Archive For The “Prince Smith” Category
We break down the FCS Playoffs Game of the Week below the flip.
You heard right.
One of my FCS Playoff pet peeves (especially in the first round) is that, for some reason, ESPN (who owns the TV contract for all rounds of the FCS playoffs) and the NCAA do not space out all the games in fixed time slots.
If ESPN and the NCAA wanted to generate excitement about the playoffs, it would be fairly easy to space out every game with a kickoff every hour (Noon, 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM, etc.) all the way up to 8:00 PM. That way, hardcore FCS football fans can watch part of every single game, with at least one game getting to crunch time every hour from about 2:30 PM on. It would be compelling theater.
But ESPN and the NCAA, for some reason, choose not to do this, and indeed this year, ESPN has five FCS playoff games kicking off at 2:00 PM, one kicking off at 3:00 PM, and a couple of stragglers kicking off at 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM, respectively.
Why? There is literally no good reason for this. ESPN is causing hardcore FCS football fans to watch less FCS football. I’d love to be able to catch Weber State/Chattanooga, but it’s on at the exact same time as Lehigh/UNH, so my chance of catching that game live is below zero.
Had Lehigh/UNH kicked off at Noon, and had Weber State/Chattanooga kicked off at 3:00 PM, suddenly I would have watched more ESPN3. Foolishly, I thought that was also in ESPN’s (and the NCAA’s) best interest that I am writing about and talking about more FCS playoff games all day.
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