More on ESPN's Busch Series Coverage
As tummysticks eloquently posted earlier, ESPN2 will be televising NASCAR Busch Series races on Saturdays during the college football season. So how, exactly do the schedules collide and what are the potential ramifications?
In the below chart, I cross referenced the Busch series schedule against existing ESPN college football scheduling, which of course is always subject to change. If times were available for the ESPN football broadcast, I included them. If there were no ESPN commitments yet scheduled, I provided potentially good matchups from the ACC, Big East, Big 10 and SEC in italics. I omitted games from the PAC-10 and Big 12 because their games usually don't make it on ESPN as they seem to have deals with other lucrative networks like TBS and Versus.
| Date | Busch Race | Potential ESPN Broadcast Conflict |
| September 1 | California 9:30 | Kansas State at Auburn 6:00 |
| September 7 | Richmond 7:30 | Navy at the Rutgers 6:00 |
| September 22 | The Monster Mile 3:00 | Georgia at Alabama Penn State at Michigan South Carolina at LSU |
| September 27 | Kansas 3:00 | LSU at Tulane Temple at Army* |
| October 12 | Lowe's Motor Speedway 4-6, 7:30 | No games scheduled |
| October 27 | Memphis 3:00 | West Virginia at Rutgers South Carolina at Tennessee Pitt at Louisville Oklahoma State at Oklahoma Ohio State at Penn State Nebraska at Texas |
| November 3 | Texas 3:00 | FSU at Boston College LSU at Alabama Wisconsin at Ohio State |
| November 10 | Phoenix 4:00 | Auburn at Georgia Florida at South Carolina FSU at Virginia Tech Michigan at Wisconsin |
| November 17 | Homestead 4:00 | Tulsa at Army Boston College at Clemson Louisville at South Florida Ohio State at Michigan Penn State at Michigan State Pitt at Rutgers West Virginia at Cincinnati |
Seemingly, the only weekends affected badly are October 27 and November 17. Both of these weekends host bivies of games typically making an appearance on ESPN2, i.e. WVU at Cinci because Ohio State v. Michigan is on ABC and Louisville/South Florida is on ESPN1. Fortunately, the races are currently scheduled for late afternoon and because Busch races are somewhat shorter than Nextel Cup races, we can expect them to conclude 7-8ish, just in time for Saturday night college football matchups.
Based upon the above, and considering the Evil Empire's ability to move games and times around to suit their fancy, we may not miss out on any quality football. So instead of napping through Temple at Rice at 4:30 on ESPN2, we'll be napping though cars turning left at 4:30 on ESPN2.
*I've already set my TiVo.
3 comments:
Um, I wanted to add another paragraph to that, but Blogger doesn't like tables and if I try to edit the post, the thing gets all whacky, anyway...
I'm still not in support of the change, but from ESPN's point of view, the broadcasting of Busch races will probably up their ratings during the Saturday afternoon portion of the day. Hopefully, CBS and ESPN will consistently have quality games during that afternoon time slot. But of course, we, as college football fans, will have one less choice during each Busch race.
Hopefully, ESPN continues to fuck around with the conferences (from moving games to weeknights to discarding the game coverage completely as here) to the point that conferences can begin to cry "Breach!" and start looking to other networks, i.e. CBS and Fox.
I would rather watch a Temple inter-squad scrimmage than a Busch race. The problem I have is that if ESPN is going to control every conference then show games at every turn, not alternative programing. Don't give me a race on Saturday and don't give me figure skating. There are games that need to be seen dammit and I'm just the guy to give them that love. Let it happen.
It was bad enough I couldnt see the WV-Pitt basketball game last night , but when I checked ESPN2 just to see if they had a better game on I almost pissed myself. They showed adults playing basketball video games for an hour ( kinda like the madden challenge) I think I am getting ready to get Direct TV --ESPN execs have been doing too much blow!!
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