[CTcard]

Yesterday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the NBA (like all sports) is a television league and needs to cater to TV audiences more than in-person ones. He also cited that 50% of the possible TV audience is in the Eastern time zone. He then said the evidence shows most people stop watching between 11 and 11:30 ET. As a result, Silver said the NBA needs to look at earlier start times for West Coast games. 

Larry Scott should feel quite dumb today, following Silver’s comments.

Well, Larry Scott has said and done essentially the same thing. He has decided that Pac 12 revenue depends upon being a TV League and must cater to TV audiences more than in person ones. He then proceeded to change the start time of Pac 12 games in order to cater to the TV audiences.

Differences arise because the audience and the competition landscape for Pac 12 football is drastically different than for the NBA.

Last I remember, the numbers showed that the late start time Pac 12 games had significantly larger audiences than the earlier start time games. 

My personal belief is the PAC-12 should target a deal with NBC that gets games at “reasonable” start times no later than 6pm PT on NBC and NBCSN, while getting it away from Fox and ESPN who are all up in the SEC, B1G, Big 12, and ACC. Use the Notre Dame gravitational pull to have college football double headers every Saturday. The fact ND plays Stanford and USC every year gives the Pac-12 some natural appeal to the ND/NBC audience.

IF they could get NBC to do so, I would like this, and actual fans who show up would as well.
However, even if NBC could be persuaded, it almost certainly means that Pac 12 teams would be taking in less TV money in the interests of the experience for the die hards and hopefully building something for the future.

[CTcard]

Yesterday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the NBA (like all sports) is a television league and needs to cater to TV audiences more than in-person ones. He also cited that 50% of the possible TV audience is in the Eastern time zone. He then said the evidence shows most people stop watching between 11 and 11:30 ET. As a result, Silver said the NBA needs to look at earlier start times for West Coast games. 

Larry Scott should feel quite dumb today, following Silver’s comments.

Well, Larry Scott has said and done essentially the same thing. He has decided that Pac 12 revenue depends upon being a TV League and must cater to TV audiences more than in person ones. He then proceeded to change the start time of Pac 12 games in order to cater to the TV audiences.

Differences arise because the audience and the competition landscape for Pac 12 football is drastically different than for the NBA.

Last I remember, the numbers showed that the late start time Pac 12 games had significantly larger audiences than the earlier start time games. 

My personal belief is the PAC-12 should target a deal with NBC that gets games at “reasonable” start times no later than 6pm PT on NBC and NBCSN, while getting it away from Fox and ESPN who are all up in the SEC, B1G, Big 12, and ACC. Use the Notre Dame gravitational pull to have college football double headers every Saturday. The fact ND plays Stanford and USC every year gives the Pac-12 some natural appeal to the ND/NBC audience.

IF they could get NBC to do so, I would like this, and actual fans who show up would as well.
However, even if NBC could be persuaded, it almost certainly means that Pac 12 teams would be taking in less TV money in the interests of the experience for the die hards and hopefully building something for the future.