September 30th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
Sooooo much better than 3:30
September 30th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
For the opposition that prefers 3:30 games, here are my big reasons.
- For those of us with kids that have things going on in the morning/early afternoon, we can get those done and be back home to watch the game.
- The biggest reason is that I come up for one game a year to hang out with the Dad and my best friend. With a noon game, I lose 3 1/2 hours of tailgating time and time with some of my favorite people. This is also the only time I throw bags each year, and I usually don't get warmed up until about noon.
September 30th, 2019 at 4:09 PM ^
I always tell people this - if you have a family and that family also has things going on (what family doesn't?), a 3:30 PM kick is actually miles more convenient than a noon kick. Rather than rush out the door for a noon kick, a few things can in fact get accomplished if it is a 3:30 PM kick.
As for me personally, I am also NOT a morning person. Being up early for anything, even Michigan football, is a struggle on Saturday.
September 30th, 2019 at 4:45 PM ^
anyone have any thoughts/insight into whether there exists any realistic chance the UM v. ND will be a night game or even a 3:30 game?
September 30th, 2019 at 11:26 PM ^
I was told weeks ago that ND is going to be a night game. The same source also said there is a strong chance that MSU would be a night game.
My Source: 3rd hand from people who know (Originating directly from team and athletic department)
October 1st, 2019 at 5:38 AM ^
thanks. ND would seem to be a natural for a night game - it'll be the first one that i make this year.
September 30th, 2019 at 4:48 PM ^
These noon games suck. If I’m lucky I can get to bed by 3 on a Friday night. Usually later. So I’m always exhausted. I told my gf, who knows nothing about football, I was going to a game at noon. She was shocked and said “wow why would they play the game so early”? All I could respond with....no idea.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
ABC is so much better than FOX as well.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:52 AM ^
Fox blows. Their usual formula...
*Team scores a touchdown
*8 minute commercial
*Team kicks off
*8 minute commercial
*3 offensive plays
*8 minute commercial
*Punt and....yes!! Timeout for injured player!
*8 minute commercial
*One play, ref throws a flag. We'll find out what the penalty is for after some more commercials.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
I once set my DVR to 4 hours for a game on FOX and it was still cut off in regulation.
I also went to Michigan @ Northwestern last season with my nephew. He found it boring because there were so many extended media time outs. By the 2nd quarter, the crowd was booing the red jacket media timeout guy.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
In 2007, I was at Nebraska when they played USC. A lady near me pointed to the timeout ref and said "the most hated man in the stadium."
I was also at Iowa/Wisconsin a few weeks later, and a totally different lady made an extremely similar comment.
And it's only gotten worse since then. They have to fix this.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:41 PM ^
they can fix it by going to more split screen commercials. baseball is doing more of this after an out.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:44 PM ^
The irony is the networks have resisted this fix as they fear it will reduce their advertising revenue yet my guess is the actual eyeballs on the ad will increase, not decrease, if they went this route.
What's the FIRST thing you do when they break for commericials? You immediately go to other channels to see what's going on in other games. Having a split screen means your attention, and your channel, will stay put and you'll see the ad.
Not that hard really.
September 30th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
Unless it's an important game, or I'm there in person, I just set the DVR and start watching around half time or whenever I get to it. It shouldn't take me 4 hours to watch a 60 min game.
September 30th, 2019 at 1:30 PM ^
I do this also. DVR the game, go do something productive for at least an hour, then watch the game and ffwd commercials. I catch up to "real time" about midway through the 4th quarter. If it's an important game I just stay off social media and make sure my buddies are live-texting me game updates.
September 30th, 2019 at 3:33 PM ^
It’s getting to the point where you have to start more than an hour late though. I’ve noticed this year that I’m starting to catch up at the tail end of half time. If there are a couple of reviews added to the barrage of commercials, you need to start later and later. I’m to the point now where I rarely watch a whole game. I just can’t sit there and get into it as much with the constant stops and commercial breaks. If UM builds a lead or gets behind by a lot I’m out. I’ll keep track on my phone while doing other things.
September 30th, 2019 at 1:32 PM ^
The problem with this for me is that I have to text all the boys back in MI about every single play so I have to watch live lol
October 1st, 2019 at 9:34 AM ^
Yes you do. Or we will be looking for a new prof.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
European soccer is increasingly the sport I most enjoy watching simply because of the lack of commercials. It's amazing how enjoyable your sports watching experience is when the action isn't interrupted every 6 minutes for 4 minutes of commercials.
American sports is rapidly becoming unwatchable.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Rugby is the same. These sports get big TV money also. The networks find a way to deal with it. They run their ads before the game, at halftime, and after, and this works. (And no, this has nothing to do with ads on the jerseys. That money doesn't go to the TV networks.)
North Americans are being played for fools by our networks.
September 30th, 2019 at 3:00 PM ^
Rugby is harder to find on American television (current World Cup availability notwithstanding), but I concur, the experience is every bit as enjoyable as soccer.
September 30th, 2019 at 7:23 PM ^
Personally I agree with you, but I think there may be a large part of the population who doesn’t mind as much as you might think. There are people who enjoy the hours of “entertainment” (even if it includes commercials) because it means they can throw a game on and then eat, drink, or whatever, for many hours. Until the consuming public demands faster games (starting to happen in mlb), the status quo will continue
October 1st, 2019 at 7:22 AM ^
I wonder if the American public "doesn't mind" simply because the only sports viewing experience most of us are familiar with are the ones we've always been provided. Once I started to watch Premier League or Bundesliga with regularity, it didn't take long for me to become very conscious of how choppy American sports broadcasts were.
