I don't know about Wednesdays. I do know that ESPNU carried about 10 SEC games this year in the Saturday 7pm EST slot. Presumably, all those games will be going to the new SEC network. I bet we pick up some of those.

In fact, with the advent of the SEC Network, the Big 10 Network, the Pac 12 Network, the Longhorn Network, and Fox sharing the rights with ESPN for the Big 12, Pac 12 and Big 10 (and CBS sharing the rights with ESPN for the SEC), I'm guessing that between ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, the ESPN family needs our inventory.

It will probably be weighted more heavily towards ESPNU on Saturdays, and ESPN/ESPN2 for Thursday/Friday games.

(02-25-2013 02:27 PM)billings Wrote:  Sometimes you can tell the fans who don't actually go to games very often

This is an urban school/non-urban school issue. For the schools like Memphis, Houston, UCF, etc the vast majority of the fans that attend the games live in that city. Other than ruined tailgating it's not much of an issue. Much different than trying to work out the issues of bringing a family of 4 2 hours each way for a Wednesday night game.

(02-25-2013 02:25 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:20 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:14 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:11 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:09 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  You just said it.... Much easier to make Thursday night work for people with work schedules, travel, etc.

Not really.

Really? Taking off one day (Friday) and making it a long weekend isn't easier than trying to travel down for a Wednesday and drive back for work?

The amount of traveling fans for these game will be negligible. The increase in home fan attendance created by the novelty of the Wednesday night Game of the Week experience would probably more than make up for those handful of visiting fans who couldn't make the trip.

If ECU plays at SMU or Houston on a Wednesday night how many ECU fans will back out that would have gone if it were on a Saturday? 50? 100?

Considering how many bring families to games and how many stay overnight each weekend and how many commute 2+ hours for each game my guess is a pretty high number that would come on a Saturday wouldn't be able to swing a Wednesday night. Probably in the thousands. ECU doesn't have a handful of visiting fans, it's more like most of the fans who don't live in Greenville.

So if you know six months ahead of time that ECU will host a Wedneday night game you can't make the proper arrangements?

How the heck do you think people go the 1st round of the NCAA tourney when the bracket is announced less than 96 hours before tipoff of the 1st game?

Excuses.

(02-25-2013 02:30 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:27 PM)billings Wrote:  Sometimes you can tell the fans who don't actually go to games very often

This is an urban school/non-urban school issue. For the schools like Memphis, Houston, UCF, etc the vast majority of the fans that attend the games live in that city. Other than ruined tailgating it's not much of an issue. Much different than trying to work out the issues of bringing a family of 4 2 hours each way for a Wednesday night game.

This is and excuse and a BS argument. Last year BYU, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Washington, Virginia, Boise State and Virginia Tech all hosted weeknight games.

All of those schools have fans coming in from all parts of the state.

Wake Forest? Hell they barely have fans much less fans from all parts of the state.

(02-25-2013 02:38 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Wake Forest? Hell they barely have fans much less fans from all parts of the state.

You make a wiseass remark about Wake fans, but conveniently avoid the meat of the post.

Speaking of Wake, they are a great example. Thanks for briging them up. Last year their highest attended home football game was their one and only non-Saturday home game.

Game. Set. Match.

ECU will still put at least 40k fans in the stands for a mid week game which will be respectable in the Big East by any programs attendance standards. I have a 6hr drive to Greenville from Hilton Head SC and will make it for a mid week game if it is a quality opponent that warrants the 12hrs of driving and $800 in gas, hotel, misc expenses. If the teams sucks then I just watch in the ECU mancave and it usually takes less then 2hrs for me to sell my tickets and parking even for a mid week game. Night games at Ficklen are awesome and we hardly ever get one on a Saturday night so the one good thing about a mid week game is Ficklen is a great College Football enviornment for night games. It requires a little more planning for Pirates with kids who live 2+hrs from Greenville but we will do better then most Big East schools in attendance when it comes to mid week games.

The Thursday night games were classic. Most tailgating started around 5:30 and cranked up when the opposing fans arrived. National broadcasts brought out the party crowd. Lots of fun had by all.

(02-25-2013 02:42 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:38 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Wake Forest? Hell they barely have fans much less fans from all parts of the state.

You make a wiseass remark about Wake fans, but conveniently avoid the meat of the post.

Speaking of Wake, they are a great example. Thanks for briging them up. Last year their highest attended home football game was their one and only non-Saturday home game.

Game. Set. Match.

