A few MHTers who believe the quality of games don’t matter and have practically nothing outside of limited anecdotal evidence to back up their claim.
A 50 billion dollar company that has millions of dollars at stake believes the quality of games matter and has access to nearly unlimited resources including ratings, focus groups, demographic studies, and years of statistics to back up their decision.
Who is likely correct in this situation?
I think quality matters - obviously ESPN wants teams with good records playing each other. I guess Miami and Ohio have both been at the top of the division for the past couple years so it makes some sense that ESPN wants the game. I just can’t believe that rivalries are making much of a difference there. Oh well.
Also keep in mind that we’re usually scheduled to play the same night as one or two other weeknight games, with the worst matchup relegated to ESPN3 and the best to ESPN2/U at the network’s discretion. Having a rivalry adds some pizzazz, but if two teams are both lousy in they’ll stick it to the lowest rung.
Money…root of all college sports evil.
ESPN…root of too much MAC money.
MACtion may well be, as NESCACDAD says “the poison pill for MAC football.”
How much are we getting/year from ESPN?
Does anybody out there (Dick/NESCACDAD do some research you’re the best out there at it) have any numbers on difference in attendance on Saturday games vs MACaction games?
What did we draw for OU last time we played them at home on a Saturday when we both had semi-decent records?
At what stage do AD’s let ESPN kill the fan interest for all the the most dedicated of MAC and Miami football?
Personally I’ll go to a Saturday Kent State home game in late November, no matter what the temperature or the team’s record as far as that goes, but screw going on a 28 degree Tuesday night. There’s lots of us like that out there and while that I’m sure have dropped season tickets and/or are thinking about if if this crappy home Saturday scheduling continues.
MACtion rules. Long live MACtion.
Saturday 10/2 home vs Central Michigan: 15,065
Tuesday 11/16 vs Bowling Green: 10,269
Last Saturday home game vs OU was 2016 and that drew 22,212
A game on ESPN+ in the 11a or 2:30p time slot, which I’m almost positive the CMU game was on, does probably 5,000 viewers. The low end of a midweek game on ESPNU, does something in the neighborhood of 65k viewers. ESPN2 that number is probably around 150-200k. Get on big ESPN and that’s probably 800k minimum.
Saturday games are definitely more fun but Tuesday games are better for (our) business. If the MAC tried to force ESPN’s hand to play on Saturday’s, they’d look at their slate of SEC, B1G, B12, P12, ACC games and wish us luck. The value of the MAC to ESPN and CBSSN is that we will play on Tuesday/Wednesday nights. Live sports is king and we give that to them on nights when there isn’t much else on.
Instead of renovating Millett, how about looking into adding a retractable roof on Yager and turning it into a football/basketball facility? (Joking)
Jcook32 your numbers are good except for some espn2 games last year were in the 450-550k range and we really didnt have a compelling team in the league this year
Sports media watch is where I get numbers
What you are ignoring here is that the MACTION night games are in November. The weather in the MidWest sucks in November and crowds will always be much smaller than in September/October when the weather is usually good. We have played home games on Black Friday afternoons and the crowds are nothing like what we would have drawn in September/October. Football season used to be 10 games, then it went to 11, then to 12. And we have a championship game in December. That one we have solved by playing in a comfy indoor NFL stadium in Detroit every year. We did play at Kent in game 12 this year on Saturday afternoon. It was for the MACEast championship and much of the second half was played in snow flurries. It had more people there than it would have if we played on Tuesday night ( like we are with game 12 this year) but still it was a small crowd compared to if the game had been first week in October. November football, even on Saturdays, has always been a poor draw for MAC teams. Also, by playing on Saturday, we were in the same time slot as Ohio State/Michigan, which is never going to be good for attendance. For those night games, we get good money and we get a lot more eyes on the game than we would playing on November Saturday afternoons.
That’s where I got my numbers too and you’re right. I must have gotten confused looking at something else or doing some rough math on what ESPNU is drawing. The net of it is the more we can get on ESPN2 the better.
Also agree with what Dick said. It’s not like the weather is any better on a Saturday than a Wednesday in November so might as well have a chunk of college football fans give us their attention rather than compete with Fox’s Big Noon or CBS’s SEC Game of the Week.
Not 2022 schedule, but saw Kent State is getting paid $1.9M to play OSU in 2026, hopefully Miami can start getting those kind of paydays
Miami has been leading the way in paydays amounts for football in the MAC. Yes, that’s a huge amount, but that’s not out of the question for games in 2026. Inflation seems to be hitting CFB hard.
Miami is getting $1.6 mil from Wisconsin in 2025. They also got $1.3mil from OSU in 2019.