[pincemob]

Farm, thanks for taking the opposing view.  I have some issues with your logic though.  How is the east coast concern "not applicable"?  Your favorite team plays on Monday Night Football once or twice a season, not every week.  The NFL loves money and if it made sense to play half the games at 10pm Eastern, they would.  The Pac 12 is taking the short sighted view that east coasters will watch the first hour where they can cram in the most expensive ads, knowing that most of them will not stay to the end.  Whether the Pac 12 has any east coast fans in 20 years is irrelevant to ESPN since they can just sign another conference. 

Glad you raised the player perspective.  I would be interested in the player perspective, hopefully the schools are interested in it too.  You could be right that some of them like late games though I'd be surprised if they did.  Have you ever taken a jarring hit in 38 degree weather?  It's a lot worse than when it's 68.  There is also the "waiting around all day to play" factor.    The players must be getting back to campus at 4 or 5 am after a game like this weekend's, same for their families.  Doesn't seen great to me. 

I don't think the movie theater comparison is a good one.  You don't have to drive very far to get to a movie theater and a movie is 100 minutes.  Unless you live in the same town as your team, you are driving pretty far to/from a football game and it is not over in 100 minutes.  Nor are movies outside in November. 

As for the students, last I heard, 9pm on Saturday was a popular time for things like parties, formals, and things like that.  And while Stanford kids have a pretty nice walk home from our stadium, I don't know how many kids at USC or UCLA want to be outside their stadiums at midnight looking for a ride.  I think having one late game is cool/novel but I don't imagine the students love it every other week.  From my vantage point, the UCLA game (12:30) was by far the most attended and excited our student section has been all year. 

I have the opposite worry about recruiting: that these game times will backfire.  Fewer east coast high schoolers will see the games, and when they do see them it won't be a sunny, packed Rose Bowl it will be the subpar environments we've been seeing.  I think a big draw of the Pac 12 (at least in California) is the weather and people will see less and less of that.  ESPN does not have the same incentives that the schools do because long-term fan support is irrelevant to them.  I see no silver lining to this deal, honestly. 

[pincemob]

Farm, thanks for taking the opposing view.  I have some issues with your logic though.  How is the east coast concern "not applicable"?  Your favorite team plays on Monday Night Football once or twice a season, not every week.  The NFL loves money and if it made sense to play half the games at 10pm Eastern, they would.  The Pac 12 is taking the short sighted view that east coasters will watch the first hour where they can cram in the most expensive ads, knowing that most of them will not stay to the end.  Whether the Pac 12 has any east coast fans in 20 years is irrelevant to ESPN since they can just sign another conference. 

Glad you raised the player perspective.  I would be interested in the player perspective, hopefully the schools are interested in it too.  You could be right that some of them like late games though I'd be surprised if they did.  Have you ever taken a jarring hit in 38 degree weather?  It's a lot worse than when it's 68.  There is also the "waiting around all day to play" factor.    The players must be getting back to campus at 4 or 5 am after a game like this weekend's, same for their families.  Doesn't seen great to me. 

I don't think the movie theater comparison is a good one.  You don't have to drive very far to get to a movie theater and a movie is 100 minutes.  Unless you live in the same town as your team, you are driving pretty far to/from a football game and it is not over in 100 minutes.  Nor are movies outside in November. 

As for the students, last I heard, 9pm on Saturday was a popular time for things like parties, formals, and things like that.  And while Stanford kids have a pretty nice walk home from our stadium, I don't know how many kids at USC or UCLA want to be outside their stadiums at midnight looking for a ride.  I think having one late game is cool/novel but I don't imagine the students love it every other week.  From my vantage point, the UCLA game (12:30) was by far the most attended and excited our student section has been all year. 

I have the opposite worry about recruiting: that these game times will backfire.  Fewer east coast high schoolers will see the games, and when they do see them it won't be a sunny, packed Rose Bowl it will be the subpar environments we've been seeing.  I think a big draw of the Pac 12 (at least in California) is the weather and people will see less and less of that.  ESPN does not have the same incentives that the schools do because long-term fan support is irrelevant to them.  I see no silver lining to this deal, honestly.