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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Grip on Sports: Football not about fans in the stands

Cold? Late at night? No fans in the stands? No matter. It’s on TV, baby. (Associated Press)

Wednesday: College football was created as a Saturday afternoon sport. A way for college students to have something to break up their monotonous life of studying, going to class and learning how to handle adult beverages.

That started to change 50 years ago and really went off the tracks in the past 20 years, as cable and satellite television developed such an incredible desire for programming, college football has become a nearly every-day, and every-time-slot, sport. That’s the reality. But is it right?

Should college students be expected to play games in the morning or at night? Should fans be expected to face long drives to and from games in darkness and freezing conditions?

It’s been obvious college football CEOs have ceded control of their sport to television entities a long time ago. They have talked about “partnering” with ESPN, Fox, ABC, CBS and the like for years, but it is not a partnership. The television folks are dictators, the Big Brothers of college athletics, and everyone else plays the role of Winston Smith. They think they have some control but they don’t.

How else can you explain a 7:30 start for a Nov. 29 Apple Cup game in Pullman? Martin Stadium’s seats are going to be like sitting on big blocks of ice. The field itself is going to be so frozen it will feel like playing in a parking lot for the poor players. And the drive to and from the West Side, Tri-Cities or Spokane? There’s a chance it will be akin to an Apolo Ohno workout.

A 7:30 game this time of year at LSU is probably fine. Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Tempe, Houston, Miami. All decent spots for night games in late fall. Not that big of deal. But Pullman, Corvallis, Eugene, those cities are miles and miles from the homes of their fan bases, possibly necessitating a white-knuckle drive either to or from the game.

I get it. Even if the game started at 1 or 2 p.m. the drive could be pretty tough. It gets dark at 4 p.m. this time of year. But tell me you would feel safer at midnight driving a two-lane road instead of 6 p.m. and I’ll duck as your nose grows.

The watch-in-person fan has become irrelevant in college football these days. It’s all about the living-room cheerleader and the barstool-sitting viewer. Those are the people who matter. The eyeballs that count.

Friday: There is some talk among those in the know around the NCAA offices of moving the start date for basketball back a few weeks, pushing March Madness into April and possibly early May. The idea is to cut down the overlap between football and basketball, as if it’s a bad thing.

What would November be like without basketball? No early-season matchups between high-powered Jesuit teams like Gonzaga and St. Joe’s (OK, that’s a bad example). No Kentucky vs. Kansas before the snow flies (Wait, that’s another bad example, especially if you are trying to watch in upstate New York). Got it. No warm weather Thanksgiving tournaments. (Where are the Cougars playing next weekend? The Bahamas? San Juan? Mexico? Anchorage? Really?)

But it’s the overlap that makes our lives worthwhile this time of year. We can spend the work week coming home, sitting down and watching a high-profile college or low-profile NBA game instead of shoveling the walk. Then weekends, when the garage needs sweeping or the dog’s droppings need collecting? Forget that. We’re watching college football on Saturday and the RedZone all day Sunday. There might even be a college hoops game on the ‘Ocho’ to zone in on at halftime. It’s perfect.

Which is why I’m sure the NCAA will decide to move the start of college basketball back to Dec. 1 or something. Some TV executive will look at the calendar, see May is a sweeps month – the time in which ad rates are determined – and realize the NCAA finals draw a lot of eyeballs. Bingo. Money to Indianapolis and our basketball starting at Christmas. Talk about dire straits.

Tuesday:  All week long I wondered how this new-look Gonzaga squad, purportedly the deepest in Mark Few’s long tenure, would meld together.

The Sacramento State game? An appetizer. SMU would be the main course, the real deal. The Mustangs have excellent coaching (Larry Brown is among the short list of best coaches in the game’s history), talented players and a ranking that is hard to dismiss. But the Zags did. Dismiss them I mean. Or kicked their butt, if you prefer. It wasn’t that close.

Look, there are a couple key indicators of a team that has ‘come together:’ How they share the ball and how they help each other on defense. Gonzaga had 20 assists on 27 baskets. That seems to indicate the Zags were sharing the ball. But the eye test also came up with the same result, as there were more than a few possessions in which all five Gonzaga players touched the ball before a shot went up.

Thursday: Did you see the record of the teams left on the Hawks’ schedule?  They are 41-19. The other three current contenders for the NFC wild-card spots – Green Bay, Dallas and San Francisco – each play teams with combined 30-30 records. Quite a difference, huh? If the Hawks do make the playoffs, they will have earned it.

And be battle-tested.