It is an enormous risk, too; for a team which for decades played at 12:30 every week to a new Pac 12 which saw later start times yet was still very much doable for most fans to … nearly an entire season with 7:30 kickoffs????
A lot of fans undoubtedly won’t be renewing season tix. 7:30 start times means that many families with younger kids are out. Folks who do attend games will leave quite early, as BART is already enough of a hassle.
I remember having to illegally stream games from Kentucky mid 200s. At some point, Comcast added Pac-10 network so I was able to watch legally. I forgot who it was but he used to stream games online.
In a word, this schedule blows! Why so many late starts? I thought that moving to a more east coast oriented conference was supposed to get us more tv visibility? Half the country will be in bed by the time these games start and finish. The only late game that makes sense is at SDSU on September 20th. San Diego can get hotter than hell in the fall and there is ZERO shade at Snapdragon. In fact, when it opened three years ago, 500 fans had to be treated for heat exhaustion. I hope we have better luck this year in San Diego than in the past. The last Cal victory that I can recall that happened there was the 2006 Holiday Bowl.
Great info re Snapdragon. My nephew is at SDSU and when texting him during a sunny game the other year he said he was BOILING. As we're in Atlanta and it was a crazy humid hot day for us, we laughed and laughed about his SD heat (BOILING is still our go to on hot weather descriptions). Guess we need to cut him a break!
Macarolina: The heat is no joke. On opening day three years ago, the temperature in the stands was 110 degrees and 120 degrees on the field! One of my students was an SDSU yell leader on the sidelines and he almost passed out!
Better than not having a conference though. Don’t forget, we were on the brink of complete destruction of our football program. We need to make do with what we have.
I've supported Cal athletics, particularly football, for more than sixty years. I agonized about renewing my tickets this year, but gave in after reading some supportive articles on this blog. After seeing these times, I can see I made a mistake. At 79, attending games starting at 7:30 is too difficult for me. I'm very sad about this. I guess my days of live attendance are behind me.
Please football gods let the Duke game be an afternoon kickoff, the Oregon State 7:30 kickoff was brutal after our daughter bid to get us into the frat parties. xD
Good for you, Chuck! I usually park over by the Claremont Hotel and attend the games alone, so it's a long walk and not so desirable after a late game. I'm sure I'll be there for any afternoon games that pop up. Go Bears!
Oh come on. I'm much older than you and drive 115 miles to Memorial every home game. If it's a night game, I stay overnight at a Nice motel. I still walk over a mile every day and irrigate and mow my five acres. (I have a little tractor mower) So going to a Cal game isn't that much trouble.
I find comments like this extremely rude. It's great that you still enjoy going to games but don't try to invalidate someone else's feelings with your "oh come on."
A lot of fans undoubtedly — and understandably — won’t be renewing season tix this summer. 7:30 start times means that many families with younger kids are out. Folks who do attend games will leave quite early, as BART is already enough of a hassle.
It is an enormous risk, too; for a team which for decades played at 12:30 every week to a new Pac 12 which saw later start times yet was still very much doable for most fans to … nearly an entire season with 7:30 kickoffs???? While such a scenario would not be a big deal for teams who for decades have played late night games…
Such a scenario does NOT work here; if anything, the universities come off as being played by the incredibly wealthy TV folks, who are making buckets of money off of their football games.
My dad used to be a regent, and he opposed the move.
He was a fantastic businessman, as founder & president of CA Land Management, and possessed the rare gift of not only looking at the long-term, but also demonstrating a WILLINGNESS to factor that in to all of his decisions.
Sadly, what we are seeing now is the result of “unbelievable” naivety.
If you think we were on the brink of complete destruction you don't have a clue how much our big alum's influence and money can travel! To bad we choked on the Apple TV deal. Viewership on streaming is over 40% (Nielsen Report) and growing we would have been way ahead of the curve by now. If we can raise over 1MM in 48hrs we would have crushed a streaming deal in the new Pac12.
I think there's a minor say, in that we don't ever get Thursday games at home, only Friday or Saturday (owing to logistics of being in an urban area with no parking). It would probably require a waiver for any game to start earlier than noon as well. But for the most part, not really.
Good for you Bob living so close to Campus. Looking forward to all games. Our Cal crowd and family will probably attend Cal vs SDSU at their new stadium at 7:30 pm on September 20. Would like to go to Boston this year but it is not in the cards.
To hell with those 7:30 slots! ;-)
It is an enormous risk, too; for a team which for decades played at 12:30 every week to a new Pac 12 which saw later start times yet was still very much doable for most fans to … nearly an entire season with 7:30 kickoffs????
A lot of fans undoubtedly won’t be renewing season tix. 7:30 start times means that many families with younger kids are out. Folks who do attend games will leave quite early, as BART is already enough of a hassle.
It is not good.
Yeah not ideal but when we become better, we will get better time slots.
Newellbany and I still lament the days when many of Cal’s FB and MBB games weren’t even on tv, the Ed Gray game in Pullman especially.
Unfortunately TV ended up being the thing that basically killed the sports. Go figure.
I remember having to illegally stream games from Kentucky mid 200s. At some point, Comcast added Pac-10 network so I was able to watch legally. I forgot who it was but he used to stream games online.