Game set match? They played a top 15 Clemson team on Thursday night. Of course that was a big crowd. Clemson probably brought 7-10k fans and it was far and away their biggest home game of the year. Big difference vs playing SMU, Houston, or Memphis on a Wednesday night. If ECU's home mid week game is against VT, South Carolina, UNC, or one of our other major OOC games it will be a sell out and our highest attended game of the year as well.

(02-25-2013 01:55 PM)3601 Wrote:  Start in September with the football game of the week. Every school hosts one Wednesday night home game.

If we go to 12 teams then the Big East Conference Championship Game is the second Wednesday in December.

Once football season ends you have four or five straight Wednesdays of OOC BB games (Memphis vs. Tennessee, UConn vs. Syracuse, Temple vs. Duke, Cincinnati vs. Xavier).

In January you begin conference BB games every Wednesday night.

No just No for football. Basketball could be an interesting proposal.

(02-25-2013 02:06 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:03 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  That works fine for basketball schools, not so much for football schools

Yea, those Thursday night games have been terrible for the SEC.

I wanted to clarify two things. One, the SEC had no weeknight games last year. I did a chart of them - note I did not count the the two holiday weekeds, labor day weekend and Thanksgiving weekend. Two, ECU fans b!tch an awful lot about weekday games. Guess what? Every conference will have them. The PAC 12, Big XII, and ACC have them now, and the SEC and Big Ten will soon. You ever want to go to another conference, you will play wekenight games. And to be the last team in, so to speak (literally ECU was picked after Tulane), you rally have no leverage to dictate terms. But past that, EVERYONE else will be require dot: you are no exception. With Six months notice, there is no excuse to not make one weeknight game. None.

(02-25-2013 02:30 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:27 PM)billings Wrote:  Sometimes you can tell the fans who don't actually go to games very often

This is an urban school/non-urban school issue. For the schools like Memphis, Houston, UCF, etc the vast majority of the fans that attend the games live in that city. Other than ruined tailgating it's not much of an issue. Much different than trying to work out the issues of bringing a family of 4 2 hours each way for a Wednesday night game.

Well no disrespect here intended, but the NBE is a Urban Conference, maybe thats why in the past you were not invited.....You guys are thinking about yourselves instead of the conference as a whole. ECU is the only non urban U in the Conference.....I like you guys but damn ya'll are narrow minded.

(02-25-2013 03:49 PM)billetingman1 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:30 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:27 PM)billings Wrote:  Sometimes you can tell the fans who don't actually go to games very often

This is an urban school/non-urban school issue. For the schools like Memphis, Houston, UCF, etc the vast majority of the fans that attend the games live in that city. Other than ruined tailgating it's not much of an issue. Much different than trying to work out the issues of bringing a family of 4 2 hours each way for a Wednesday night game.

Well no disrespect here intended, but the NBE is a Urban Conference, maybe thats why in the past you were not invited.....You guys are thinking about yourselves instead of the conference as a whole. ECU is the only non urban U in the Conference.....I like you guys but damn ya'll are narrow minded.

Quite frankly why should ECU fans concern themselves with the conference as a whole, when the so called "flagships" of the league are spending every waking moment trying to get out of the league and making all of us less valuable in the process? I care about ECU, our ability to keep our stadium full, and my ability to enjoy home football games which I spend a good deal of my disposable income to buy tickets to. Anything past that I don't care about.

(02-25-2013 03:52 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 03:49 PM)billetingman1 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:30 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:27 PM)billings Wrote:  Sometimes you can tell the fans who don't actually go to games very often

This is an urban school/non-urban school issue. For the schools like Memphis, Houston, UCF, etc the vast majority of the fans that attend the games live in that city. Other than ruined tailgating it's not much of an issue. Much different than trying to work out the issues of bringing a family of 4 2 hours each way for a Wednesday night game.

Well no disrespect here intended, but the NBE is a Urban Conference, maybe thats why in the past you were not invited.....You guys are thinking about yourselves instead of the conference as a whole. ECU is the only non urban U in the Conference.....I like you guys but damn ya'll are narrow minded.

Quite frankly why should ECU fans concern themselves with the conference as a whole, when the so called "flagships" of the league are spending every waking moment trying to get out of the league and making all of us less valuable in the process? I care about ECU, our ability to keep our stadium full, and my ability to enjoy home football games which I spend a good deal of my disposable income to buy tickets to. Anything past that I don't care about.

Well, you can always head back to CUSA....

(02-25-2013 02:29 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  I don't know about Wednesdays. I do know that ESPNU carried about 10 SEC games this year in the Saturday 7pm EST slot. Presumably, all those games will be going to the new SEC network. I bet we pick up some of those.

