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Greetings from “Can’t Wait For Saturday,” your morning morsel of college football, courtesy of longtime Illini beat writer, AP Top 25 voter and Heisman state rep Bob Asmussen. He’ll give you his views each day on the game he loves.
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I’m about to date myself. Not in a literal way … that would be weird. But in the “showing my age with a notable time marker” sense.
So, when I was a wee lad (I’m part Scottish), we had four television channels at home. That’s it. Seems insane now, when my DirecTV channel numbers approach the thousands.
Being limited to four channels now would be difficult. I tape four shows every night and a bunch others. Of course, we didn’t have a DVD or VCR growing up either. How did I survive? Playing back yard sports, shooting hoops daily and listening to sports — college and pro — on the radio. All great memories.
I have moved off the point of this piece, which is the current state of college football on TV compared to what I got to see in the early 1970s.
This was way before ESPN and Fox Sports and BTN. Big Fox wasn’t even a network.
On Saturdays, we would get to watch one of two college football games on ABC. That’s it. A bit more NFL, especially when Monday Night Football started, but not that much more.
I remember feeling at the time how much better my life would be if I could watch, say, five games on a Saturday. I never dreamed it would get to the point where it is rare for a major college game to not be televised.
Quick aside, the TV bill back when was $0. It all came in on an antenna with no other device needed. My hometown was late to cable TV, which was when the cost started to rise. Though so worth it.
Veering back to my topic, it looks like TNT is going to add more College Football Playoff broadcasts in the future according to multiple reports.
ESPN controls the CFP broadcast and doing fine with it. But the network sold off a few games to help handle the costs. Again, not big deal. I’m thrilled there is a more-inclusive CFP and happy we get to see the games.
It is good for college football to have a bunch of networks vying for the rights to the games. That will keep the big checks coming and that helps athletic department budgets.
Is there a point the media revenue will start to dry up. I doubt it. College sports fans are extremely loyal and have become used to watching their teams on TV.
Even with the changes in the systems and how it is delivered, the bottom line is we like to watch and that is a great thing.
Old me doesn’t want to go back to what young me dealt with … in hindsight.
