Limey Frog
Full Member
Explain to me how you can fit more than 2 games between 11am and 6pm CT.
You can't. But NBC has room to add one extra game alongside its current commitment to ND. The important thing is not how many games the BE could place on NBC [as opposed to NBC Sports] but which games and when. Presently the Big East's headline conference match-ups are played largely on Thursdays. Those that ESPN does run on Saturdays invariably kickoff at 11am. ESPN/ABC commitments to the Big Ten, SEC, and Longhorn Conference are now such that there is literally no room to put BE games on Saturdays any later than 11am. Sign with ESPN and you can guarantee that #5 TCU vs. #7 WVU is going to be played on a Thursday night. Sign with NBC and it goes national on Saturday afternoon or evening.
You might only be talking about 4-6 games a year, but those are the 4-6 games a year that voters, fans, recruits, etc. will pay attention to and thus judge the entire conference upon. No one raves about the SEC because they just dig those Thursday night games in Starkville. It's all about Florida vs. Bama Saturday afternoons on CBS.