EAST LANSING – I could hear the collective groan on social media Monday before I even picked up my phone: Another freakin’ night game.
Michigan State’s football game at Michigan next week had been slated for an evening kickoff. This, following this week’s homecoming night game against Iowa, which followed three more night games — at Boston College, against Ohio State and at Oregon.
Six of MSU’s first eight games are at night, including three of their four home dates in September and October. The Spartans will play one more night game still after that — Friday night, Nov. 22, at Spartan Stadium against Purdue. MSU athletic director Alan Haller has been assured by the Big Ten that that’ll be it. Still, that’s seven of 12 games played under the lights, including four of seven at home. MSU’s game against Prairie View A&M, hardly the highlight of the schedule, will be the only game at Spartan Stadium before November played in the afternoon.
There are people that love this. But they’re in the minority. In a fan poll on X (aka Twitter) on Wednesday, only 9% of the nearly 2,500 who participated chose night games for their preferred start time. The late-afternoon kickoff, at 3:30 or 4 p.m., was by far the most popular time slot, taking 52% of the vote, followed by noon at 27% and those who didn’t mind either way at 12%.
What frustrates fans mostly is the lack of variety — the absence of those sweet-spot 3:30 games, which allow for optimal tailgating and still for folks traveling from a distance to get home before midnight, and the zero noon games, which come with a different vibe and give fans their evenings — and underlying it all, I think, the sense that MSU is being asked to do something others aren’t.
“Having to drive west on I-96 after midnight with lots of people who have been tailgating all day is not enjoyable,” fan Brian Bartels said.
“I just can’t drive up to a game unless I get a local hotel room,” David Jackson said. “That’s too much money to do more than once a year.”
“Night games were brutal for sales at the bars downtown (in East Lansing),” said Nolan Ruffing, a managing partner at The Riv for nearly five years in the mid-2010s. “Three-thirty was the sweet spot for big sales numbers.”
These were three of more than 90 replies to the poll. There were others that said noon was the only good option, because that’s when college football is meant to be played. And those that preferred the night games so they could watch games after family activities and obligations during the day and in peace without their young children. Others bemoaned that it’s hard take kids to games that start so late.
You can’t please everyone — 15 years ago, folks complained about too many noon games. But the prevailing sentiment is that incessant night games aren’t it.
MSU’s athletic director is with you.
“It does produce a very long day, not only for our student-athletes, but then for those (fans) who are coming in,” MSU AD Alan Haller said. “We’ve had people driving in as much as four or five hours away. It makes for a long day for those that are working the game. I get that. I’m an athletic director, but I’m a fan first and I’m really concerned about the experience.
“You get hyped up for a couple of night games, but then when it comes to be every week that it’s a night game, it makes it difficult for planning purposes, and then also the next day and travel.”
Two things to know: Night games aren’t going anywhere; but there also shouldn’t be this many for MSU again.
MSU signed off on its football night game tolerances a while back — first athletic director Mark Hollis and then, ahead of this latest media rights deal, Bill Beekman. They’re in the second year of the current seven-year agreement which allows for MSU to have up to five night games a season, three at home. I doubt either former MSU AD could have envisioned this seven-night-game scenario when they agreed to allow up to five.
The recent media rights deal — with Fox/FS1, the Big Ten Network, CBS and NBC/Peacock — has added more primetime games, while the addition of four new Big Ten teams has added more inventory. Somehow, though, MSU keeps getting picked.
NBC/Peacock has the Saturday night 7:30 p.m. primetime window. Fox has Friday night games most weeks and some late-night Saturday games, with its partner BTN in there some weeks, too. Fox, the Big Ten’s primary rights holder, has “Big Noon,” a creation out of thin air that’s worked from a ratings standpoint and has put more of the biggest games on early. If MSU improves as a team, the Spartans will find themselves playing more often at noon. CBS has the 3:30 window, along with games on FS1 and BTN.
These games are part of the seven-year, $8 billion media rights deal signed a year ago. So, again, this is life now.
But it shouldn’t be quite this extreme again. Haller described this year as an “aberration” because MSU’s game at Boston College, which fell under the Atlantic Coast Conference TV deal, wasn’t part of MSU’s five tolerances for night games and neither was the Friday night opener on Labor Day weekend, because MSU requested it.
“I have asked moving forward that they include that Friday night (opening) game in our tolerances,” Haller said.
So a year from now, when all of MSU’s games are under the Big Ten’s media umbrella (because the Boston College return game is at home), the Spartans can’t play more than five of their 12 games at night. It’s still a lot potentially. More than the old days when MSU brought in temporary lights at Spartan Stadium for big games. Night games will never feel special again simply because they’re at night. But unless there’s an unexpected fan revolt that’s felt in the wallet, fans are just going to have to plan for them.
MORE: Michigan State football vs. Iowa: 5 determining factors and a prediction
More than the night games, Haller was upset that the MSU-Ohio State game was slotted at night, before a short week and a trip out west to Oregon for a Friday night game.
“Maybe the result would have been the same, but I thought that put us and my kids at a disadvantage,” Haller said, making clear that none of the players or coaches complained to him. “And so moving forward, we’ve got to have people to look at these and say, ‘Hey, we can’t have that.’ ”
Nobody else in the Big Ten has been asked to do that this season. And, other than MSU — among Big Ten teams not on the West Coast — only one other Big Ten team has played more than three of its first eight games at night. That’s Northwestern, with four night games so far.
Five teams — Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State — will have played three night games by the end of October. Oregon and MSU are the only Big Ten teams to have played six times at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time or later.
One of the top three games every week will be at night — NBC’s pick — so it’s not an insult to be picked for primetime, even if noon has somehow become more prestigious. But for the fans getting home at 2 or 3 a.m. and the bars missing out on the crowd, it’s not ideal. It’s tedious. College football shouldn’t be tedious.
“Give me a mix,” fan Eric Schultz said. “Love the Friday night opener. I think an ideal season would be the Friday night opener, one additional night game, two at noon and three at 3:30.”
You hear that, TV executives?
Contact Graham Couch on gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch.
