Over the last year or two there’s been a lot of talk about night games, how it affects the fans, how it affects the conference, and what can be done. So in the past couple weeks, I decided to do a little research on the matter – specifically on the idea that the Pac-12 and specifically Oregon State is getting the short end of the proverbial stick.
Methodology
I was able to use Wikipedia to quickly gather local home start times for every Power 5 team over the last two years. I separated start times in four different categories…
Are Pac-12 fans getting screwed over by playing so many night games?
Not really – here’s a breakdown of how it looks for each conference over the last two years.
The Pac-12 plays almost the exact same amount of night games as the SEC and only barely more than the Big 12. LSU leads the way with 13 night games out of a possible 15 home games the last two years. So there’s definitely plenty of other fan bases in the South and West that are dealing with a constant barrage of night games. The ACC plays about 25% less late games and the Big 10 rarely plays them at all – with most of them coming on big national prime time matchups.
The biggest discrepancy between the conferences is actually how many non-Saturday games we play. Every Pac-12 team, besides Cal, has played at least one mid-week game in the last two years – ASU has played 4, Utah, Arizona, and OSU have played 3 each. Meanwhile, the Big 10 has only played 4 midweek games total in two years and the SEC only 9. If you take those midweek games out of the picture, the Pac-12 is 3rd in night games behind the SEC and Big 12.
So while it might be easy to complain about playing way more night games than any other conference, that’s really not the case. The real problem (if you want to call it a problem) is that Pac-12 teams are so frequently playing midweek games in an effort to get more exposure when other conference only rarely play non-Saturday games (and usually only in non-conference.)
So, Oregon State is getting screwed over compared to the rest of the conference though, right?
Eh – again, not really. Oregon State has played 7 late games (including midweek) in the last two years. Arizona and ASU lead the conference with 9 – which makes sense because of early season weather – and Utah has played 8. The Beavers have played 3 non-Saturday games (on the high end) and 4 late Saturday games (pretty average for the conference). Also important to note that the Beavs haven’t exactly warranted a lot of prime time matchups in 2014-15. UO has played the least night games in the conference which is to be expected as they are more frequently playing in prime time slots (6 afternoon games for them). Here’s a complete breakdown for the conference for the last two seasons.
Are night games bad for the conference?
Hard to say. From a fan experience standpoint, I don’t think there is any reason to think we’re getting screwed over in comparison to some other conferences. With that said, is it possible night games are still bad for the Pac-12? Perhaps. When Ohio State plays an 8 pm EST home game the entire nation is watching, but when ASU and USC kickoff at 7:30 Pacific, I’m assuming much of the east coast isn’t tuned in. The question is whether they’d tune in at any other time? In order to answer this I’d need to compare the ratings for Pac-12 games based on start time (and probably adjust for what other games were going on). Might look into it eventually but my guess is Pac-12 games get better ratings at night than they do at 12:30 or 3:30 when they're competing with all the other conferences. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the conference to do it.
Anyway, hopefully this information is useful or at least interesting for some folks. Night games are something we’re going to have to live with – ideally a team wouldn’t have to play several in a row but right now lots of teams deal with it and some fan bases (like LSU) embrace it and make it part of their culture. If you really want to rally against the Pac-12, decry the amount of Thursday and Friday games we have to play because it’s significantly higher than any other conference. Thanks for reading my long post and let me know if you have any questions!
Methodology
I was able to use Wikipedia to quickly gather local home start times for every Power 5 team over the last two years. I separated start times in four different categories…
- Non-Saturday Games – Most of these games start late but I wanted to separate them out because it seems like a different monster.
- Early Games – local kickoff time of 11 am to 2 pm
- Afternoon Games – local kickoff time of 2:30 to 5:30 pm
- Late Games – local kickoff time of 6 pm or later
Are Pac-12 fans getting screwed over by playing so many night games?
Not really – here’s a breakdown of how it looks for each conference over the last two years.
The Pac-12 plays almost the exact same amount of night games as the SEC and only barely more than the Big 12. LSU leads the way with 13 night games out of a possible 15 home games the last two years. So there’s definitely plenty of other fan bases in the South and West that are dealing with a constant barrage of night games. The ACC plays about 25% less late games and the Big 10 rarely plays them at all – with most of them coming on big national prime time matchups.
The biggest discrepancy between the conferences is actually how many non-Saturday games we play. Every Pac-12 team, besides Cal, has played at least one mid-week game in the last two years – ASU has played 4, Utah, Arizona, and OSU have played 3 each. Meanwhile, the Big 10 has only played 4 midweek games total in two years and the SEC only 9. If you take those midweek games out of the picture, the Pac-12 is 3rd in night games behind the SEC and Big 12.
So while it might be easy to complain about playing way more night games than any other conference, that’s really not the case. The real problem (if you want to call it a problem) is that Pac-12 teams are so frequently playing midweek games in an effort to get more exposure when other conference only rarely play non-Saturday games (and usually only in non-conference.)
So, Oregon State is getting screwed over compared to the rest of the conference though, right?
Eh – again, not really. Oregon State has played 7 late games (including midweek) in the last two years. Arizona and ASU lead the conference with 9 – which makes sense because of early season weather – and Utah has played 8. The Beavers have played 3 non-Saturday games (on the high end) and 4 late Saturday games (pretty average for the conference). Also important to note that the Beavs haven’t exactly warranted a lot of prime time matchups in 2014-15. UO has played the least night games in the conference which is to be expected as they are more frequently playing in prime time slots (6 afternoon games for them). Here’s a complete breakdown for the conference for the last two seasons.
Are night games bad for the conference?
Hard to say. From a fan experience standpoint, I don’t think there is any reason to think we’re getting screwed over in comparison to some other conferences. With that said, is it possible night games are still bad for the Pac-12? Perhaps. When Ohio State plays an 8 pm EST home game the entire nation is watching, but when ASU and USC kickoff at 7:30 Pacific, I’m assuming much of the east coast isn’t tuned in. The question is whether they’d tune in at any other time? In order to answer this I’d need to compare the ratings for Pac-12 games based on start time (and probably adjust for what other games were going on). Might look into it eventually but my guess is Pac-12 games get better ratings at night than they do at 12:30 or 3:30 when they're competing with all the other conferences. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the conference to do it.
Anyway, hopefully this information is useful or at least interesting for some folks. Night games are something we’re going to have to live with – ideally a team wouldn’t have to play several in a row but right now lots of teams deal with it and some fan bases (like LSU) embrace it and make it part of their culture. If you really want to rally against the Pac-12, decry the amount of Thursday and Friday games we have to play because it’s significantly higher than any other conference. Thanks for reading my long post and let me know if you have any questions!
