two Friday night contests — Indiana at Wisconsin and Iowa at Minnesota — plus a Black Friday game between Nebraska and Minnesota. With the new schedule, five of the first six weeks contain Friday night contests. Only Nov. 6 will be an idle Friday during that span with multiple schools canceling practice to ensure athletes can vote on Nov. 3.
“Friday is still seen as a great exposure opportunity for student-athletes, where it’s not going to be the normal number of games or even from a practice standpoint, the ability for NFL scouts or others to be able to attend practices,” Kenny said. “Having those kinds of windows where there’s only one Big Ten game going on, and potentially only one college football game going on, that’s a great opportunity for branding for that institution, and those student-athletes, and the fan base, etc...
Wisconsin will host the league kickoff on a Friday night against Illinois, and the Gophers and Hawkeyes will play for Floyd of Rosedale on a Friday, too. The Black Friday date remains in place, only the traditional Nebraska-Iowa series returns to that day. The other two games involve Minnesota, too. On Oct. 30, the Gophers play at Maryland, and on Nov. 20, they play host to Purdue.
“Minnesota, I think they’ve really benefited in the past from the opening Thursday night games, some of the Friday night games that they played, and obviously (they) have been asking for the primetime situation in certain years past,” Kenny said. “(Minnesota AD) Mark (Coyle) and his team have always been very receptive to having those conversations because of the exposure and just the visibility that it provides. So we definitely understand that, and that’s the way that it netted out for them.”
Some schools had specific requests that the Big Ten was unable to provide. Nebraska, for instance, wanted to play at home on Friday, Nov. 20 because the school’s abbreviated finals week schedule begins Nov. 21. The league was unable to accommodate that request, but it did for when the Huskers and Hawkeyes brass wanted to resume their Black Friday game.
theathletic.com
"The original Big Ten schedule included two Friday night contests — Indiana at Wisconsin and Iowa at Minnesota — plus a Black Friday game between Nebraska and Minnesota. With the new schedule, five of the first six weeks contain Friday night contests. Only Nov. 6 will be an idle Friday during that span with multiple schools canceling practice to ensure athletes can vote on Nov. 3.
“Friday is still seen as a great exposure opportunity for student-athletes, where it’s not going to be the normal number of games or even from a practice standpoint, the ability for NFL scouts or others to be able to attend practices,” Kenny said. “Having those kinds of windows where there’s only one Big Ten game going on, and potentially only one college football game going on, that’s a great opportunity for branding for that institution, and those student-athletes, and the fan base, etc...
Wisconsin will host the league kickoff on a Friday night against Illinois, and the Gophers and Hawkeyes will play for Floyd of Rosedale on a Friday, too. The Black Friday date remains in place, only the traditional Nebraska-Iowa series returns to that day. The other two games involve Minnesota, too. On Oct. 30, the Gophers play at Maryland, and on Nov. 20, they play host to Purdue.
“Minnesota, I think they’ve really benefited in the past from the opening Thursday night games, some of the Friday night games that they played, and obviously (they) have been asking for the primetime situation in certain years past,” Kenny said. “(Minnesota AD) Mark (Coyle) and his team have always been very receptive to having those conversations because of the exposure and just the visibility that it provides. So we definitely understand that, and that’s the way that it netted out for them.”
Some schools had specific requests that the Big Ten was unable to provide. Nebraska, for instance, wanted to play at home on Friday, Nov. 20 because the school’s abbreviated finals week schedule begins Nov. 21. The league was unable to accommodate that request, but it did for when the Huskers and Hawkeyes brass wanted to resume their Black Friday game.
Big Ten football schedule 3.0: How league officials arranged the complex puzzle
An inside look at the complicated process of rapidly creating the third version of the Big Ten's 2020 football slate.
theathletic.com
