Terrible News--ESPN ruined Bowl season

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AhliBobwa

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http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/10640/espn-signs-contracts-with-three-jan-1-bowls#comments

'ESPN on Thursday signed a new deal with the Gator Bowl and extended its contracts with both the Capital One Bowl and the Outback Bowl. All three bowls pair teams from the Big Ten and the SEC and will be played in the early afternoon on New Year's Day, creating a "roadblock" of games that feed into the Rose Bowl. ESPN has television rights to both the Gator Bowl and the Outback Bowl through 2014 and to the Capital One Bowl through 2018.

Here's how the New Year's Day bowl lineup will look:

Outback Bowl: ABC, 1 p.m. ET
Capital One Bowl: ESPN, 1 p.m. ET
Gator Bowl: ESPN2, 1:30 p.m. ET'

So now, instead of being able to watch every Big Ten Bowl game, 3 of the top 5 Big Ten Bowl teams will be playing at the exact same time (!??!). This has got to be the worst idea ESPN has ever had.

Bowl season is my favorite time of year--and ESPN just stole Christmas like the Grinch.
 

Make sure you have AT&T U-Verse running to DVR all the games at once I guess.
 


I do not understand why the Big Ten and its TV partners continue to take opposite approaches with football and basketball. In hoops, every conference game has its own television window, which is why we get games nearly every day of the week and start times as early as 5:30 or as late as 8:00 during the week. Football, on the other hand, regularly has most conference games at 11:00, one at 2:30 and, sometimes one (or two?) at night. I get that football games are longer and traditionally are all played on Saturdays, but they could still be scheduled so that there were only two at a time or stagger the start times so that they don’t all finish at the same time. This bowl schedule just replicates the regular season problem.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I do not understand why the Big Ten and its TV partners continue to take opposite approaches with football and basketball. In hoops, every conference game has its own television window, which is why we get games nearly every day of the week and start times as early as 5:30 or as late as 8:00 during the week. Football, on the other hand, regularly has most conference games at 11:00, one at 2:30 and, sometimes one (or two?) at night. I get that football games are longer and traditionally are all played on Saturdays, but they could still be scheduled so that there were only two at a time or stagger the start times so that they don’t all finish at the same time. This bowl schedule just replicates the regular season problem.
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The issue is that ABC wants to get all the "eyes" it can on the 2:30 games. That means no BTN games can play during the ABC broadcast. That results in games stacked up @ 11am or in the evening. The scheduling options opened by having 7 days to broadcast basketball versus 1 to handle football cannot be overstated.

Adding the Big Ten to the list of conferences playing Thursday night games would help. As would allowing night games in November. But only so much. At the end of the day the TV contract forbidding any games playing opposite the 2:30 ABC game is the primary cause of the issue. And I don't see ABC negotiating that away since they are dependent on viewers to grab their advertising dollars.
 


I understand the exclusive window problem with ABC and that the issue can’t resolved until that contract expires, but once that deal ends, I hope that they look hard at what’s truly the best way to showcase the conference. Personally, I’d love to see a schedule where one Big Ten game was played on Thursday night, an ABC game at 11:00 and then the other three games starting at, say 2:30, 4:00 and 7:00. That would still give ABC (or whoever) an exclusive broadcast window and get the Central time zone teams out of so many 11:00am games. I’d guess that the reaction to an 11:00am game at TCF would be much more positive if it only happened once or twice a season and was the featured conference game of the week. Yes, the games would overlap some, but you could still watch big parts of each game and the end of every game.

I know there are lots of reasons not to do it and there would certainly be people who objected to the Thursday night idea, but with the BTN and the development of the E-SEC-PN alliance, some creativity would be welcome and may even prove to be necessary.
 

Let's Hope This Is A Problem

For having our Golden Gophers as one of participants in any of those three games ! ! !



