The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Here's my problem: I live near detroit like many other bronco alums. We may have 6 home games, but a good chunk of us can only reasonably make it to 3. (4 for those taking the day of the MSU game off work). On the bright side, I will be able to watch those games at a sports bar

The best part about the schedule is that you can guarantee a sell out crowd for MSU and with the CMU game being early in the season, if the weather is decent ther should be a solid crowd for that game as well. Beyond that 15k is going to be hard to get to when people can stay home and watch in the evening.

I think most is is have said all along that this team is found to be more talented and maybe better than last year, but the record won't reflect that simply due to the schedule.

A little history lesson- in 2007 the MAC signed a deal with ESPN for 10 years worth $14m, this created the November Tues/Wed/Thurs night games that would become known as #MACtion (not including the last week of the season). After 7 years ESPN reopened negotiations and added an additional $24m onto the final 3 years of the original $14m agreement and then extended the agreement for 10 years and $100m. During the first 7 years of the original contract teams like NIU and Ohio played 16 games on November Tues/Wed/Thurs nights, during that same time span WMU played a total of 3 MACtion games, and just 1 of those was a home game. Your conference mates made the sacrifices to built the brand that warranted an early contract extension and significant pay increase, WMU reaped the benefit. It's now time for you to pull your own weight.

Some of you want to blame ESPN and the MAC for your schedule but its not their fault, weeknight games are nothing new, the only thing that has changed is you now have an ELITE head coach that wants to show his ELITE color coordinated outfits, and his football team, on national television. Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't. Times have changed and there's a new ship's captain and he wants to row his boat in prime time. You can thank him for your lack of Saturday home games, and you can thank the rest of the conference for the little bit of cash we get for playing on weeknights in November. RTB!!

(02-28-2015 12:37 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  A little history lesson- in 2007 the MAC signed a deal with ESPN for 10 years worth $14m, this created the November Tues/Wed/Thurs night games that would become known as #MACtion (not including the last week of the season). After 7 years ESPN reopened negotiations and added an additional $24m onto the final 3 years of the original $14m agreement and then extended the agreement for 10 years and $100m. During the first 7 years of the original contract teams like NIU and Ohio played 16 games on November Tues/Wed/Thurs nights, during that same time span WMU played a total of 3 MACtion games, and just 1 of those was a home game. Your conference mates made the sacrifices to built the brand that warranted an early contract extension and significant pay increase, WMU reaped the benefit. It's now time for you to pull your own weight.

Some of you want to blame ESPN and the MAC for your schedule but its not their fault, weeknight games are nothing new, the only thing that has changed is you now have an ELITE head coach that wants to show his ELITE color coordinated outfits, and his football team, on national television. Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't. Times have changed and there's a new ship's captain and he wants to row his boat in prime time. You can thank him for your lack of Saturday home games, and you can thank the rest of the conference for the little bit of cash we get for playing on weeknights in November. RTB!!

Solich doesn't know how to color coordinate?

Who wants to play a night game in Kalamazoo in mid November on a Weds. Night? Driving lake effect snow and sleet clogging up the camera lense.

Bad enough for a noon game with at least a chance for an hour of sun. ESPN did create a brand and some mid week sports filler, but to set all that in the north at night is problematic for creating a base of local fans who actually attend.

Makes it about money, not hometown fans. As usual, $$$$ wins.

(02-28-2015 12:49 PM)Stampede your face!! Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 12:37 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  A little history lesson- in 2007 the MAC signed a deal with ESPN for 10 years worth $14m, this created the November Tues/Wed/Thurs night games that would become known as #MACtion (not including the last week of the season). After 7 years ESPN reopened negotiations and added an additional $24m onto the final 3 years of the original $14m agreement and then extended the agreement for 10 years and $100m. During the first 7 years of the original contract teams like NIU and Ohio played 16 games on November Tues/Wed/Thurs nights, during that same time span WMU played a total of 3 MACtion games, and just 1 of those was a home game. Your conference mates made the sacrifices to built the brand that warranted an early contract extension and significant pay increase, WMU reaped the benefit. It's now time for you to pull your own weight.

Some of you want to blame ESPN and the MAC for your schedule but its not their fault, weeknight games are nothing new, the only thing that has changed is you now have an ELITE head coach that wants to show his ELITE color coordinated outfits, and his football team, on national television. Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't. Times have changed and there's a new ship's captain and he wants to row his boat in prime time. You can thank him for your lack of Saturday home games, and you can thank the rest of the conference for the little bit of cash we get for playing on weeknights in November. RTB!!

Solich doesn't know how to color coordinate?

