AD Haller betting fans will watch the Spartans if only other games at same time are high school football
On Wednesday, news came out of the Michigan State Athletic Department that two football games in the upcoming 2024 season will be shifted from their normal Saturday times to Friday night. Those two games are the October 4 contest at Oregon and the November 22 home game versus Purdue. Last year, around this time, it was announced that the finale of the 2023 season, a home game against Penn State which would have been Senior Day, was getting moved to Friday night… and to Detroit. That move drew the consternation of many a Spartan. So I guess the decision makers decided to double-down for 2024.
To be clear, the decisions to move these games has everything to do with having them televised. Both games will be broadcast nationally on Fox. The Purdue game is not the last home game; that will occur the following week when MSU hosts Rutgers, so the student section will get one last Saturday afternoon in Spartan Stadium (though it is worth noting that is Thanksgiving weekend so many students may be away).
Personally, I am not a fan of these moves. Had the Oregon game been on Saturday, as originally scheduled, I assume the team would travel on Friday. Now they are going to have to fly on Thursday (I assume they will not fly cross-country on game day) which is going to force the student-athletes to miss more classes. It also makes it harder logistically for Spartan fans to travel for this one; now you would have to take Friday off work in order to get to the west coast for the evening game as opposed to being able to fly Friday after work for a Saturday game. As for the home game against Purdue, you are taking away from the pageantry that goes along with college football – a day trip to your alma mater for alumni and the tailgating for the students. Keep in mind that sunsets are around 5:30 that time of year, so it will already have been dark for 21⁄2 hours by the time that game kicks off at 8 PM.
The moves, sadly, come as no surprise. Everything decision in college sports is made with one factor in mind: money. Now the Big Ten schools can split up more TV money. It does not matter how this impacts everyone and everything else involved. Maybe we should all agree to not watch those two games in protest. Maybe then they will stop doing this to us.
Okay TOC, since it was a slow news week for MSU with no transfers coming in and no new recruits committing, I am going to take this opportunity to share some personal news. I have recently launched a couple projects to expand my work in sports journalism. First, I have created my own blog called “O For 4 ”, which will be a weekly collection of my thoughts on four different topics from the world of sports. I dropped the second issue of that last night. The other new project is a podcast I have started with a buddy of mine, also a Spartan, called “dOllar betZ ” where we rant about sports and try to make bets with each other on upcoming events. You can listen to it on a number of podcast hosting sites like Audible (linked above), Apple, and Amazon, to name a few.
I hope you check them out and enjoy them. Don’t worry, I will still be making my usual contributions to The Only Colors.