Football game starting at 9am

The 2020 Pac-12 season marks the start of a spectacular East Coast exposure experiment at the conference, with a 9 am match between USC and Arizona State University on November 7.

The game among the top candidates for the South Division is one of several Pac-12 games that will be aired nationwide by Fox and will probably start at 9am, but no start time has been set for subsequent weekends. Hmm.

Is that a good idea? Well, it couldn’t hurt. Pac-12’s football reputation has deteriorated rapidly in recent years, which may seem like a desperate move, but we need to look a little further at the conference. And if the Pac-12 is trying to do something radical, now is the time.

The idea of ​​an early morning start has been robbed by Pac-12 officials in the past as a way to counter the so-called East Coast prejudice. One of the main arguments for those early starts was the inconvenience it would cause to those who planned to participate in those games. And fan loyalty and ticket sales provide a significant portion of the huge revenue generated by college football.

However, the pandemic will prevent spectators from participating in the Pac-12 game this season, removing the major barriers to a 9 am start.

Pac-12 coaches and officials have long said that part of the reason football’s reputation at the conference has deteriorated is simply the inability of TV viewers in the central and eastern time zones to watch Pac-12 games. I have suggested.

“Pac-12 After Dark” provided west coast spectators with a late-night college football game, but rarely seen it in the east. The Pac-12 coach complained about arranging the visiting team. time.

Starting at 9am, these Pac-12 games will be able to enter a time slot that is appealing to East Coast viewers, allowing players on visiting teams to return home on the same day.

Even the announcement of the Pac-12 schedule on Saturday at 7:30 am by ESPN and Fox Network was timely promoted to give maximum exposure to East Coast college football viewers.

And this season, the Pac-12, Big Ten, and Southeastern Conference haven’t played non-conference games to provide conference comparisons, so a vision test will help determine the ranking and selection of the four teams’ College Football Playoffs. Is more important than ever.

The vision test assumes viewers watching the team play. In addition, viewers who watch a team play a game are more likely to form a positive opinion for that team than those who simply look at the final score and some statistics at the sports center.

But does an early start affect the play of those Pac-12 games? When the West Coast team plays a noon match on the East Coast, TV commentators often notice that the visiting team’s body clock is still 9 am, suggesting that it is a disadvantage.

Players have to wake up around 5am to prepare for the 9am start, which also seems useless for high-level football.

The feeling here is that these young men adapt well to early start times, which should have little or no effect on the level of play.

The loser may now be the Pac-12 network. This is believed to lose the game to Fox and ESPN.

Therefore, this bizarre season of seven Pac-12 conference games starting on the weekend of November 6th to 7th provided a great test spot for an early morning start.

And if the 9am start is successful, you can be confident that it will be a regular part of the Pac-12 football schedule in the future.

..

Follow Jake Curtis on Twitter for Cal Sports Report: @ jakecurtis53

To search for CalSports Report on Facebook, search for @ si.calsportsreport.

In the upper right corner[フォロー]Click the button to join the SI Cal Sports Report conversation. Visit featured articles, comment, start your own conversation, and post external links on the community page.