When your apparel provider is Russell you don't have to worry about it because they don't give you any options.

(02-28-2015 01:10 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 12:49 PM)Stampede your face!! Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 12:37 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  A little history lesson- in 2007 the MAC signed a deal with ESPN for 10 years worth $14m, this created the November Tues/Wed/Thurs night games that would become known as #MACtion (not including the last week of the season). After 7 years ESPN reopened negotiations and added an additional $24m onto the final 3 years of the original $14m agreement and then extended the agreement for 10 years and $100m. During the first 7 years of the original contract teams like NIU and Ohio played 16 games on November Tues/Wed/Thurs nights, during that same time span WMU played a total of 3 MACtion games, and just 1 of those was a home game. Your conference mates made the sacrifices to built the brand that warranted an early contract extension and significant pay increase, WMU reaped the benefit. It's now time for you to pull your own weight.

Some of you want to blame ESPN and the MAC for your schedule but its not their fault, weeknight games are nothing new, the only thing that has changed is you now have an ELITE head coach that wants to show his ELITE color coordinated outfits, and his football team, on national television. Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't. Times have changed and there's a new ship's captain and he wants to row his boat in prime time. You can thank him for your lack of Saturday home games, and you can thank the rest of the conference for the little bit of cash we get for playing on weeknights in November. RTB!!

Solich doesn't know how to color coordinate?

When your apparel provider is Russell you don't have to worry about it because they don't give you any options.

He should try a slogan. Like ride the locomotive. Or chop them onions. It might help bring Solich some notoriety. That ******* guy is just bland. Give him spice.

(02-28-2015 12:37 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't.

I don't disagree with most of what you said, but I have to question this point. I find it hard to believe that the head coach of a mediocre conference team would have enough pull with the MAC office to single-handedly keep #MACtion out of Kalamazoo for seven years. Can you expand on this, or is it just a conspiracy theory?

Keep in mind that from 2007-14, WMU was probably only the fifth-most deserving MAC West team in terms of worthiness of ESPN/#MACtion exposure. NIU and Toledo were obviously far better during that stretch, CMU had a great five-year run, and BSU was excellent before Hoke left (and much improved in the last couple of years under Lembo). It's not like WMU was some juggernaut clearly deserving of ESPN's attention.

(02-28-2015 01:33 PM)The Colonel Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 12:37 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  Do you think WMU avoided playing MACtion games for 8 years by luck? Nope, Cubit didn't wanted to do it, so you didn't.

I don't disagree with most of what you said, but I have to question this point. I find it hard to believe that the head coach of a mediocre conference team would have enough pull with the MAC office to single-handedly keep #MACtion out of Kalamazoo for seven years. Can you expand on this, or is it just a conspiracy theory?

Keep in mind that from 2007-14, WMU was probably only the fifth-most deserving MAC West team in terms of worthiness of ESPN/#MACtion exposure. NIU and Toledo were obviously far better during that stretch, CMU had a great five-year run, and BSU was excellent before Hoke left (and much improved in the last couple of years under Lembo). It's not like WMU was some juggernaut clearly deserving of ESPN's attention.

There is a definitely an angle from the Conference HQ and from ESPN where they want the best teams on TV, it only makes sense. But I think with that there was a play by certain coaches who saw it as an opportunity to boost their program's profile and pushed for it. As an Ohio fan I've heard Solich comment countless times about the positive impact the weeknight games have had on Ohio's recruiting efforts. Of course there's also been some challenges with it like when the schedule gives you a shortened week vs a strong opponent, etc.

So I think what you had were NIU, Ohio, Toledo and Temple all eager to get as much exposure as possible and then you had some schools like Ball State and Buffalo and CMU that were willing to dip their toes in a little as well and you ended up with enough demand for the supply so WMU was in a position where they didn't have to do it if they didn't want to. But now with the upgraded contract the total number of MACtion games is increasing, making it harder for teams to not to participate.

I posted this on the MAC board, here's the distribution of MACtion games by team for 2015-

4- BGSU (2H,2A)
4- Ohio (2H,2A)
3- Buffalo (1H,2A)
3- Kent St (2H,1A)
1- Miami (1H,0A)
0- Akron (0H,0A)
0- UMass (0H,0A)

4- NIU (2H,2A)
4- WMU (2H,2A)
3- Ball St (1H,2A)
3- Toledo (1H,2A)
2- CMU (1H,1A)
1- EMU (1H,0A)

You can see that with more games to fill the more everyone has to participate. And as stated earlier, the better teams tend to play more TV games. You can also see that to be the case by looking at the winning % for the teams from 2007-2014, the top teams tend to be the ones that played more weeknight games. It's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario, did the teams with the highest winning % tend to play the most MACtion games because they won the most, or did they win the most because they played MACtion games. The answer is probably a little bit of both.

