In the no-surprise department, ABC selected Notre Dame-Purdue for its primetime 8 p.m. (ET) showcase game Saturday. It would be a bigger surprise if it didn’t.
With the Irish home games locked in with NBC, ABC/ESPN is going to make the most of its opportunities to exploit its rights to any Notre Dame road game on its menu. So of course, ABC asked them to turn on the lights in West Lafayette Saturday.
It doesn’t matter that the Boilermakers were pummeled by Cincinnati 42-7 in the opener, and then squeezed out a 20-14 victory over Indiana State last week. That’s Indiana State, not Indiana. The Boilermakers are playing Notre Dame. The Irish could be playing at Lou Holtz Middle School and Brent and Kirk would be on the call in primetime.
To be fair to ABC/ESPN, beyond Alabama-Texas A&M, which is on CBS, it is a weak Saturday for college football. It underscores how few good games there are in non-conference play. The big teams are bent on ripping off fans by scheduling easy wins. And they complain about preseason games in the NFL.
However, from a quality standpoint, No. 16 UCLA at No. 23 Nebraska is a much better game. It also features two well-known programs that have some national appeal.
Yet ABC is airing that game at noon ET.
It should be pointed out that the decisions on early-season primetime games were made in the spring. So it wasn’t a matter of ABC choosing ND-Purdue over UCLA-Nebraska in the last couple of weeks..
But safe to say, ABC would have gone the same way if they made the decision this week. It’s an easy choice for ABC/ESPN. The Irish pull in big ratings, as evidenced by last week’s Michigan-Notre Dame game.
So turn on the lights for Notre Dame. Again.
Its good business , give the people what they want ! Isn’t that what tv and ratings are all about ? Yes Neb and UCLA are somewhat well known and arguably somewhat nationally known,but thats still stretching it. How many people outside L.A. or Nebraska can name the coach or any one player from either team. What kind of ratings would the game get from NY/Boston market or east coast market.
On the other hand Notre Dame is not national , it is world -wide. ND/PU is one of the oldest rivalries around. Put up ND/PU against UCLA/Neb , then check ratings in New York , Boston FL , N.C. and Texas…away from all the home regions.
I realize you wrote this before hand , so its easy for me to say the ND/PU game was by far the better game and was almost a huge upset most of the night !!! Good decision by ABC it was a win win. ND on the road is not always a gimme even against heavy underdogs. Every team brings out their very best against ND. You will not see a crowd at Purdue for the rest of the year like you saw tonight. Not as big and definitely not as loud , not even against I.U.
Unfortunately, ESPN picks the games for ABC and they have done a horrible job the last few years, picking the games that go on ABC. Here is some examples: last weeks Florida vs Miami and Michigan vs Notre Dame should have been on ABC. Last year, they had Temple televised on ABC….TEMPLE….come on now. They now either put one or two games at the 3:30 PM Eastern Time slot instead of the 3 or 4 they ABC used to when they had control of college football.