Should Nebraska/Iowa Stay on Black Friday?

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
The past two years, Black Friday’s biggest football game was Huskers-Hawkeyes. It drew 6.19 million ABC viewers in 2015 at Memorial Stadium, when Iowa was undefeated, and 4.17 million in 2016 at Kinnick.

Now, barring playoff implications, Nebraska-Iowa may lose more than half of it audience. In the newly released TV schedule for 2017, the game has been moved to Fox Sports 1. It’s a huge hit for the exposure of the rivalry.

Last year, in the same time slot as Nebraska-Iowa, FS1 broadcast TCU-Texas. It attracted 986,000 viewers.

It won’t be that bad because ABC/ESPN doesn’t appear to have anything better to put in the afternoon time slot (and Missouri-Arkansas on CBS isn’t fancy). But still, if you’re losing half your audience, then why play the game on Black Friday at all?

Dating back to 1990, the single-biggest reason for Nebraska playing the day after Thanksgiving was exposure. Lots of TV sets on a day without much competition.

Now what’s the point?
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OWH

 
I've seen this floated several times today by different media types. The thinking apparently is "if you don't have a big national audience, why play on Friday?"

Yes, it's still available nationally but probably not getting near as many causal viewers.

I know Iowa didn't really want to play on Friday to start with. Will be interesting to see if they weigh in.

 
The exposure we've gotten from it since 2011 has mostly been exposure to not be particularly glad about.

2011 was fine, but it was meaningless as far as the conference and national picture.

2012 clinched the division, but was as boring and as B1G as a game can be.

2013 the exposure was an ugly home loss with a raging maniac head coach spitting on and almost hitting refs with his hat.

2014 was an incredible game, but again, nobody outside of either school really cared.

2015 was great for Iowa. Beat Nebraska in their house to complete the perfect season and we looked as ugly as can be on our way to 5-7 by way of about 9125 interceptions.

2016 was about as embarrassing as it gets.

Keep it on Black Friday because it's cool and fun and unique. That's enough reason, I think. The exposure will hardly ever matter.

 
Would moving the game to Saturday and going up against OSU/UM and Bama/Auburn be a good idea?

 
I think I would rather play Iowa early in the year. They always get much better as the year goes along, and injuries have killed us. We played them left handed with RKIII one year and Broken TA this last year. Might not make too much of a difference not having mobile QB's but we sure have been beat up at a pretty important position for 2 of their wins. Wish our Thanksgiving game was a protected crossover with PSU. 2 newer big names to the B1G that dont have a true rival. Would be fun to watch every year even though it would be a tough game.

 
swmohusker said:
I think I would rather play Iowa early in the year. They always get much better as the year goes along, and injuries have killed us. We played them left handed with RKIII one year and Broken TA this last year. Might not make too much of a difference not having mobile QB's but we sure have been beat up at a pretty important position for 2 of their wins. Wish our Thanksgiving game was a protected crossover with PSU. 2 newer big names to the B1G that dont have a true rival. Would be fun to watch every year even though it would be a tough game.
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honestly that would be awesome.
 
Nobody outside of the Iowa/Nebraska fanbases cares about this game unless it has title implications. It's not like this game will be attracting a huge audience. That being said, it's a big blow when one of our games gets moved from OTA to digital cable because it significantly reduces potential viewers who can't afford it.

 
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I'll be honest. We need Oklahoma in B1G. Move Iowa to sooner in season and Oklahoma vs Nebraska on BF. Would be on National TV every year. Iowa will always be Iowa and won't help us get National TV coverage anymore with new tv deal. We need a dance partner

 
jaws said:
Would moving the game to Saturday and going up against OSU/UM and Bama/Auburn be a good idea?
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Very good point. Toss in FSU/UF as well (assuming UF ever gets it back together) and ND/USC (on the years the game is in LA).

 
I was curious, so I looked up all Nebraska's Thanksgiving day/weekend opponents from 1890 (YMCA) to 1959 (KSU). Not counting Oklahoma, who we started playing semi-regularly in the 40's, here is the most frequently-played Thanksgiving Day/Weekend opponents:

14x Iowa

9x KSU

5x Oregon State

4x Notre Dame

3x Illinois

2x Haskell

so, historically we have played Iowa on Thanksgiving quite a bit in the not-so-recent past. Wisconsin would be better competitively, but playing Minnesota that weekend has a lot of history for them. Penn State would be good, but would require a structural change to scheduling. Oklahoma would be ideal, but.....

 
Even though Iowa is usually a tough team, anyone outside of the Midwest doesn't care about this game. Sure all the people from the two states will tune in because neither want to lose that game, but kids on the coasts would way rather tune into Nebraska vs Ohio St, Penn St, Wisconsin, Michigan etc.

Even though we haven't been all that great it still feels like the Iowa game is a lose lose. If we win, we should have - if we don't, it's an embarrassment. That isn't a 'rivalry' you want to be a part of. IMO Iowa struck gold in getting the deal with us even though they will feel like we are living in the past.

 
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If I understand correctly, the channel is moving for sure to Fox Sports? But we don't know what time slot the game is going to be played in? Who cares about the channel? Most Husker fans will watch it regardless of the channel. And the die hard Husker fans will watch regardless of the timeslot too. The audience we'll lose is the casual sports fan. But if we're not ranked well into the top twenty most casual fans won't care about the Nebraska-Iowa game anyway. I guess I don't see what the big deal is.

 
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