Nothing wrong in trying. With the health concerns for people in the hot sun (especially our older patrons who get sun stroke easily) as well as desire to increase attendance, there may be something which can be done for these FCS and maybe GSU type games that are projected to have very low TV viewership. Maybe ESPN cares that the 10,000 people watching our game wouldn't be watching Clemson / UGAg, but I doubt it.
Last year we suggested to the GTAA in an end of the year survey to be able to bring in water since we were season ticket holders and it was distasteful to be nickle & dimed for water after contributing $1600 to GTAA. This year season tickets holders have bags they can bring food and water in. Change is possible, although unlikely. If no one tries, there won't be change.
But as the creation of conference specific networks goes forward than the noon starts will only become even more entrenched, especially given that the conferences have expanded numbers of members as well. There is only so many time slots on a Saturday that
one channel can schedule the games it has for broadcast. The networks and conferences do not care about attendance at these games. If the revenue is generated at the level of the tv contracts then there is no chance, under the current and foreseeable model, that the GTAA can do anything about noon home games in August and September.
The same phenomenon has been seen with bowl games for years, no television channel cares about attendance at the game. if the start time discourages attendance it doesn't matter. What matters is not 20-30-50k people there
not watching your commercials but the 250-400K or however high the number goes of tv sets with the game on.
Here is the SEC tv schedule for noon/2 p.m. games this coming Saturday:
Florida Atlantic at
Alabama, noon, SEC Network
Missouri at Toledo, noon, ABC/ESPN
Arkansas State at
Tennessee, noon, SEC Network
UAB at
Mississippi State, 2 p.m., ESPN3
I suspect the Bama fans are gonna be pretty hot in Tuscaloosa. Same for the Ole Miss fans in Starkville and both towns are on the approximately same line of latitude as Atlanta. Knoxville is farther north but It could still be a scorcher for Vols fans.
The GTAA cares about attendance and comfort so it was nice that they disregarded the insane lockdown mentality of American public venues enough to allow a way for season ticket holders to bring in water. But I stand by my contention that it is an idle and (for them) likely tedious complaint to lodge about start times in the summer. The only way I see the GTAA to have any role in influencing these is if they could get the
conference to schedule conference games to open the year (like when we played VT on Labor Day) or end up with some higher cache OOC games in these hotter weeks to try and entice networks into moving the Tech game to a later slot. Even Bama gets the noon slot when they play a lower cache team early in the season.
One thought I had was that while umbrellas are properly not allowed because they block other spectators views, maybe there could be strategic areas set aside for these kind of games where a tent or overhang is erected? It could possibly be in the nosebleed corner sections in which tickets are already going to be sparsely sold for these games. With help from some ushers they could keep such areas from overcrowding. Or some other kinds of standing room only areas with shading or overhang.
