Quick Opinion: Michigan State wise to stick with Friday night opener, thankfully the B1G stayed out of the way
East Lansing, Mich. – The moving of Michigan State’s season opener against Central Michigan from Saturday to Friday night, Sept. 1, is a victory for most Michigan State football fans and Michiganders in general, although it needed a nod of approval from the Big Ten Conference.
Michigan State University has preferred to open its season on Friday night of Labor Day weekend since 2011. But the Big Ten holds the television rights and dictates the kickoff time and date for home football games within the conference.
In 2017, the Big Ten mandated that the Spartans’ home opener against Bowling Green be played on Saturday despite Michigan State’s request to play it on Friday night. That game broke the Spartans’ preferred recent tradition of playing the season opener on Friday night.
I love Saturday afternoon college football as much as anyone, but when the 11-game schedule expanded to 12 games many years ago and began infringing on Labor Day Weekend, I thought it was a smart, innovative move by former Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis to experiment with opening the season on Friday night.
Hollis said a big portion of the Michigan State audience wishes to get Up North, or travel elsewhere around the state, during Labor Day Weekend. He wanted to give Spartan fans the opportunity to attend the season opener without missing out on much travel time during the final weekend of the summer. Also, he knew that some Spartans fans would forego the opportunity to attend the season opener in order to go Up North, resulting in more empty seats than may otherwise be the case. Playing the season opener on Friday night opened the door for both wishes to be met, and for more seats to be filled.
It was an experiment. Hollis didn’t know for sure how well-attended an annual Friday night game would be. It turned out to be a success.
There were concerns that Michigan State playing on a Friday night would hurt attendance for high school games. But Michigan high schools moved their season opening games to Thursday night during Labor Day weekend, and – once again – all parties benefitted.
The only entity that screws this thing up, once in awhile, is the Big Ten. Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller has smartly sought to continue the recent Spartan tradition of playing the season opener on Friday night. And when the Big Ten gets out of the way, the university is able to serve its fans properly for the season opener.
True, Michigan State and every school in the conference benefits greatly from the Big Ten’s wealthy TV broadcast contract. But I was bothered in 2017 that the Big Ten wouldn’t budge on its wishes to keep Michigan State vs Bowling Green scheduled for a Saturday afternoon, and the measly TV audience it likely garnered, rather than move the furniture around a little bit to coincide with Michigan State’s request.
I was pleased on Monday to hear that this year’s game, originally scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 2 while the Big Ten put its TV plans together, was moved to Friday. The conference’s universities apparently still have their voices heard, on some occasions, on some topics.