.667 NIU
.579 Ohio
.550 Toledo
.545 Ball St
.524 BGSU
.524 CMU
.485 Temple*
.455 WMU
.408 Buffalo
.402 Kent St
.293 Miami
.260 Akron
.219 EMU
.139 UMass*

And to be clear, its not that I'm a huge fan of weeknight games, I totally see the downside, but at this point its just a necessary evil so I hope my team (and also the conference) maximizes it as well as they can.

The first time we had a schedule with Mid week games on it, Cubit complained. We went years with just 1 and a few years without any. I would bet money that Fleck loves the thought of being on national TV for a month straight.

(02-28-2015 02:31 PM)jubbasubba Wrote:  The first time we had a schedule with Mid week games on it, Cubit complained. We went years with just 1 and a few years without any. I would bet money that Fleck loves the thought of being on national TV for a month straight.

Maybe. If they aren't going to draw fans to the stadium anyway, may as well be on national tv. They have to take advantage and win those games though.

(02-28-2015 02:31 PM)jubbasubba Wrote:  I would bet money that Fleck loves the thought of being on national TV for a month straight.

If true, it's his call, he's the header.

Hope it works out then, win-wise.

(02-28-2015 02:31 PM)jubbasubba Wrote:  The first time we had a schedule with Mid week games on it, Cubit complained. We went years with just 1 and a few years without any. I would bet money that Fleck loves the thought of being on national TV for a month straight.

When we played at Toledo, our offense had a week to prepare but our defense was busy that week.

(02-28-2015 04:13 PM)Hiller4Hyz09 Wrote:  When we played at Toledo, our offense had a week to prepare but our defense was busy that week.

...yes, busy changing from 4-3 we had been running to a 3-3-5/3-5-3.

Baaad move.

(02-28-2015 04:10 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 02:31 PM)jubbasubba Wrote:  I would bet money that Fleck loves the thought of being on national TV for a month straight.

If true, it's his call, he's the header.

Hope it works out then, win-wise.

Could work out win wise, not so much crowd wise.

(02-28-2015 02:16 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  I think with that there was a play by certain coaches who saw it as an opportunity to boost their program's profile and pushed for it...WMU was in a position where they didn't have to do it if they didn't want to.

...to be clear, its not that I'm a huge fan of weeknight games, I totally see the downside, but at this point its just a necessary evil so I hope my team (and also the conference) maximizes it as well as they can.

Thanks for your detailed response. IMO it's a little unfair to criticize WMU now for not participating more back then, IF they really didn't want to and the MAC office didn't feel a need to hold their feet to the fire.

But I agree with you that it's a necessarily evil now, like it or not, and I also agree with the idea that every conference member needs to do their part, regardless of whether or not they want to. I think this is especially true in WMU's case now that the program is trending upward.

Yes, never mind those pesky Wednesday-Thursday morning classes players are supposed to attend - especially after an away game.

(02-28-2015 04:27 PM)The Colonel Wrote:  

(02-28-2015 02:16 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  I think with that there was a play by certain coaches who saw it as an opportunity to boost their program's profile and pushed for it...WMU was in a position where they didn't have to do it if they didn't want to.

...to be clear, its not that I'm a huge fan of weeknight games, I totally see the downside, but at this point its just a necessary evil so I hope my team (and also the conference) maximizes it as well as they can.

Thanks for your detailed response. IMO it's a little unfair to criticize WMU now for not participating more back then, IF they really didn't want to and the MAC office didn't feel a need to hold their feet to the fire.

But I agree with you that it's a necessarily evil now, like it or not, and I also agree with the idea that every conference member needs to do their part, regardless of whether or not they want to. I think this is especially true in WMU's case now that the program is trending upward.

no prob, and I'm just giving you guys a hard time, misery loves company, as they say. weeknight games in Nov are nothing to get excited about but it is a necessary evil.

(02-28-2015 04:29 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  Yes, never mind those pesky Wednesday-Thursday morning classes players are supposed to attend - especially after an away game.

Hey! Don't you know it's a big business now?

And what's more important than pleasing fans who never played but their life is fully dependent on how well "their" team does.

Even Tom Izzo complained earlier this Winter about weeknight Mens' Basketball games beginning at 9 pm (and therefore not finishing until after 11 pm). I think specifically it was the Big Monday matchups.