The games for the SEC NEtwork will primarily come from the Syndicated and PPV games ESPN does for the SEC now. There were 43 of them last year. Typically there had been 37 of them, but the addition of Missouri and A&M caused the SEC Network to pick up three games, them to do 3 additional PPV's, and for ESPN (the main network) to pick up seven extra games to account for the additional inventory. The SEC is supposed to have 15 games on CBS, 21 on ESPN and ESPN2, and 13 on ESPNU. Using those numbers as a basis, the SEC Network will likely not affect ESPNU's SEC offerings from last year. The 50 football games they have available for the SEC Network, or nearly 4 per week, will be more than enough to carry the network.

(02-25-2013 04:03 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:29 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  I don't know about Wednesdays. I do know that ESPNU carried about 10 SEC games this year in the Saturday 7pm EST slot. Presumably, all those games will be going to the new SEC network. I bet we pick up some of those.

The games for the SEC NEtwork will primarily come from the Syndicated and PPV games ESPN does for the SEC now. There were 43 of them last year. Typically there had been 37 of them, but the addition of Missouri and A&M caused the SEC Network to pick up three games, them to do 3 additional PPV's, and for ESPN (the main network) to pick up seven extra games to account for the additional inventory. The SEC is supposed to have 15 games on CBS, 21 on ESPN and ESPN2, and 13 on ESPNU. Using those numbers as a basis, the SEC Network will likely not affect ESPNU's SEC offerings from last year. The 50 football games they have available for the SEC Network, or nearly 4 per week, will be more than enough to carry the network.

When do all those networks hit the air?

The SEC Network? It is unknown. I don't know if they are aiming for a start up of next year or the year after. I haven't followed it that much.

(02-25-2013 03:41 PM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:06 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 02:03 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  That works fine for basketball schools, not so much for football schools

Yea, those Thursday night games have been terrible for the SEC.

I wanted to clarify two things. One, the SEC had no weeknight games last year. I did a chart of them - note I did not count the the two holiday weekeds, labor day weekend and Thanksgiving weekend. Two, ECU fans b!tch an awful lot about weekday games. Guess what? Every conference will have them. The PAC 12, Big XII, and ACC have them now, and the SEC and Big Ten will soon. You ever want to go to another conference, you will play wekenight games. And to be the last team in, so to speak (literally ECU was picked after Tulane), you rally have no leverage to dictate terms. But past that, EVERYONE else will be require dot: you are no exception. With Six months notice, there is no excuse to not make one weeknight game. None.

Just to clarify one big thing...ECU fans are by no way shape or form represented by the tiny fraction that post on messageboards. We have some world class *****, moan and complainers that post here so the bell curve has really been porked. I am all for whatever represents the best way for the Big East to grow a solid brand on ESPN. If that means ECU playing some midweek games then I am all for it. I hope Arseco is smart enough to leverage the ECU game enviornement by putting ECU up against a solid opponent for a mid week game. When our Stadium is sold out and rocking at night it looks damn good on ESPN as evidence by the VT and UNC night games. I think if ECU was put up against UC, UCONN or USF for our first mid week game then our fans would rally behind the excitement of playing a UCONN for the first time or UC for the first time since they became a National Football Program. USF would fire a lot of us up who last saw them at the Papa Johns Bowl in Birmingham.

It does not sound like any Big East team is going to get stuck with a lot of mid week games so I am not going to ***** about it until I see how they handle it. If they put us in a Wednesday night game vs SMU or Memphis then I will shake my head at the leadership of the Big East and ESPN

(02-25-2013 02:07 PM)Kruciff Wrote:  

(02-25-2013 01:55 PM)3601 Wrote:  Start in September with the football game of the week. Every school hosts one Wednesday night home game.

If we go to 12 teams then the Big East Conference Championship Game is the second Wednesday in December.

Once football season ends you have four or five straight Wednesdays of OOC BB games (Memphis vs. Tennessee, UConn vs. Syracuse, Temple vs. Duke, Cincinnati vs. Xavier).

In January you begin conference BB games every Wednesday night.

I seriously thought you meant for football.

Then I realized Memphis fans don't believe in the football.

Then it all made sense.

Nah..we believe in football, it's just that our former AD thought it was some sort of tabletop game.

I think some of my thoughts have gotten construed to make it sound like I'm just anti-weekday games. I have stated in the other thread that I have no problem with them, but prefer they be Thursday or Friday if we do have them. I was merely stating my case to a Memphis fan that Thursday night games are more accessible and more easily planned for by fans than Wednesday night due to the time off work, travel, etc.