thedrifter
07-27-04, 02:23 PM
August 02, 2004
Bad news for football widows
TV games loom this year, including a 19-day blitz
By Jack Carey
Gannett News Service
Sometimes it seems football is on TV all the time. During an unprecedented stretch of 19 consecutive days this fall, it will be.
Football teams play only once a week, but television viewers are under no such restriction.
From Oct. 28 to Nov. 15, at least one football game — major college or pro — will be televised each day. That includes Election Day.
The NFL will present its traditional Sunday-Monday fare, but for 13 of the 19 days, college football will be on the air.
It’s a striking illustration of the proliferation of weeknight college games, which started with ESPN’s Thursday night telecasts but in recent seasons has included Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday night broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN2.
More “mid-major” conferences are looking to give their teams exposure that often can’t happen on Saturdays, when premier leagues such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference dominate the TV time slots.
The weeknight games have drawn the wary attention of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, which for more than a decade has been pushing for reform in college sports.
Commission members have decried the practice because players miss more class time and tens of thousands of fans descend on a campus in the hours before a game, which can disrupt the academic environment.
Commission Chairman William Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, says the wall-to-wall TV proves “presidents haven’t gotten ahold of the issue, which is driven by money and not academic concerns.”
“The question is, is this an academic enterprise or are you running an entertainment enterprise? In these manifestations, it looks like entertainment,” he said.
Plenty of teams are providing the entertainment.
Five leagues — the recently expanded Atlantic Coast Conference, Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic Conference — will be represented on the weeknight telecasts during the 19-day stretch.
As the schedule stands now, only five out of 30 days in November will be football-free. There are no TV games scheduled Nov. 16, 17, 19, 24 and 30.
By then, of course, pro and college basketball will be taking over the airwaves.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-275157.php
Ellie
GO EAGLES
Bad news for football widows
TV games loom this year, including a 19-day blitz
By Jack Carey
Gannett News Service
Sometimes it seems football is on TV all the time. During an unprecedented stretch of 19 consecutive days this fall, it will be.
Football teams play only once a week, but television viewers are under no such restriction.
From Oct. 28 to Nov. 15, at least one football game — major college or pro — will be televised each day. That includes Election Day.
The NFL will present its traditional Sunday-Monday fare, but for 13 of the 19 days, college football will be on the air.
It’s a striking illustration of the proliferation of weeknight college games, which started with ESPN’s Thursday night telecasts but in recent seasons has included Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday night broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN2.
More “mid-major” conferences are looking to give their teams exposure that often can’t happen on Saturdays, when premier leagues such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference dominate the TV time slots.
The weeknight games have drawn the wary attention of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, which for more than a decade has been pushing for reform in college sports.
Commission members have decried the practice because players miss more class time and tens of thousands of fans descend on a campus in the hours before a game, which can disrupt the academic environment.
Commission Chairman William Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, says the wall-to-wall TV proves “presidents haven’t gotten ahold of the issue, which is driven by money and not academic concerns.”
“The question is, is this an academic enterprise or are you running an entertainment enterprise? In these manifestations, it looks like entertainment,” he said.
Plenty of teams are providing the entertainment.
Five leagues — the recently expanded Atlantic Coast Conference, Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic Conference — will be represented on the weeknight telecasts during the 19-day stretch.
As the schedule stands now, only five out of 30 days in November will be football-free. There are no TV games scheduled Nov. 16, 17, 19, 24 and 30.
By then, of course, pro and college basketball will be taking over the airwaves.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-MARINEPAPER-275157.php
Ellie
GO EAGLES