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

(03-05-2023 01:51 PM)okgc Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 06:28 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  I've begrudgingly accepted midweek MACtion.

But there's no reason why they can't reserve the MAC's four rivalries (WMU-CMU, Kent-Akron, UT-BG, Ohio-Miami) as Saturdays. Shoot, put it all on the last Saturday of October so it's an annual Rivalry Weekend tradition.

As far as our potential record... who knows, maybe Taylor will surprise us. Cubit and Darnell exceeded expectations on their first seasons. But odds are we need to prepare ourselves to watch our basketball and football teams bottoming out around the same time.

And three P5 road trips couldn't have happened at a worse time. None of them are top tier blue-bloods, but all those games could still get ugly quickly.

As long as the MAC allows ESPN to run the show rivalry games will be mid week as ESPN wants the viewers and doesn't give a dxxx about fans.

That’s the thing… Do #MACtion viewers across the country (a lot of them just bettors) care “extra” about MAC rivalries? They are local crowd pleasers, but I don’t think WMU-CMU, Kent-Akron, etc., moves the needle outside our little neighborhood.

Just decided not to renew our season tickets. Sucks, but I don't see us able to make any games this year with this garbage schedule.

Including the stupidity of CMU game on a Tuesday this may be the worst Bronco home game schedule in history.

(05-29-2023 08:21 PM)BroncoFan2 Wrote:  Just decided not to renew our season tickets. Sucks, but I don't see us able to make any games this year with this garbage schedule.

I gave mine up a year ago for the same reason.

(05-29-2023 08:21 PM)BroncoFan2 Wrote:  Just decided not to renew our season tickets. Sucks, but I don't see us able to make any games this year with this garbage schedule.

I don't blame you one bit. I haven't made a home game since before the pandemic in part because of the garbage MACtion schedules.

I also struggle to make it to games, even though I live in town! The schedule keeps getting worse and worse. It destroys a fanbase. How can you expect to attract fans when the games are at inconvenient times for even students and locals? The empty stadiums and lackluster play are going to turn off recruits and potential fans and that just makes things worse and it all just snowballs.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL BELONGS ON SATURDAYS.

You know what would help a new stadium downtown.

MAC - and thus WMU - doesn't care about ticket sales and attendance.

It's all about the TV money.

(05-30-2023 02:20 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  MAC - and thus WMU - doesn't care about ticket sales and attendance.

It's all about the TV money.

Back when there wasn't streaming and everyone was fighting for a limited number of stations to broadcast their games that argument had some merit, flimsy merit, but it was something. Now that streaming is the normal that argument is moot. The MAC is many years, a full decade really, too late in going back to predominately Saturday games.

I hate the midweek games. Almost enough to make me not renew my season tickets but…I’m addicted. They need to preferably eliminate these games across the board. At a minimum, cap the nonsense at 1 midweek game per team, per year. Home one year, Away the next. Makes zero sense to have multiple midweek MAC games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and CBSSN up against each other on certain nights. 1 or 2 MAC TV games per week is plenty (if necessary, 1 on Tuesday and 1 on Wednesday). No need to have upwards of 3 MAC games per night. Just ridiculous.

For awhile it seemed “special”. Now, it’s just diluted the product and is pure crap for the fans.

(05-30-2023 03:35 PM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-30-2023 02:20 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  MAC - and thus WMU - doesn't care about ticket sales and attendance.

It's all about the TV money.

Back when there wasn't streaming and everyone was fighting for a limited number of stations to broadcast their games that argument had some merit, flimsy merit, but it was something. Now that streaming is the normal that argument is moot. The MAC is many years, a full decade really, too late in going back to predominately Saturday games.

Absolutely this.

As someone who lives way out of range of attending games, I "like" the midweek games as something to watch on a weeknight and free up some weekend time. But realistically I agree the midweek stuff ran its course some time ago.

I'd be fine with it if it was capped at one game per team and preferably no rivalries though.

So, evidently St. Francis is pretty good...?

They went 9-3 last year and lost to Akron in week 1 in OT.

So I guess the ESPN / college football world thinks we will be Akron bad this year?

There's no way Western is an underdog to St. Francis. I'm not saying we can't lose to St. Francis, but for the FBS team to be the underdog is extremely rare, even when playing top-tier FCS squads, which St. Francis is not. They finished outside the FCS top 25 and lost to Delaware by 40 points in the first round of the FCS playoffs (Delaware got boat-raced by South Dakota St the next week). This will be a rebuilding year for WMU, but a home underdog to St. Francis? No chance.

Two words:

Nicholls State.

(07-05-2023 04:17 PM)MajorHoople Wrote:  Two words:

Nicholls State.

Like I said, we certainly CAN lose to St. Francis, but St. Francis will not be favored going into the game.

Also, I thought we collectively agreed to never discuss that game!

You wonder with the financial issues they say ESPN is having (noting all the layoffs in the news this week) if they'll start dropping some of the broadcast of the Group of 5 games. Or maybe ESPN doesn't want to pay out the bucks to their long time announcers/analysts.

I’d wager ESPN will start to contract out a lot of the announcing assignments to lesser games, rather than fill those slots with in-house staff.

(07-08-2023 06:57 AM)Doo Wrote:  I’d wager ESPN will start to contract out a lot of the announcing assignments to lesser games, rather than fill those slots with in-house staff.

Yep. They can always hire student broadcasters like BTN does for BTN+. Or hell, they might not even have broadcasters and just show the game.