:drink:
 

GoAUpher said:
Make sure you have AT&T U-Verse running to DVR all the games at once I guess.
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Ironicallly, I love it when the Gophers and Badgers both play at 11 a.m. Using a two tuner DVR I pause play on one game, switch to the other, and witness every single play of both games in just over 3 hours, while watching almost zero commercials or halftime fluff.

The only issue is when one game shows highlights of the other or scrolls a score. So you have to switch back and forth often.

Don't think this will work with 3 games however.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
I understand the exclusive window problem with ABC and that the issue can’t resolved until that contract expires, but once that deal ends, I hope that they look hard at what’s truly the best way to showcase the conference. Personally, I’d love to see a schedule where one Big Ten game was played on Thursday night, an ABC game at 11:00 and then the other three games starting at, say 2:30, 4:00 and 7:00. That would still give ABC (or whoever) an exclusive broadcast window and get the Central time zone teams out of so many 11:00am games. I’d guess that the reaction to an 11:00am game at TCF would be much more positive if it only happened once or twice a season and was the featured conference game of the week. Yes, the games would overlap some, but you could still watch big parts of each game and the end of every game.

I know there are lots of reasons not to do it and there would certainly be people who objected to the Thursday night idea, but with the BTN and the development of the E-SEC-PN alliance, some creativity would be welcome and may even prove to be necessary.
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I agree with you that the conference could expand their exposure and improve the timeslots for their games. Thursday night games are the easiest way to start the process and “tradition” is a weak excuse to avoid it IMO. Same would be true for adding night games in November. However, I think changing the ABC deal won’t be as straightforward what you propose because for ABC the deal is less about exposure and more about money.

ABC likes the exclusive 2:30 spot because it makes them the most money from advertisers. They get to say "look, your ads will play during a good Big Ten matchup (or Pac-10/Big XII/ACC for other parts of the country) during the middle of the afternoon and the fans from that conference won't have another conference game to draw them away.”

Middle of the afternoon is the key here. ABC will make more money off a 2:30 game then an 11am game. Also, keep in mind that ABC uses this slot in conjunction with good Pac-10, Big XII, and ACC matchups as well. ABC shows that region's conference on ABC while the other games end up on ESPN or ESPN2. Moving their exclusive Big Ten game to 11am would do a couple of things. First, it would reduce the money they’d make from advertising since the 11am timeslot would draw fewer viewers than the 2:30. 2nd, they’d lose the ability to blanket the country via multiple conference games since you can’t play Pac 10 games in that timeslot as they would be kicking off @ 9am. That also messes with their business model.

The Big Ten could certainly negotiate for a deal like this, but the tradeoff would likely be that ABC/ESPN would pay them less for the rights since they would be making less money due to the change. And I don’t see the Big Ten doing anything that lowers the money they make off TV.

This doesn’t mean the Big Ten couldn’t/shouldn’t negotiate for more primetime ABC/ESPN games in their contract or plan more primetime BTN games (both of which would reduce the glut of 11am kickoffs). But changing up the ABC exclusive timeslot seems unlikely to me unless the Big Ten can propose a solution that is a financial win for ABC/ESPN.

In the end Big Ten fans do get screwed a little bit. But TV money means more unfortunately.
 




I am sure that you are right about the money being the driving factor and the ABC/ESPN ability to ensure that three games are essentially nationally covered does create what is, I think, a unique model for revenue generation that can’t easily be matched by any other network. I don’t really see it changing unless/until they break with ABC. Maybe NBC decides to cut ties with Notre Dame and go all in with a conference (or maybe that becomes a cornerstone of a Notre Dame to the Big Ten deal)?

