Dear BTN; Why put on Michigan v. NW at the same time as Neb. v Ohio St.?

Submitted by Section 1 on

Okay, not exactly "the same"; 7 ET for Michigan @ Northwestern and 8 ET for Nebraska @ OSU.  Why?  With an ESPN/ABC contract and our own network, can't the B1G do better, schedule-wise?

What's the noon BTN game on October 8?  It's a big one -- Illinois v. Ohio State.  Women's volleyball.

jb5O4

October 3rd, 2011 at 1:15 PM ^

Why is it that Michigan is playing 4 straight games on the Big Ten Network? A channel I do not get. Hopefully Michigan starts playing well enough they are on ESPN/ABC every week again.

msoccer10

October 3rd, 2011 at 1:47 PM ^

Big Ten network gets a guaranteed # of U of M games. Our schedule is back loaded so since MSU, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and OSU are certainly national tv worthy, these early games get BTN. I guess they could have gotten Purdue and put the Northwestern game on ESPN but its a night game and there are probably more interesting night games for a national audience.

tbeindit

October 3rd, 2011 at 2:28 PM ^

michigan will be playing espn on oct 15 so you won't have to wait very long.  the reason why is because there have been some great games and well...michigan's matchups have been relatively lackluster since notre dame.  this is the first week they are starting to pick up again

Section 1

October 3rd, 2011 at 2:04 PM ^

BTN has essentially blown off a noon football game altogether.  And gone with a 2:00/7:00 (ET) pairing.

Doesn't it seem rational, that with three main times available (noon, 3:30, and 7:00 or 8:00) the Conference could work things out such that the two best games of the week didn't conflict?  I'll be at the game, so I am not so crtical of which network gets which game; what I am complaining about is the idea of setting up a conflict, so that people have to turn away from one good game, to see another good game.

Mr Miggle

October 3rd, 2011 at 2:26 PM ^

Based on our experience here, I thought they would be done well in advance. Going into the season, Iowa-PSU probably looked like a bigger game anyway.

BTN gets two games this week, both in the central time zone. That's why there's no noon game. They have one scheduled for the following week.

WolverineHistorian

October 3rd, 2011 at 1:19 PM ^

Yeah.  That would have been a nice game to watch.  Nebraska's defense has been exposed the last couple weeks but I can still see them keeping the bucks in check.  Not that OSU's offense could cross the street anyway. 

But an hour is better than nothing.  We'll still get to see probably the entire 4th quarter.  And that probably means plenty of shots of OSU fans looking like they want to kill themselves. 

BRCE

October 3rd, 2011 at 1:22 PM ^

The real question is why is Saturday Night Prime Time football featuring a borderline bowl team and why is Nebraska on two weeks in a row? Is it so Musberger can bellow out "Buckeeeeeeeeyyyyyeeeeees" while throwing down scotch and watching his favorite program one more time before the probation (theirs, not his)?

That game is a huge yawnfest for a national audience.

 

 

sportsfreak0819

October 3rd, 2011 at 1:38 PM ^

you can flip to the OSU Nebraska game during halftime and during commercials. its not that bad.

the BTN doesn't schedule the football games anyway so they just air the game whenever it was scheduled for.

JeepinBen

October 3rd, 2011 at 2:01 PM ^

Northwestern swapped the game to a 6PM local kick so that Jews like myself can still go to the game after praying all day on our holiest day of the year. The Red Sox swapped a game last year over the High Holidays too.

Hannibal.

October 3rd, 2011 at 2:11 PM ^

I have given up trying to make sense of the stupidity of college football TV scheduling nowadays.  Disney has abandoned the 12:00 time slot for some reason and, instead, chooses to show almost every game worth watching at the same time as the SEC game of the week and the ND home game (which is sometimes worth watching).  The night games pretty much always conflict with each other too.  Raise your hand if you watched the ND-Purdue game without a DVR Saturday night.

Hmmm, no hands up.

I didn't think so.