Worries of Friday night conflict with Big Ten are overblown

I'm sort of surprised to find myself in the minority on this one, but when the Big Ten announced it would begin experimenting with Friday night games in 2017, I wasn't sensing an overt threat to high-school football as much as others. On Tuesday, the league announced its first slate of games, including Wisconsin vs. Utah State on Sept. 1, 2017, -- Week 3 of the prep football season.

I'm not surprised that there is outcry, as Friday night has always been viewed as an evening for the high-school game, and nobody wants to choose between watching two favorite teams play. But I don't share my colleagues' view that this is a travesty. Of course, I acknowledge that this is a "money grab"; the Big Ten is taking an opportunity to grow its brand by finding new windows for nationally-televised games, and it doesn't seem to care about any harm it might do to the perceptively pristine fabric of football (the varsity level of the sport). It also seems a bit disingenuous suggesting it had received support from so many sources, including the 11 athletic associations involving the states of Big Ten teams. Travis Wilson of Wissports reported that Dave Anderson, executive director of the WIAA, wasn't called by Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany until after the release was up on the Big Ten Network's website.

But I long ago surrendered to the idea that the NCAA puts dollar signs before traditions, and in most cases, I think that's justifiable. The NCAA is a national business, and to pretend otherwise is naive. I don't even think it's worth bemoaning. There are no secrets here. Tradition doesn't fit neatly into many business models, and if that's something you hold dear, the NCAA has already let you down at several turns.

Penn State, a school in the high-school football hotbed of Pennsylvania, already released a statement saying it will decline any Friday night games (as schools are given the right to do). Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez said he would only want to play games pre-Labor Day, which would still potentially conflict with the first two or three weeks in Wisconsin of high school football. When the schedule came out, sure enough, there was the conflict. But it's not worth sweating.

1. It's barely going to make a ripple on our viewing habits. The Big Ten wants to move six total games to Friday, so in all likelihood, Wisconsin (or any of the Big Ten schools) will appear exactly one time on a Friday night each season. Yes, that's likely to interfere with a high school football game, but it's not as if the maneuver is an all-out takeover of Friday night, unless you're talking about a subset of fans craving every single Big Ten game. We'll still have a wealth of Saturday games, and it seems likely the "good ones" will be saved for higher-visibility windows on Saturday (consult the 2017 schedule for proof). Perhaps you can view this as just a first step on a slippery slope, but for now, there's no evidence to suggest we're headed there.

2. Prep games are a captive audience. The vast majority of fans who attend high school games are parents or students, and they're not likely to choose the college game over their own friends and family. Sure, a small handful of community members attend high school games, and that number is much larger in rural communities, I would wager, but to think the attendance at games will be dramatically affected is overstating it. The communal draw of the prep atmosphere and the simple fact that a fan can surely get Big Ten updates on their phone -- but not necessarily all the high-school scores -- will ensure that community members will still be sitting in the bleachers on Friday.

3. These are pre-November games. Upper-tier playoff games, the contests that truly draw a large audience beyond the simple school community, will not be affected. If Alvarez stays true to his early statement, most conference games in Wisconsin will also be safe from any Badgers interference.

4. Media conflicts don't really apply anymore. There was a time when one argument against this maneuver would be that it robs high school kids of coverage, since newspapers on Saturday morning would naturally devote more precious column inches to the college game. That's especially true in an age where fewer and fewer high school games get full coverage, as newspapers shrink. But we've long ago moved past that model. Web coverage enables lengthier stories that don't necessarily see the light of day in print, and fans of high school sports will still have their specific sources of information. The newspaper hasn't been the primary source of information in a long time. Maybe a radio station that would otherwise cover a high school game has the college game that week, but again, we're talking about one game a year (and only one displaced local game). In smaller communities, when the high school team gets top billing each week, that's not likely to change. Weeklies and small dailies only give cursory coverage to content beyond the hyperlocal, such as pro or college sports.

5. Smartphones and DVR. Who even needs to choose between two sporting events? When I'm at a game at the same time as another event, I can get real-time updates in any number of ways, and if I don't want to experience the game that way, I can record it at home easily with DVR and watch it on playback. Perhaps not everyone has access to these luxuries, but their proliferation allows for most to consume exactly the information they want in the precise way they want.

6. Does high school football really deserve dibs on Friday?: I agree it's a longstanding tradition that high school football "owns" Friday night. But what is it about that arrangement that is so hallowed? We've already seen the erosion of the traditional Friday-Saturday-Sunday dynamic, with NFL games on Thursday, college games in the middle of the week and even high school games on Thursday nights. Does Friday football get added cachet because there is literally a bestselling book called "Friday Night Lights"? It's a cool thing, but I don't find a compelling reason why it's sacrosanct, especially when other sports don't get anywhere near the same consideration. The NCAA Tournament seems to collide with the high school basketball state tournaments every year, a frequent disappointment of mine. But that's just the nature of playing at a time when the college and pro equivalents are also in season. 

High school football is special because it's high school football, not because it's the only show in town on a particular day of the week.

A first version of this story appeared on the "First and Short" blog last week at LakeCountryNow.com. Read a counterpoint from Travis Wilson of Wissports.net at LakeCountryNow.com.