Big East plans for New Year's Eve 2014?

[MUPanther]

They are doing the marathon NYE conference openers again. BE schedule should be released in about 2 months.

That is good news. Hope it continues and becomes a NYE BE tradition every year!

I do like it, but in 2015 & 2016 the college football playoff falls on NYE.

[Omaha1]

They are doing the marathon NYE conference openers again. BE schedule should be released in about 2 months.

That is good news. Hope it continues and becomes a NYE BE tradition every year!

I do like it, but in 2015 & 2016 the college football playoff falls on NYE.

Are those games going to be on Fox? If not, I'd think FS1 would want some counter programming.

[MUPanther]

It's on ESPN. You not going to counter the final four of football.

[stever20]

Has there been any confirmation that it's going to be a marathon NYE again? Last year we had confirmation of this June 28th. I would think if this was going to happen again that we would have seen an announcement of this officially by now quite frankly.

I do think the football playoff plays a big part of this as well. It's a poison pill 2/3 years. Also, you start getting into it being a Saturday or Sunday and the NFL starts getting in the way as well. I really think what we may see is like a 2 day season opening period on the 29th and 30th. Like a double header on the 29th and then a triple header on the 30th. You get almost all the benefits of the NYE marathon, but without the football problem. And, for fox, you can believe they don't want to compete with football there at all. Going up against the Liberty/Sun/Chick-Fil-a bowl last year(with a combined 3 top 25 teams in 4 games) vs pretty much guaranteed 5-6 top 15 teams in 3 games this year- that's just a huge difference. I mean, do you think Fox is going to want to air Villanova/Xavier up against a possible Orange Bowl of say Clemson/Notre Dame? I don't think so at all. It's just a big difference from last year to this year with regards to the football. Pretty much why would fox want to bury 5 of their 60ish conference games against football?

Also, look at the ratings for last year- w/o the big football competition:
St John's/Xavier 98k
Providence/Seton Hall 30k
DePaul/Georgetown 44k
Villanova/Butler 143k
Marquette/Creighton 100k

hardly great ratings, especially for the day games. Villanova/Butler and Marquette/Creighton aren't drawing even that if they're going up against Fiesta and Orange Bowls. Last year- for comparison's sake- the Peach bowl drew a 5.3 rating and 8.69 million viewers. It's going to be WORSE this year.

Also, it's not like the Big East is brand new this year. I think that was the major reason for doing it this past year- nothing more than that at all. Just here we are- let's roll.. Don't have that same need this year.

[DudeAnon]

stever20, you really need to hold off on using tv ratings based on a 1 year sample size with a brand new tv channel. The rest of your argument has merit though.

[stever20]

stever20, you really need to hold off on using tv ratings based on a 1 year sample size with a brand new tv channel. The rest of your argument has merit though.

I don't think the tv ratings here this time had much to do with a new tv channel. The BEST game anywhere of the day drew barely over 1 million viewers(Indiana/Illinois). The 5 ESPN2 games averaged 576k viewers WITH that game. The worst game on that day(Independence Bowl)- got a 1.4 rating. The Best basketball game anywhere that day got a 0.7 rating..

And the important thing to remember, the quality of football on that day now is going to go up 1000 fold from before- and that's this year coming up. Next 2 years- it's going up against the semifinal games in the football playoff. There's counter programming and then there is being smart. If the quality of football was going to remain what it was this year- yes, there would have been a chance that it could continue. But, with it being so much better now going forward- I just don't see it... And like I said, I think if it was going to happen again, we would have heard something about this from the league and or fox.

[FormulaX]

I just think a "BE opening marathon" would be a great "tradition" to continue. It doesn't always have to be on NYE. They should do it as long as they can.

[gosports1]

Has there been any confirmation that it's going to be a marathon NYE again? Last year we had confirmation of this June 28th. I would think if this was going to happen again that we would have seen an announcement of this officially by now quite frankly.

I do think the football playoff plays a big part of this as well. It's a poison pill 2/3 years. Also, you start getting into it being a Saturday or Sunday and the NFL starts getting in the way as well. I really think what we may see is like a 2 day season opening period on the 29th and 30th. Like a double header on the 29th and then a triple header on the 30th. You get almost all the benefits of the NYE marathon, but without the football problem. And, for fox, you can believe they don't want to compete with football there at all. Going up against the Liberty/Sun/Chick-Fil-a bowl last year(with a combined 3 top 25 teams in 4 games) vs pretty much guaranteed 5-6 top 15 teams in 3 games this year- that's just a huge difference. I mean, do you think Fox is going to want to air Villanova/Xavier up against a possible Orange Bowl of say Clemson/Notre Dame? I don't think so at all. It's just a big difference from last year to this year with regards to the football. Pretty much why would fox want to bury 5 of their 60ish conference games against football?

Also, look at the ratings for last year- w/o the big football competition:
St John's/Xavier 98k
Providence/Seton Hall 30k
DePaul/Georgetown 44k
Villanova/Butler 143k
Marquette/Creighton 100k

hardly great ratings, especially for the day games. Villanova/Butler and Marquette/Creighton aren't drawing even that if they're going up against Fiesta and Orange Bowls. Last year- for comparison's sake- the Peach bowl drew a 5.3 rating and 8.69 million viewers. It's going to be WORSE this year.

Also, it's not like the Big East is brand new this year. I think that was the major reason for doing it this past year- nothing more than that at all. Just here we are- let's roll.. Don't have that same need this year.

as soonas i read this post i knew who wrote it before looking at the name..

[MUPanther]

The college football playoff will be so big, other NYE bowl games of the past like the Sun Bowl are moving their game to another date.

[stever20]

The college football playoff will be so big, other NYE bowl games of the past like the Sun Bowl are moving their game to another date.

yeah- Sun, Liberty both have been NYE games for years and they are gone off that date now.

The thing that made it special to me was that it was a marathon of games- not that it was on NYE. If it had been on 12/30- it's almost just as special.