You’ve probably turned your television onto an ESPN network on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening and been pleasantly surprised to see real, live college football on. Odds are that the game you turned on was either a Sun Belt or Mid-American Conference matchup.
Why is there college football on Tuesday and Wednesday nights?
Because it’s awesome! OK fine, here are more details about early-week #FunBelt and #MACtion.
Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images
If you’re a fan of a MAC or Sun Belt team or a regular college football fan, this is nothing new for you.
But in case you’re wondering why it’s happening so early in the week: it has to do with these conferences’ television deals with ESPN, exposure for the schools, and the people who watch these games.
What early week games are in place for 2016?
Oct. 5 begins 2016’s Wednesday night games, with the Sun Belt’s Georgia Southern at Arkansas State on ESPN2 at 8 p.m ET, followed by Appalachian State at UL Lafayette on Oct. 12.
Tuesday night games begin on Nov. 1, with a MAC doubleheader starring Bowling Green-NIU and WMU-Ball State. In November, the MAC has games scheduled for Wednesdays, as well.
In 2015, plenty of MAC and Sun Belt games aired on ESPN2 or ESPNU. Starting in Week 7, there was a total of seven Tuesday games and four Wednesday night games through Week 13.
These two conferences still have plenty of games on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout the season, but the early week belongs to them.
Who decides which games go on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?
This is all about ESPN filling air time with live content, in partnership with conference schedulers.
The MAC’s deal was finalized in 2014, tacking 10 years of stability onto an existing ESPN deal. The new agreement provided exclusive rights for ESPN to air all MAC sporting events and guaranteed coverage of every football game, plus select men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports through 2026-27.
“This is a historic day for the Mid-American Conference,” MAC Commissioner Dr. Jon Steinbrecher said. “ESPN and the MAC have a long history together and were visionary in embracing mid-week football which continues to be a significant presence on the ESPN college football calendar.”
The Sun Belt’s deal, signed in 2011, was also an extension of the previous deal. The current agreement, much like the MAC’s, gives ESPN exclusive access to Sun Belt football. From the release:
The new agreement will give Sun Belt Conference football a minimum of two games on either ESPN or ESPN2 and also a minimum of five games on ESPNU that will be scheduled for Thursday or Friday nights. Additionally, ESPN Regional Television will have the right to produced, distribute and syndicate up to five football games each year. ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU, the 24-hour college sports network, will also be granted additional opportunities to select games to air.
In 2014, ESPN announced an expansion to the agreement for Sun Belt content. The deal calls for an additional 50 games from the conference on its digital network, WatchESPN. Included in the deal was coverage of the conference’s men’s and women’s soccer championships, volleyball games, some men’s and women’s basketball games, and the 2015 softball championship.
“We regularly work with our league partners on ways to expand the distribution of content across our various platforms,” said ESPN programming director Brent Colborne via Sports Pro Media. “The incremental events added from the expansion with the Sun Belt is a great complement to our current long-term agreement with the conference.”
The Sun Belt recently inked a deal with the American Sport Network, with eight football games and 10 basketball games will be aired on Saturdays.
How much money are these deals worth?
The new MAC deal was expected to be quite lucrative, by mid-major standards. According to Hustle Belt’s explainer of the new television deal, it was estimated to bring in $10 million a year over the course of 10 years, or about $670,000 per school per year.
That’s nowhere near the $45 million per school per year that the Big Ten is reportedly projecting from its TV revenue, but the Power 5 conferences are much more prominent, and all of them have networks dedicated exclusively to their teams, whether in partnership with ESPN (the SEC and eventually the ACC), Fox (the Big Ten), conference-owned (the Pac-12), or for some individual teams (the Big 12).
The Sun Belt’s revenue is much lower, with a reported total of $100,000 brought in per school from TV contracts.
So, how many people actually watch these games?
Last year, during the games that aired on both ESPN2 and ESPNU, a few games had pretty high numbers for midweek programming not on ESPN’s main network.
According to Sports Media Watch, one high number included the matchup on Tuesday, Nov. 10 between Northern Illinois and Toldeo on ESPN2: that game brought in over 850,000 viewers. The following night, Ohio and Bowling Green had over 620,000. The next week, a Wednesday game between Bowling Green and Buffalo brought in 665,000.
Those numbers are comparable to many regular season NBA games, comparable to some regular season college basketball games involving power-conference teams, and higher than many regular season MLB games.
As we learn every bowl season — like that time more people watched Duke’s bowl game than watched an overtime basketball thriller between Duke and rival North Carolina — people will watch football on any day at any hour.
What’s in it for the schools?
Besides the money, the exposure is worth weeknight attendance challenges and awkward timing for players and coaches.
“The exposure is great, and the revenue is critical to our league,” said Miami coach Chuck Martin. “It’s a fantastic thing. There’s a pro and con to everything. The con is the effect on kids’ class schedules. … But the pros far, far outweigh the cons when it comes to the MAC playing mid-week games in November.”
“It’s gonna hurt your crowds,” [Akron head coach Terry] Bowden said. “But you’re gonna have great TV exposure that you wouldn’t have. … I wouldn’t bring my kids to a game at 9 o’clock on a Tuesday night. But I would watch it on TV. The point is we’ve got TV exposure. We can’t fight every battle. I think we’ve had a great TV deal. It gives us exposure.”
“When you have a conference that’s on national TV and you have a reputation for throwing the ball, you’re going to attract good quarterbacks,” said Ohio coach Frank Solich. “Our conference has done that. If you get good quarterback play, that raises the level of your whole football team.”
(And the MAC and Sun Belt make sure to either give bye weeks to teams preparing for early-week games or just have a team do multiple early-week games back-to-back. Teams aren’t having to play on Saturday and then again three days later.)
These are rare chances for these smaller teams to have national spotlights, sometimes with no other major sporting events on at the time. These games have also helped give these conferences national identities as sources of fun football games (#MACtion and #FunBelt, respectively) that they might otherwise lack.
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