Official: SAC to the MAC

[jdgaucho]

You'll probably squeeze in a home & home with South Alabama, Troy, ODU and the likes. Open the ooc up nationwide.

 

[BuckeyeHornetFan]

In the meantime, get ready for some Tuesday and Wednesday night home games. Attendance will be interesting for those nights.

This could be a disaster still with midweek games that kill attendance and momentum.

I’ve seen several people making a big deal out of these weeknight games, but is it really?

They only do the Midweek MACtion thing in November. Looking over about a half dozen schedules from 2025, the most any MAC team played Tuesday/Wednesday games was four (Massachusetts). Some only played one (Ball State) or two (Buffalo).

So, at most we’re looking at two home games played on Tuesday or Wednesday nights in November, and possibly only one.

That’s not that big of a deal, far as I can tell. And the novelty and exclusivity of it might actually turn out well. I mean, what else is going on Tuesday/Wednesday nights in November? No NFL games. No MLB games. Maybe only the occasional KINGS game?

I kinda anticipated TV/streaming viewership might be pretty good since the sports betters don’t have much else going on midweek and a cursory google search reveals the following:

“MACtion"—the Mid-American Conference's tradition of weeknight football games in November—consistently draws significantly higher television viewership on Tuesdays and Wednesdays compared to Saturday games, often by a factor of 10x or more. These games, broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU, frequently secure 100,000 to over 400,000 viewers, with high-profile matchups even exceeding 700,000.

So, while in-person attendance could definitely suffer — remote viewership should be really good according to the info above. Did Sac State forgo revenue in this deal? I hope not considering the $$$ they had to pay to get in.

Lastly, one could point out that November home games in Sacramento/NorCal doesn’t present the same cold weather challenges that occur in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York.

So perhaps Sac State’s home attendance might not suffer the same level of drop off as all the other MAC teams. We shall see.

 

[FootballAlum84]

I’ve never personally attended a weekday college football game so my experience and opinion could be void but it just feels like you lose some of the pageantry. Do do you lose out on big tailgates and the excitement of “Gameday”? Lose out on families making a day out of the game, can’t while someone is at work or high school kids have practice, whatever the case may be. Hopefully we end up on the minimal weekday game case. Nothing more exciting than a college football Saturday!

 

[FootballAlum84]

I also wonder who will be the first Big Sky team we pay to come in to town

 

[Green Laser]

I also wonder who will be the first Big Sky team we pay to come in to town

I would focus our non conference games on PAC and MWC regional opponents, Fresno, San Jose, Nevada and the rest of the PAC and MWC. Good chance to build new regional rivals. Both conferences are short of conference opponents. Whole new world of possibilites now that we are FBS!

 

[Greenteam]

I would sure hope we did not forgo revenue to get in the conference. One of the reasons Wood stated for leaving the Big Sky is the lack of revenue provided by the conference. To jump to a more costly level and get no revenue would not make sense. I think the only way this makes sense is if we can get to the MWC or new PAC 12 conference in five years. Not expecting a big jump in attendance for the conference games. I think the best outcome of all that has happened is getting to the Big West for all the other sports. Should have happened years ago.

 

[FootballAlum84]

At least in year one there could be fans from the MAC excited to travel somewhere new. Not that they will come in droves, but hoping they will travel better than the majority of big sky fans. I feel with added excitement of being FBS, around 20,000 for home games this year is completely reasonable to expect. Outside of a quirky one or two midweek games…

 

[FootballAlum84]

I would sure hope we did not forgo revenue to get in the conference. One of the reasons Wood stated for leaving the Big Sky is the lack of revenue provided by the conference. To jump to a more costly level and get no revenue would not make sense.

I don’t fully know the difference between conference revenue and TV contracts. But let’s say the rumor was true that we did forgo conference revenue, does that essentially mean that games we are playing televised we will receive zero dollars from?