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Weekday basketball start times

When should double headers be played on the weekdays?

  • Keep it at 6 (7 e) pm and 8 (9 e) pm

    Votes: 11 42.3%
  • Change it to 5 (6 e) pm and 7 (8 e) pm

    Votes: 15 57.7%

  • Total voters
    26

Hawkfan_08

HR Legend
Nov 9, 2002
24,499
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North Liberty
I was thinking about this the other day and it has probably been brought up before. Why doesn't BTN go to games at 5 and 7 instead of 6 and 8 for double headers?

If on the road in the Eastern timezone, you would play at 5 (6 local time) allowing those fans to get to the arena roughly an hour after work. If on the road in the Central timezone, games at 7 would allow more time to get to the games for the more "rural" schools with fans that may be travling further away. It also allows all fans to watch games to their completion, especially kids on the East Coast. Might be tough to stay up until 11 pm some nights. Plus, those teams could still host some games at 8 on a rare occasion like we have had to. Move some of the central games to a night with only one game and play at 6:30 or 7.

Thoughts or am I on an island?
 
I was thinking about this the other day and it has probably been brought up before. Why doesn't BTN go to games at 5 and 7 instead of 6 and 8 for double headers?

If on the road in the Eastern timezone, you would play at 5 (6 local time) allowing those fans to get to the arena roughly an hour after work. If on the road in the Central timezone, games at 7 would allow more time to get to the games for the more "rural" schools with fans that may be travling further away. It also allows all fans to watch games to their completion, especially kids on the East Coast. Might be tough to stay up until 11 pm some nights. Plus, those teams could still host some games at 8 on a rare occasion like we have had to. Move some of the central games to a night with only one game and play at 6:30 or 7.

Thoughts or am I on an island?

The point of the start times isn't fans in the stands, it's eyeballs on the TV. Yeah, it would be great if Iowa could start weeknight games at 7pm, it's not high on the list of requirements for the B1G, though. BTN wants eyeballs, 6 and 8 works better from a viewership perspective.

I mean, I can't get to week night home games, I live too far away to make an early start time, and I get home too late for a late start time. So I watch on TV. The game ending at 10, or a little after, is fine when I'm going to be in bed 5 minutes later.

To me, the bigger issue is getting more students into CHA instead of worrying about the rest. Get a couple thousand more students into home games, it makes CHA more of a home court advantage. And start time shouldn't be an issue for them.
 
I'm definitely biased as a west coaster, but 5pm (3 Pacific) would be my worst nightmare as someone who already usually has to catch the first 10 minutes via DVR for the 6pm tips.

I will say this, watching an Iowa NCAA tourney game starting at 6:30 am in Honolulu once was glorious. So was the Super Bowl I saw there and it was light out for a couple hours after the game ended.
 
The point of the start times isn't fans in the stands, it's eyeballs on the TV. Yeah, it would be great if Iowa could start weeknight games at 7pm, it's not high on the list of requirements for the B1G, though. BTN wants eyeballs, 6 and 8 works better from a viewership perspective.

I mean, I can't get to week night home games, I live too far away to make an early start time, and I get home too late for a late start time. So I watch on TV. The game ending at 10, or a little after, is fine when I'm going to be in bed 5 minutes later.

To me, the bigger issue is getting more students into CHA instead of worrying about the rest. Get a couple thousand more students into home games, it makes CHA more of a home court advantage. And start time shouldn't be an issue for them.

I get that but if you started at 5 pm you would still get lots of eyeballs and your 7 pm game could be the larger of the two games. I totally understand I'm coming from a fan in the stands perspective.
 
I get that but if you started at 5 pm you would still get lots of eyeballs and your 7 pm game could be the larger of the two games. I totally understand I'm coming from a fan in the stands perspective.

Starting that early EST/EDT wouldn't get as many eyeballs as the later start times, which is why they start at 6/8.
 
I totally get the 5 pm CT & 7 pm CT tip times idea. Unfortunately, money, advertising dollars & viewership numbers dictate everything.

UCLA and USC are going to dread those weeknight games at Maryland and Rutgers. And for their fans, a 6 pm tip of course will be 4 pm local for them. I know the B1G loves adding the Los Angeles market but how many people on the West Coast will be tuning in to BTN/ESPN/etc. at 4 pm West coast time?
 
I would imagine UCLA and USC would be making very few trips--if any--to Maryland and Rutgers and Penn State. Basketball will have to have divisions, it seems to me. I just don't see how scheduling could work otherwise, including the issue of poor starting times for West Coast TV.
 
I would imagine UCLA and USC would be making very few trips--if any--to Maryland and Rutgers and Penn State. Basketball will have to have divisions, it seems to me. I just don't see how scheduling could work otherwise, including the issue of poor starting times for West Coast TV.

Theoretically, they could get away with having home/home with those teams every 4 years or so. And schedule the away games back to back, say a Thurs @ MD, Sunday @ RU.

Then the rest of the seasons just alternate home/away. So there might be years they don't have to go to the east coast (or MD/RU/PSU not having to go west).

And yes, for basketball will create challenges. Going back to the old travel partners and scheduling back to back in SoCal would help, as would doing that with USC/UCLA.

As someone who traveled all over the country for years, it's not that much harder going west than it is going east...from the Midwest. PSU/MD/RU will definitely have issues the rest won't have, but it's not hard to come up with workable solutions.

And yes, to your point about divisions, that's absolutely a possible solution. Just not the only one.
 
I would imagine UCLA and USC would be making very few trips--if any--to Maryland and Rutgers and Penn State. Basketball will have to have divisions, it seems to me. I just don't see how scheduling could work otherwise, including the issue of poor starting times for West Coast TV.
Nah, I don't think we'll see divisions until we get to 20 teams. They'll likely just start scheduling games in pairs--any time a team plays a road game out west they play a Thur/Sat against USC and UCLA. Similarly, when those teams travel they can do 2 game trips to closely located campuses.
Chartered airplanes and the influx of online classes make this almost a non-issue, but to reduce costs the travel partner idea makes the most sense.
 
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