Five reasons Friday night Big Ten games will be a disaster
The Big Ten announced it will have six Friday night games beginning in 2017. It was met with skepticism, and the idea could be a recipe for disaster.
The Big Ten, that college football bastion of tradition and the fight against runaway offenses, finally succumbed to the great behemoth that is television money and the over-proliferation of football.
The conference announced last week, as part of its new TV deal with FOX, it will include a package of six Big Ten games to be played on Friday nights.
The conference has explained that it was something it took into serious consideration as a way to further expand the conference’s brand and national footprint. And with the growing television costs and dwindling cable audiences, the TV networks are looking for new ways to bring football to a waiting populace.
The idea of weekday football games has been around for a while. ESPN has aired weekday games now for the MAC, Sun Belt and American Conference for a few years. Even the ACC will have a few select Thursday night games. But Friday has seemingly been off limits for much of the bigger conferences. That day is supposed to be designated for high school football.
That is the part that has coaches most upset right now. That day for recruiting is now lost to them, as they now have to prepare for a game.
The conference coaches’ reaction to this plan was not met with universal praise. There was some noted — and loud — dissent from key players in the conference. But this kind of an agreement does not come without some sort of consensus. Some schools certainly stand to gain.
Much like their less-notable conference counterparts, smaller schools like Indiana, Minnesota and even Purdue (which will install permanent lighting to accommodate Friday night games) will likely jump at the chance to sell tickets to a marquee Friday night game on their home schedules. The bigger schools, though, likely view this as beneath them in some way.
There is clear dissent and it is unclear what the benefit to the Big Ten would be in playing Friday night games.
In fact there are some clear signs this move could be a total disaster.
5) Lack of star power
Already, some of the bigger-name schools in the conference are putting their foot down to say no to the Friday night game idea.
Michigan has already said it would not be open to hosting a Friday night game. Penn State and Wisconsin too joined the chorus of big-name schools who want nothing to do with hosting Friday games.
That leaves out three of the higher-profile schools and game atmospheres from the Friday night lineup. That will not make for good optics.
Ohio State, Wisconsin and Michigan State suggested willingness to host Friday night games, but only under certain conditions. Again, those are conference heavyweights expressing some hesitation to joining this trend. The Spartans have long started their season with a Friday night game, but do not intend to play any more than that. And the Badgers said they would only be willing to host games on Friday before Labor Day.
This eliminates a lot of the big-name schools during the meat of the schedule when college football interest is high and the games have a lot more meaning.
And that could lead to even more disaster.