College basketball as a whole will see around 200 games today, into this evening and into the early hours of Tuesday morning. It is part of the tradition that kicks off the season to throw so many games at you it will make your head spin. I’ve been putting this blog together for around half an hour now and in that timeframe four games tipped off and the IU Indianapolis Jaguars took a 48-21 lead over the IU Columbus Crimson Pride. We are now being ushered into the richest season of sports where we make the turn on the NFL season and break into college basketball. But out of all the games taking place today, one stands out amongst them all. #6 Gonzaga welcomes #8 Baylor in for what could very well be a preview of the National Championship this season. It is a basketball junkies fix seeing two blue-blood powerhouses like these two face off. There’s only one slight inconvenience, the game tips off at 10:30 PM CT.
At first, you think it kind of makes sense since Gonzaga is located on the west coast in Spokane. But after doing a little digging, that isn’t really the case. Through its deal with the WCC (West Coast Conference), ESPN owns the rights to Gonzaga’s home games which means they get to set the tip times. It still doesn’t make sense when you think that ESPN is alienating two-thirds of the country by starting this game off at an absurd hour, until you realize their other programming tonight. ESPN’s Monday Night Football has the Kansas City Chiefs on their airwaves tonight and they wouldn’t dare self-impose by putting two great games on the air at once.
To play devils advocate for a moment, it makes sense. ESPN would be battling with themselves for viewership numbers and those numbers are what gets the contracts signed. But I feel bad for the working men and women who don’t have the night-time longevity they once had. It’s a struggle enough to make it through half-time of Sunday Night Football most weeks and we’re talking about 9-9:15ish. How does ESPN expect us to be resilient enough to stick around after what I can only expect will be another Chiefs game filled with controversy, to watch another game that will likely be filled with more controversy? It’s an uphill battle.
If you’ve got the grit in your gut to watch this game into the early hours of Tuesday morning, the game can be found on ESPN2. If you don’t, do not worry, I will be in the trenches watching every dribble so you don’t have to.
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