Osborne Talks Thursday Night Football in Lincoln (Texas maybe?)
by Husker Mike on Oct 11, 2009 11:45 AM CDT
in Football
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On NET's Big Red Wrapup last week, host Kevin Kugler interviewed Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne and passed on a viewer's question from "Eric" about Thursday night games, and specifically in Lincoln. Osborne raised eyebrows by suggesting that the athletic department was considering one in Lincoln next season. (Fast forward to 32:40 into the webcasted archive.) Todd Heinrich of the Lincoln Journal-Star looked at next season's schedule and suggests that the NU/Texas game would be a candidate. Both the Huskers and Longhorns have bye-weeks scheduled for October 9th, 2010, making a Thursday game on October 14th attractive from a football perspective.
Nebraska's 27-12 victory over Missouri in a monsoon is proving to be an example of the positives of playing football on Thursday night. Ndamukong Suh suddenly jumped into Heisman contention, not on the basis of crazy Husker fan speculation, but rather the national sports media who focused exclusively on the game. Matt Hinton (Dr. Saturday), ESPN Radio's Trevor Matich, Derick Samson (Sporting News), and ESPN.com's Tim Griffin and Bruce Feldman all suggest that Suh is Heisman candidate-worthy at this point of the season. Without that national stage, this speculation might have been limited in large part to the local media who watched the game, such as the Columbia Tribune's Dave Matter or Steve Sipple.
Playing on a marquee stage is also attractive to recruits. It's no coincidence that Nebraska received two verbal commitments from highly sought-after players. One from Columbia, Missouri no less, and the other from Clearwater, Florida.
So now that we've seen the positives of playing on a Thursday night, we need to look at the negatives.
First of all, it's bad for ticketholders. Nebraska returned 100 unsold tickets to Missouri; that's unheard of for a matchup like this. A game like this requires many working fans to take vacation, especially for fans from out of town. Even for fans who decide to watch on TV, it becomes a challenge to the workday. If your workplace was anything like mine, the number one topic around the coffee machine was the game. And coffee was definitely in order even for people who normally don't drink the stuff when the game didn't get over until after 11 pm locally. (I personally was so wired after the game, I didn't fall asleep until after 1:30 am...making that alarm clock going off at 5:45 am especially annoying.)
It's also hard on the University. Unlike no other event on campus, the tens of thousands of football fans create logistical nightmares incompatible with the main purpose of the school: academics. Those thousands of fans need parking places and tailgating opportunities, the noise makes it difficult to hold classes in nearby buildings, and students will simply skip class. After Nebraska moved the Rice game to a Thursday night after 9/11, Nebraska learned just how disruptive a football game was. I thought at that time that would be a "never again/last resort" scenario, but now I'm being proven wrong. Never say never.
It's also rough on the Lincoln economy. People who normally spend the day in Lincoln at bars and restaurants now streamline their game day, compressing it into the post-workday hours. Race to Lincoln, grab fast food perhaps (or a $4 pizza slice at the game), slide into your seat, hopefully in time for the Tunnel Walk, then race home.
My personal take is that while Nebraska is getting a lot of benefit from Thursday night, Thursday's night's performance was special enough by itself to earn much of the upside. Being the main event on the Thursday sports calendar (aside from the St. Louis Cardinals choke job against the Los Angeles Dodgers) added to it, but Suh's performance would have stood out yesterday as well. On the other side, the negatives of a poor performance would have been magnified. Imagine the outcry last season if the Oklahoma or Missouri games were on Thursday night. (Or even worse, what about the 2007 Kansas or Oklahoma State games?)
The negatives for fans and the school also come into play. While television brings welcome attention and revenue, it pales in comparison to the $5 million that fans bring each and every week to home games. Moving games to Thursday night is taking somewhat unfair advantage of the fans who have sold out Memorial Stadium for 47 years.
And for next season's Nebraska/Texas game, it's probably not necessary and might actually be counterproductive. Don't you think that ABC might be interested in a Nebraska/Texas game for their Saturday Night primetime game...possibly bringing College GameDay to Lincoln as well? Wouldn't that be just as big...if not bigger stage for this matchup?
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I'm rather surprised by the poll results...
…so I’m curious why others don’t mind a Thursday game. I’m especially surprised by the number of votes for 2 am.
by Husker Mike on Oct 12, 2009 6:46 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Mike...I thought this article
Was the best and most insightful litany of the Thursday negatives that I’ve read…I was largely unaware of most of them, so thanks for getting me up to speed!
I live in CA (I think I’ve just realized that I mention that in about 1/3 of my comments), so for me, Thursday has several distinct advantages -
1: A Thursday night game is more likely to be covered nationally…I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been shafted out of my Husker viewing by the “regional coverage” shenanigans of the game providers…or how much I’ve shelled out to try and overcome those shaftings…looking back on it, I probably should’ve just spent the money on a plane ticket to Lincoln (though that’d only net me one game for the price of who knows how many on TV?). AND since I don’t live in Lincoln, tailgating isn’t a possibility anyway…so the shorter drink and eat run up to the game is less apparent.
2: Having 2 consecutive Saturdays free for family stuff (but not going without the Huskers for 2 weeks) is nice in terms of intra-familial politics.
3: Having the game on Thursday also usually results in more Husker coverage (though now, the internet has really leveled the playing field to the point where this point isn’t really valid) there was a time when the only Husker coverage I could get was on ESPN and so the Thursday night affinity was born in my heart years ago.
4: As an ex-pat Nebraskan living in Pac-10 country, (and before that in Big East country), having only Nebraska on TV, means that college football fans nationwide get to watch the Big Red and then we’ve got (IMHO) more interesting conversations to have…though I’ll talk to anyone about whatever College Football they wanna go on about, it’s nice having people meet me halfway and be able to talk about my Husker nonsense too.
5: While I didn’t vote for 2am, I’d watch ’em at 2 am too.
Sorry for all the verbiage, but that’s at least my (one guy’s) opinion as it was before I read your article…(full disclosure – I voted before I read your article too).
Thanks for the great Husker Insight!
Ben
by Nebrascal on Oct 12, 2009 1:24 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
You never appreciate the other perspective...
I speak as someone who’s been to over half of the games in the sellout string, and that’s one perspective. I take watching the game for granted since I’m going to be there. Moving the game times is an annoyance, but when they start talking about moving a game to Thursday, that takes it beyond an annoyance.
But the folks away from Nebraska get the advantage of being able to see the game without having to PPV or go to a sports bar. It’s a perspective I hadn’t given as much thought to, but I do believe that NU/UT would be a no-brainer national Saturday night broadcast.
by Husker Mike on Oct 12, 2009 10:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
I gotta say...
A: I’m impressed by and envious of your attendance streak. Sweet!
I took my son back for the San Jose State game last year (he was 5 and thought he liked USC…look I’m not gonna be a total jerk-Dad and tell him who he has to root for…but I’m not above a little heavy handed persuasion [and BTW…it worked…how could game day in Lincoln not impress?]) and I caught the spring game this year…but trips back are fewer than I’d like…I’m no Larry the Cable Guy.
And B: Saturday night national for NU v TX seems like a sure fire national broadcast to me too…I think ideally, a Thursday night game would see us against some lower-profile opponent…and having read your stats on the hit to the Lincoln economy…it’d be better as an away game too. I guess I wasn’t thinking about NU v TX specifically, I was thinking more about NU on Thursday…and since the Texas game is gonna bring crazy attention and people and cash into Lincoln I gotta say, I’m totally swayed on the idea of that game sticking to a Saturday Night.
The point is yours.
by Nebrascal on Oct 13, 2009 12:38 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
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