11am starts for NH & WM

[gophmeister]

http://btn.com/2012/06/07/btn-to-air-15-games-during-first-three-weekends/

 

[Tim Riggins]

Ouch, that makes for four 11 a.m. starts at the beginning of the year. I guess they are getting back at us for all of the 2:30 starts last season.

 

[Ski U Master]

Nice! 11 am starts are my favorite.

 

[JoeDirt]

11am games suck. Less tailgating time.

 

[Dr.Don]

11am games suck. Less tailgating time.

Start at midnight...plenty of time.

 

[Grant]

[SUB][/SUB]Hope we have at least 25,000 in the stands. This is very disapointing.

 

[Gopherocious]

Oofta, 11 am are my least favorite. Can't complain I guess though after the great times we had last year.

 

[Parski1]

Nice! 11 am starts are my favorite.

Well Enjoy it - there are (4) of them so far. Problem is students are still sleeping at 11AM or are too hung over from Friday night to show.

 

[forever a gopher]

Massively weak. Now we can have a half full stadium for at least the first quarter as people filter in.

11am starts shouldn't exist at all.

 

[jon marston]

if they start to win it wont matter what time they play!!

 

[beavergopher]

Massively weak. Now we can have a half full stadium for at least the first quarter as people filter in.

11am starts shouldn't exist at all.

This sucks. Spot on about the half empty stadium.

 

[Monty519]

if they start to win it wont matter what time they play!!

It won't matter as far as the result, but I don't think it will change that it won't be a packed house at kickoff. People, especially students, just don't respond well to getting up for an 11am kickoff, that's the way it is. That said, no one will care as much if the team is up 28-0 going into the 2nd quarter before anyone shows up.

 

[Word]

Awful. The 11AM games need to go...forever. What a disappointment.

 

[Go4]

if vikings lose their first game then the 11am game against western michigan will be a sell out

 

[station19]

College football was meant to be played on Saturday afternoons.

 

[JoeDirt]

I know I'm probably wrong about this, but I swear I heard that the B1G was trying to get rid of 11am starts and change the early games to noon. Does anybody else remember this?

 

[wait!what?]

College football was meant to be played on Saturday afternoons.

Ok, some of you guys retell stories of games in 1972 so help me out with this. I went to my first badger game back in 1980 and I recall the game start times were similar to 11:00. Wasn't this the same all over BT land?

 

[GoAUpher]

I know I'm probably wrong about this, but I swear I heard that the B1G was trying to get rid of 11am starts and change the early games to noon. Does anybody else remember this?

They are, to a point. Before last season, the only game that got played at 2:30 was the ABC game. If you look at the link, you'll see that BTN is now picking up 3 games in weeks where there is a heavy load of non-con games. If it weren't for the change, all of those games would be at 11am.

11am will never go away completely because of money. BTN needs content in multiple time slots to make more money on advertising. 11am will simply be better than it used to be.

We got spoiled last year. Folks may not have noticed, but our experience was a rare one. There were several other B1G schools that still saw a lot of 11am/noon kicks.

EDIT: Quick clarification. There were weeks in past seasons where BTN had 2:30 kicks, but they came on weeks where ABC took an 11am game (OSU/Michigan comes to mind).

 

[badgergopher]

if vikings lose their first game then the 11am game against western michigan will be a sell out

They will all switch.

 

[badgergopher]

Ok, some of you guys retell stories of games in 1972 so help me out with this. I went to my first badger game back in 1980 and I recall the game start times were similar to 11:00. Wasn't this the same all over BT land?

In Madison, before ABC, ESPN & ESPN2 started showing a majority o B10 games, they started at 1:00. This was late eighties or early nineties. The networks eventually said you have to start when we say in case we want to pick it up. The desire to show a 2:30 game on ESPN meant that the early games had to start at 11.

A the time, however, the Gophers were playing a lot of night games. Not sure why, but probably because the dome sucked and more people would show up for an evening game.

 

[ruppertflywheel]

It kills your "walk up " sales; especially from out of the metro area. Say you're Joe Blow from from Northern Minnesota. You've never seen TCF stadium and you've got 4 free tickets from a friend, or you just want to catch the game figuring to scalp some tickets or buy them at the gate. You're bringing the wife and two young kids. Rise and shine at 6:00 am?? Ain't going to happen. We drive
down from . ( about 2-1/2) We leave about 7:00 am. I guess the upside would be concessions as people would be buying lunch. The kick in the lowers??, the students. God doesn't turn the air on for the U students after a Friday night till 12:00 on Saturday. They'll chose sleeping in after a hangover over a non-conf game against a nobody. Total bummer at a 11:00 start.

 

[MNGoldenGophers1]

It kills your "walk up " sales; especially from out of the metro area. Say you're Joe Blow from from Northern Minnesota. You've never seen TCF stadium and you've got 4 free tickets from a friend, or you just want to catch the game figuring to scalp some tickets or buy them at the gate. You're bringing the wife and two young kids. Rise and shine at 6:00 am?? Ain't going to happen. We drive
down from . ( about 2-1/2) We leave about 7:00 am. I guess the upside would be concessions as people would be buying lunch. The kick in the lowers??, the students. God doesn't turn the air on for the U students after a Friday night till 12:00 on Saturday. They'll chose sleeping in after a hangover over a non-conf game against a nobody. Total bummer at a 11:00 start.

Good points. It even sucks for us metro people. As I pointed out previously, most kid activities are in the AM. 11AM start times do nothing to attract new fans.