As to the Thursday night idea, I am not sure how many Big Ten schools would go for hosting a Thursday night game. Here, for example, I am sure that Brew would sign up in a heartbeat, but I don’t know how the administration would deal with parking, crowd management, neighborhood issues, etc. for a week night game when classes are in session. Personally, I would love it as a once a year addition to the schedule.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
As to the Thursday night idea, I am not sure how many Big Ten schools would go for hosting a Thursday night game. Here, for example, I am sure that Brew would sign up in a heartbeat, but I don’t know how the administration would deal with parking, crowd management, neighborhood issues, etc. for a week night game when classes are in session. Personally, I would love it as a once a year addition to the schedule.
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Don't disagree that many in the B10 may not be ready to jump on the Thursday night wagon. And I think you've highlighted some of the potential arguments against. I don't think think they hold water though. These games are scheduled well in advance and that should and would allow enough time to plan for the parking/traffic/pedestrian concerns.
 




This is seriously traumatic for me. I love watching the bowls, and trying to flip between channels would get annoying at best.
 

I wonder how much strength the BTN will have come negotiation time as we expand the conference to 14 teams and ad a championship game and increase the major markets where the BTN is part of a basic cable/sports package and no alacart.

I think the biggest way to get better schedules is to grow the BTN and force ABC/E-SEC-PN to meet our needs more than we need to meet theirs...just a thought.
 

GoAUpher said:
These games are scheduled well in advance and that should and would allow enough time to plan for the parking/traffic/pedestrian concerns.
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We could just take a page out of the SEC playbook and cancel classes that night.
 

I wonder if it would be worth getting a petition going? I bet through Big Ten (possibly even SEC) team message boards alone you could get a lot of people to sign on for protesting this move.

Anyone think this is worth looking into?
 

Note to self re: basement finishing

Here's how the New Year's Day bowl lineup will look:

Outback Bowl: ABC, 1 p.m. ET
Capital One Bowl: ESPN, 1 p.m. ET
Gator Bowl: ESPN2, 1:30 p.m. ET'
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Make sure 3 cable jacks are installed in main TV area, not 2.

Seriously, the people making this decision must all be Ivy League or Big East school alumni.
 

I wonder if it would be worth getting a petition going? I bet through Big Ten (possibly even SEC) team message boards alone you could get a lot of people to sign on for protesting this move.

Anyone think this is worth looking into?
 

AhliBobwa said:
I wonder if it would be worth getting a petition going? I bet through Big Ten (possibly even SEC) team message boards alone you could get a lot of people to sign on for protesting this move.

Anyone think this is worth looking into?
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No. Total waste of time. Money talks.
 


Having the Outback, Cap One and Gator Bowls played at the same time could be a good thing for the Gophers. I'd assume the new Dallas Football Classic played at the Cotton Bowl would be a 10 a.m. CT kickoff, meaning it would be the only game going New Year's morning. Since that (or the Texas Bowl in Houston) would be likely destinations for the Gophers, we could get a little more exposure out of our annual trip to the Big Ten #6/7 bowl.
 

badgergopher said:
Ironicallly, I love it when the Gophers and Badgers both play at 11 a.m. Using a two tuner DVR I pause play on one game, switch to the other, and witness every single play of both games in just over 3 hours, while watching almost zero commercials or halftime fluff.

The only issue is when one game shows highlights of the other or scrolls a score. So you have to switch back and forth often.

Don't think this will work with 3 games however.
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I DVR all the college football games I can. I'm so nuts, that I've even cut a strip of black posterboard just big enough to cover up the scroll at the bottom of the screen. I'm also quick on the remote, so, as soon as I hear the announcer say, we're going to New York for an update, I quickly fast forward through the update.
 

Just put a clause in the contracts that we sign with bowls that they can't schedule at the same are similar (1 and 1:30 are not the same, but similar enough for this clause) as 2 other bowls featuring Big Ten teams.

It gets you the leverage up front, and would prevent a bowl from creating such a situation.
 

So now the Gophers only have to be the 5th best B10 team (when we send 2 to the BCS bowls) to play on NYD? We'll still get screwed, but my inner-Minnesotan is just bursting with enthusiasm right now.
 


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