Should Minnesota vs Wisconsin stay on Black Friday

Should Minnesota vs Wisconsin stay on Black Friday?

  • Yes

    Votes: 57 39.0%

  • No

    Votes: 89 61.0%
  • Total voters
    146
  • Poll closed .
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cheeseheadgophfan said:
No way! If that was a home game today, the student section would have been empty (worse than the student section at Madison today!). Kids go home for Thanksgiving...they don't want to turn around and go back for a football game the next day. Dumb.
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But you think they'll come back for a Saturday game?
Dumb.
 

I took the Sun Country day in/out flight to Madison yesterday. Super fun experience and the novelty factor was awesome.

I was super pissed when the 11 AM Black Friday slot was announced, but ended up making it work.

Speaking as someone who goes to every Axe game home or away...11 AM Black Friday was tough to swing. I wouldn't mind mixing it back in every now and then, but the game should go back to it's traditional 2:30 Saturday slot for the majority of years.
 

I liked the Saturday late game myself. It’s almost always been the last game of the season and hopefully they keep that tradition up.
 




Hates Monikers said:
I love that this game had all college football eyes on it today. If I'm sitting st home, I love it. But it's tough for travel.

We left mid-afternoon on Thursday to get here. Not optimal for a holiday. A 2:30 kickoff would be okay, so we could leave early Friday. Also, attendance at Camp Randall was not great today ... tough even for those in town.

Great for TV. Not great for in-person attendance. TV will always win.
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Yeah, has to be either an afternoon or evening start on Black Friday.
 

USAF said:
But you think they'll come back for a Saturday game?
Dumb.
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Ahhhhh....yeah they would. Hate the Badgers all you want, but their student section is always packed. Both of my older kids go there....we live 4 hours from Madison. My daughter got up at 5 a.m. to meet friends to drive down and see their last game (she's a senior). My son said heck no. You have no freaking idea what you're talking about. Dumb.
The Gopher student section would have been a ghost-town for that game yesterday and nobody wants that. At least eliminate the 11:00 start time.
 

My perspective is based on attending the home games every year and getting to Madison as often as possible. I initially hated the idea, but it ended up working great for purposes of traveling to the game. Left Thursday night after Thanksgiving dinner and was able to get a nice hotel room for $100 a few miles from Camp Randall. Tickets were cheap and by far the best seats I have ever had there. Attendance was pretty good given the weather and the state of the team, although they were quite subdued. More booing of the Badgers than I have ever heard there (but they were almost always winning so there wasn't much call to be critical in the past). Obviously far fewer students than there would otherwise be, but they did a good job getting those tickets into the hands of other people and those sections were about 2/3 full by the end of the first quarter and stayed that way until after Jump Around. Seemed like fewer Minnesota fans than I am accustomed to seeing there.

For the years it's a home game, I think it will be great. There are so many Wisconsin grads in the area over the holiday that I wouldn't expect that it will hamper the number of visitors in any significant way and I will be able to enjoy the rest of rivalry weekend in a way that I haven't in years.
 



cheeseheadgophfan said:
The Gopher student section would have been a ghost-town for that game yesterday and nobody wants that. At least eliminate the 11:00 start time.
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Not sure when you last attended a game at the Bank, but the student section the past few years has been awesome. That absolutely includes the Thanksgiving weekend games. Love up the Badger students all you want, but you are off base on the Gopher students.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
Ahhhhh....yeah they would. Hate the Badgers all you want, but their student section is always packed. Both of my older kids go there....we live 4 hours from Madison. My daughter got up at 5 a.m. to meet friends to drive down and see their last game (she's a senior). My son said heck no. You have no freaking idea what you're talking about. Dumb.
The Gopher student section would have been a ghost-town for that game yesterday and nobody wants that. At least eliminate the 11:00 start time.
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This isn't an anti-Badger rant but I find this comment interesting. I've been to Wisconsin 3 times and the first time (Adam Weber era) the student section was packed. I've been there twice in the past 5 years - once I happened to be in Madison on a weekend in the fall so I attended a game vs. a MAC school for fun and the other was the Gophers. Both times I was actually shocked how empty the student section was. Start of the game it was maybe have full. Got much fuller in the 3rd quarter for the Jump Around (which is one of my favorite traditions in college football) but emptied immediately after.
 


2nd Degree Gopher said:
Not sure when you last attended a game at the Bank, but the student section the past few years has been awesome. That absolutely includes the Thanksgiving weekend games. Love up the Badger students all you want, but you are off base on the Gopher students.
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I go to at least a game a year. Not hating on the Gopher student section at all. Just saying, kids want to go home for Thanksgiving and not have to get up and travel for an 11:00 football game on Friday.
 




Thinking about it now.
I wouldn’t mind if it was always Black Friday.

With opening night Thursday and Black Friday, it probably means the other 5 home games would always be Saturday which I prefer in September and October
 

It was a fun road trip and game and I was able to keep my streak alive. However, I had to call in favors with the wife and other family to make it happen. I don’t want to have to do that every other year. Put it back to Saturday.
 

Donovan said:
Agree. Back in the old days, Texas / Texas A&M was on black Friday, move them back.
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That would be a moot point given that the Big 10 Broadcast partners do not also have rights to air SEC contests.

