Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium under the lights (Photo credit: allisonmeier)
It’s the biggest Thursday night of college football that TV has ever had. One that could go a long way toward determining whether high voltage matchups, rather than the typical spillover games squeezed out of the Saturday schedule, become the norm on prime time weeknights.
Tonight, No. 6 Baylor goes up against No. 10 Oklahoma on
“The two best games of the week,” says sports media consultant Lee Berke, who apparently favors both matchups over Saturday’s Alabama-LSU clash.
It’s an usual lineup - few Thursday night games match ranked teams against each other, let alone two games in one night. Success for the night has varied for ESPN, which has been airing Thursday games regularly since 1992, and then expanding into additional weeknights. Thursday viewership in recent years has typically hovered in the 2 million range, though the numbers have dropped in the past couple of years as the NFL expanded to a full schedule of its own Thursday night games (proving yet again that you can run from the NFL, but you can’t hide). But the college lineup isn’t often filled with marquee games. Last week’s doubleheader of South Florida-Houston and Washington State-Arizona State was more typical.
“Originally they had to beg schools to do it, now they’re clamoring for it,” says Berke. ESPN gets several programming hours filled between the pregame buildup and the action itself, while second –tier football schools have a platform from which to promote themselves. Example: the University of Louisville, an early enthusiast of weeknight primetime, is now a top-20 football power.
No wonder startup Fox Sports 1 upped the competition with several deals centered around Big 12 and Pac 12 conference games - Fox and ESPN share First Tier rights for those two conference for a combined $450 million per year - plus Saturday night fare on the Fox flagship network. This week, though, brings the Thursday night jackpot. Four top-ten teams in one night. It could be the start of things to come.
Other big football factories figure to be watching the numbers. According to Berke, there has been plenty of talk about getting big annual matchups like Michigan-Ohio St. and Texas-Oklahoma onto the prime time schedule. Athletic directors have resisted thus far in favor of Saturday afternoon tradition. But change happens in sports, sometimes quickly. Night games, midweek travel, uniforms that ignore school colors in favor of modeling the latest bewildering designs from Nike,
Both of tonight’s matchups carry national championship implications. If they also carry the night, the next shift in the landscape could be at hand.