My former neighbor, who was/is from the UK, and is responsible for turning me onto soccer and rugby union football was always amazed at how slow paced US sports broadcasts were; constantly pausing the action to sell Chevys.
But you're correct, until the public starts voting with their remote controls and their wallets, nothing is going to change.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
And the matches are almost always over in under 2 hours which would allow for more windows to be able to show more games.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
Big game in a couple hours with Man U/ Arsenal. I like the under 3 (-140)
September 30th, 2019 at 12:33 PM ^
There now are countdown timers on the scoreboard so you can see exactly how long the media timeouts are. I want to say the extended ones are a little north of 4 minutes?
September 30th, 2019 at 9:21 PM ^
I was at PSU @ Maryland Friday night. It was 3:45 (!!!!!!) between the 1st and 2nd Quarters.
September 30th, 2019 at 4:51 PM ^
The commercials are 3 minutes. And I don’t mind them at all. Why is there such a rush to finish a game 5-15 minutes quicker with less commercials ? I don’t understand it. The breaks probably help the team with less depth also (Michigan when playing OSU)
October 3rd, 2019 at 4:16 PM ^
This is for an NFL game, but the principle holds:
In this case, they pegged the average NFL game at about 3 hours 11 minutes. I've witnessed from 4 hour games on FOX, which equates to approximately 80 minutes of commercials, if you assume you can extrapolate from the NFL data.
CBS sports did something similar in 2017. They calculated an average FBS game time of 3:24 in 2017. That was up 12 minutes per game from 2010 and 23 minutes from 1996. Some of that could be attributable to replay, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of the increase in time is due to commercials.
Also, figure that this is the average. For an untelevised game, it's probably closer to the 3 hour mark. For a top 25 matchup or major rivalry game, it's probably closer to 3:45 or even 4:00. That extra 30+ minutes is what people are complaining about.
Also, BS about 3 minute commercial breaks. I have my Xfinity remote set to skip 30 seconds at a time and I generally hit the skip button 8 times - 4 minutes.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
Rivalry game #2!
September 30th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
Our first ESPN staffed broadcast of the year.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
I like noon games like last Saturday.
I hate noon games like Sept. 21st.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:54 AM ^
Good to hear. I'm taking a buddy to his first football game at the Illinois game. He's from Costa Rica, and he does not quite get my obsession.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:04 PM ^
Time for some Maize and Blue indoctrination.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
Does anyone know if there is a streaming service that works in Europe? TV coverage is ABC but I will be overseas. Thanks
September 30th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
Am I missing something? Why is this getting negged?
September 30th, 2019 at 12:42 PM ^
You know nothing, so...
September 30th, 2019 at 1:37 PM ^
FWIW —I have no practical experience but have seen this same ?? about 2 dozen times in the past few years.....
The easiest is to get a VPN connection and then you can log in to whatever normal service you do to stream games.
I do not know the best/easiest/cheapest way to get a VPN connection but I do think there are a few companies that offer the service in a subscription model.
September 30th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
Ok, so we are never playing at 3:30 again. Got it. Cool.
Not cool.
Noon games are fine sometimes but having noon games every week makes for kind of a repetitive feeling season without much variety to the experience. If you look back on Michigan history, so many legendary games were 3:30 games that I really am starting to miss that time slot for some games. It is clearly the "big game" slot regardless of what Fox wants us to believe.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
Might want to wait to go on that rant before they announce the psu game time. I bet that will be 3:30
September 30th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
I believe the UM/PSU will be either a Noon game on Fox or a night game on ABC/ESPN.
Fox gets first pick and if both teams keep winning, I don’t see any way they wouldn’t that game in their noon slot with Gus and Joel on the call.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:22 PM ^
Michigan's record with Gus and Jo-elle sucks ass.
September 30th, 2019 at 1:02 PM ^
If ABC carries it, I doubt it will be at night as the next week they will be carrying our game with ND. I’m pretty sure they would like the night slot for that game.
September 30th, 2019 at 9:24 PM ^
It does seem like the biggest B1G games will be in either the Noon (Fox) or 7:30 (ABC/ESPN) time slots going forward.
The 3:30 B1G games will be some of the lower-tier games. The SEC on CBS is starting to take over the 3:30 slot.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
I sort of understand your angst, but seriously, it's football season and I'm 7.8% happier than I am the rest of the year.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
I’m a fan of the 3:30 kick off, because it does lend some time before the game to run some errands that you can’t normally get to during the week.
Plus, the starts off in daylight and ends with nightfall has some allure to it.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
I don't like 3:30 games because they take up the whole day. Especially if you're going to the stadium. With a noon game, you're still free to do other things afterwards, if you want.
September 30th, 2019 at 12:38 PM ^
It’s a catch 22, because I agree with you. In a perfect world, they would alternate back and forth.
September 30th, 2019 at 1:05 PM ^
My problem is, I start drinking during noon games and the rest of the day is wasted. As for 3:30 games, I get a lot done early and start drinking later, so it's a more productive day.