In a word, this schedule blows! Why so many late starts? I thought that moving to a more east coast oriented conference was supposed to get us more tv visibility? Half the country will be in bed by the time these games start and finish. The only late game that makes sense is at SDSU on September 20th. San Diego can get hotter than hell in the fall and there is ZERO shade at Snapdragon. In fact, when it opened three years ago, 500 fans had to be treated for heat exhaustion. I hope we have better luck this year in San Diego than in the past. The last Cal victory that I can recall that happened there was the 2006 Holiday Bowl.
The 7:30 ESPN games actually get pretty good TV visibility, because not much else is on at that time.
There’s a reason not much else is on.
Regardless, those games do well in the ratings. Not as well as the prime-time Fox/ABC games, but they do well on the basic-cable tier.
Great info re Snapdragon. My nephew is at SDSU and when texting him during a sunny game the other year he said he was BOILING. As we're in Atlanta and it was a crazy humid hot day for us, we laughed and laughed about his SD heat (BOILING is still our go to on hot weather descriptions). Guess we need to cut him a break!
Macarolina: The heat is no joke. On opening day three years ago, the temperature in the stands was 110 degrees and 120 degrees on the field! One of my students was an SDSU yell leader on the sidelines and he almost passed out!
So much for playing a normal schedule. I rather play teams on the West Coast. Being in the ACC is really stupid!!!!
Better than not having a conference though. Don’t forget, we were on the brink of complete destruction of our football program. We need to make do with what we have.
I've supported Cal athletics, particularly football, for more than sixty years. I agonized about renewing my tickets this year, but gave in after reading some supportive articles on this blog. After seeing these times, I can see I made a mistake. At 79, attending games starting at 7:30 is too difficult for me. I'm very sad about this. I guess my days of live attendance are behind me.
Many of the other games will likely be afternoon kickoffs, don’t lose hope!
Here's hoping you're right.
Please football gods let the Duke game be an afternoon kickoff, the Oregon State 7:30 kickoff was brutal after our daughter bid to get us into the frat parties. xD
My sentiments exactly. What happened to mid-day tailgating? Getting home from a game at 1:00 am doesn’t work. The game day experience is ruined.
I'm 82 and still attend night games with our extended Cal family.
Good for you, Chuck! I usually park over by the Claremont Hotel and attend the games alone, so it's a long walk and not so desirable after a late game. I'm sure I'll be there for any afternoon games that pop up. Go Bears!
How far do you have to drive to get home?
Benicia About 25 miles
Oh come on. I'm much older than you and drive 115 miles to Memorial every home game. If it's a night game, I stay overnight at a Nice motel. I still walk over a mile every day and irrigate and mow my five acres. (I have a little tractor mower) So going to a Cal game isn't that much trouble.
I find comments like this extremely rude. It's great that you still enjoy going to games but don't try to invalidate someone else's feelings with your "oh come on."
Sucks.
90 days to kick off baby.....GO BEARS FOREVER!
A lot of fans undoubtedly — and understandably — won’t be renewing season tix this summer. 7:30 start times means that many families with younger kids are out. Folks who do attend games will leave quite early, as BART is already enough of a hassle.
It is an enormous risk, too; for a team which for decades played at 12:30 every week to a new Pac 12 which saw later start times yet was still very much doable for most fans to … nearly an entire season with 7:30 kickoffs???? While such a scenario would not be a big deal for teams who for decades have played late night games…
Such a scenario does NOT work here; if anything, the universities come off as being played by the incredibly wealthy TV folks, who are making buckets of money off of their football games.
It is not good.
I couldn’t agree more. Being played, and it doesn’t have to be this way. Cal is being treated as the ugly West Coast stepchild of the ACC.
My dad used to be a regent, and he opposed the move.
He was a fantastic businessman, as founder & president of CA Land Management, and possessed the rare gift of not only looking at the long-term, but also demonstrating a WILLINGNESS to factor that in to all of his decisions.
Sadly, what we are seeing now is the result of “unbelievable” naivety.
Which, sadly, is not an ultra-rare occurrence.
Like this schedule. Looking forward.to BC. Wish we could travel with the team to Beantown.
*sigh* playing Minnesota makes me think of ... Jahvid Best!
Going to be recording and viewing these games the next day. Maybe a good thing if I need to FF through the pain of watching if it all goes south.
Agree. I wont go to night games
If you think we were on the brink of complete destruction you don't have a clue how much our big alum's influence and money can travel! To bad we choked on the Apple TV deal. Viewership on streaming is over 40% (Nielsen Report) and growing we would have been way ahead of the curve by now. If we can raise over 1MM in 48hrs we would have crushed a streaming deal in the new Pac12.
Does a Cal representative ever have a say in scheduling?
No. They dont pay us much and kill home attendance. I wouldcrather playing wsu and osu schedulr
I think there's a minor say, in that we don't ever get Thursday games at home, only Friday or Saturday (owing to logistics of being in an urban area with no parking). It would probably require a waiver for any game to start earlier than noon as well. But for the most part, not really.
Good for you Bob living so close to Campus. Looking forward to all games. Our Cal crowd and family will probably attend Cal vs SDSU at their new stadium at 7:30 pm on September 20. Would like to go to Boston this year but it is not in the cards.
Go Bears!
Thanks for the update. I have trouble getting ESPN+. I'll try on you tube after the Oregan St game.