CBS-NBC-Fox want some of their Big 10 inventory to be shown on Black Friday.
 

I liked having iowa as the first conference game and wisconsin as the last one, and would like to see that become a tradition. I don't care about Black Friday or not.
 

Ope3 said:
That would be a moot point given that the Big 10 Broadcast partners do not also have rights to air SEC contests.

CBS-NBC-Fox want some of their Big 10 inventory to be shown on Black Friday.
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I don't think we were only talking about B1G broadcast partners. ESPN could carry it.
 

perfect black friday game, hope they keep it.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
I go to at least a game a year. Not hating on the Gopher student section at all. Just saying, kids want to go home for Thanksgiving and not have to get up and travel for an 11:00 football game on Friday.
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I was responding to your comment that "The Gopher student section would have been a ghost-town for that game yesterday. . ." Whether you intended that as hate or not, I think that you are wrong. I base that opinion on the history of there being plenty of students there on Thanksgiving weekend in the past and that a large percentage of Minnesota students "go home for Thanksgiving" someplace within 45 minutes of the campus.
 

Ope3 said:
That would be a moot point given that the Big 10 Broadcast partners do not also have rights to air SEC contests.

CBS-NBC-Fox want some of their Big 10 inventory to be shown on Black Friday.
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I would guess there are always going to be 2-3 games on Black Friday now.
Which ones are the question.

Probably Iowa Nebraska is one.

The last two years they had a MN-WI and a PSU-MSU
 

Donovan said:
I don't think we were only talking about B1G broadcast partners. ESPN could carry it.
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That doesn't help CBS-NBC-Fox who have paid the Big 10 billions of dollars to broadcast their games.
 
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This is a really interesting discussion that leads me to the question;

Has the big ten announced when they plan to announce the 2025-26 football schedule?
 

Some guy said:
I would guess there are always going to be 2-3 games on Black Friday now.
Which ones are the question.

Probably Iowa Nebraska is one.

The last two years they had a MN-WI and a PSU-MSU
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I would guess Iowa-Nebraska will always be one, Nebraska requested it to begin with and Iowa seems completely good and embraced it as well.

For the other game or 2, I think Penn St is ok with playing a game on Friday (but not hosting). That seems reasonable given the logistics of getting to Happy Valley.

Others that would be fine candidates for a rotation:

USC-UCLA or ND
Oregon-Washington
Indiana-Purdue
Minnesota-Wisconsin
Illinois-Northwestern

Top 2 would be ideal for Prime Time, given the climate and West Coast Time Zone. Maybe Ind-Pur would be ok with having it in Indianapolis once in a while.
 

I know the last week is supposed to be "rivalry week" around the country, but I'd like to play Wisconsin sometime in October every now and then. Whatever.
 

Ope3 said:
I would guess Iowa-Nebraska will always be one, Nebraska requested it to begin with and Iowa seems completely good and embraced it as well.

For the other game or 2, I think Penn St is ok with playing a game on Friday (but not hosting). That seems reasonable given the logistics of getting to Happy Valley.

Others that would be fine candidates for a rotation:

USC-UCLA or ND
Oregon-Washington
Indiana-Purdue
Minnesota-Wisconsin
Illinois-Northwestern

Top 2 would be ideal for Prime Time, given the climate and West Coast Time Zone. Maybe Ind-Pur would be ok with having it in Indianapolis once in a while.
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Problem for the conference is it is going to be network picked pre season… So it’s probably going to always end up being the 3-5th best conference game of the week. Which often is going to zero down to Mn-WI, USC game, or Oregon Washington game…whichever the networks feel is best for that slot that week. So I think it’ll come down to network preference more than anything.

Indiana Purdue won’t be a game they put in because those teams so consistently have down years even when one is up.
Same with Illinois northwestern, in my opinion.
 

Some guy said:
Problem for the conference is it is going to be network picked pre season… So it’s probably going to always end up being the 3-5th best conference game of the week. Which often is going to zero down to Mn-WI, USC game, or Oregon Washington game…whichever the networks feel is best for that slot that week. So I think it’ll come down to network preference more than anything.

Indiana Purdue won’t be a game they put in because those teams so consistently have down years even when one is up.
Same with Illinois northwestern, in my opinion.
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Fair points. An alternative would be to schedule both Ind-Pur & Ill-NW for Black Friday. A week out, CBS (for example) gets their pick, other game goes to BTN.

CBS also televised Stanford-San Jose St Black Friday (2:30 pm), so either of those Big 10 game seems like an option.

So would UCLA vs Cal.
 

Some guy said:
Has the big ten announced when they plan to announce the 2025-26 football schedule?
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I haven't seen any announcement of when it will be released. The 2024 schedule was released in early November 2023, so we are already about 30 days later than last year.
 

Ope3 said:
Fair points. An alternative would be to schedule both Ind-Pur & Ill-NW for Black Friday. A week out, CBS (for example) gets their pick, other game goes to BTN.

CBS also televised Stanford-San Jose St Black Friday (2:30 pm), so either of those Big 10 game seems like an option.

So would UCLA vs Cal.
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I feel like they’re going to do that with the Iowa Nebraska game and whatever the other game is
 

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