2017 ACC Football Schedule
* The ACC press release did not note the potential television networks for Friday night games Miami at Duke (9/29), Clemson at Syracuse (10/13) and Florida St. at Boston College (10/27), but I would expect them to be ESPN or ESPN2, similar to the three Thursday night games which were noted for ESPN or ESPN2 in the release. I believe the first two games will be on ESPN and Florida St. at Boston College on ESPN2 as ESPN typically carries the NBA on Fridays starting in late October.
* All three Friday night games above coincide with Fridays where the Big Ten has Friday night games scheduled, with Nebraska at Illinois on 9/29, Northwestern at Maryland on 10/13 and Michigan St. at Northwestern on 10/27. I don't think that necessarily ties the Big Ten games to FOX Sports as both the ACC and Big Ten could occupy ESPN and ESPN2 on all three nights, though October 27th, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, could be a challenge. October 13th could be the potential date for ALCS Game 1, so both games on that date could belong to ESPN. October 27th, as mentioned above, has the potential for NBA games on ESPN. Assuming Florida St. at Boston College on ESPN2 & not ESPNU, that would leave Michigan St. at Northwestern with FOX Sports, more likely FS1 as the MLB calendar notes that the World Series starts on October 24th, making the 27th the date of Game 3, provided a travel day on Thursday & no weather issues.
9/29 and 10/13 also have Pac-12 games scheduled (USC at Washington St & Washington St. at California, respectively), so someone should have a doubleheader or two. How that will work with 10/13 remains to be seen.
* Miami (FL) at Florida St. & Clemson at Louisville on 9/16? Would expect both on ABC. All four schools in the top 25 for ESPN's Way-Too-Early prognostications. Where they get slotted is anyone's guess as Texas at USC is a big draw that Saturday too.
* Speaking of Miami (FL) vs. Florida St., a mid season date has been the norm, but it has been played in the recent past over Labor Day weekend, so a mid-September date isn't surprising, but it is a bit unique, at least over the past 35 years.
* A location has not been officially set for the '17 ACC football championship game but does need to be finalized soon. Might be heading back to Orlando for a second year. When doing a quick Google search, PrimeSport, the ACC's official secondary ticket marketplace, had a lot of text about the game in Orlando, though that text could have been recycled from the 2016 marketing.
8 comments:
Matt, thank you for the summary of the ACC schedule. I also noticed the significant overlap between the ACC and B1G on Friday night games and was surprised that there was not better coordination among the conferences and ESPN/Fox to space the games out so there was a game every Friday with no or minimal nights with multiple games. A large part of the rationale for having games on Friday is exclusive/maximum exposure and with overlapping games, that rational is much less compelling.
Greg, I think what you're going to see is competition for those Friday night spaces, when possible. The Big Ten, by setting aside a sizable chunk of games, has been interjected in. I don't know if this has anything to do with the NFL continuing with Thursday nights, or in the case of the Pac-12, a greater desire for games on Friday compared to Thursday.
We're still waiting on the American, who occupies a lot of Thursday & Friday slots, plus the MW, C-USA and Sun Belt, who also have a noticeable Thursday-Friday presence (the MAC less so, but does too).
Any idea where/how Rutgers might fit in with all of this?
Don't necessarily understand your question. Asking about a specific game?
Hi Matt,
Great work as always. Curious if you know which conference has the rights to the Georgia Tech/Tenn. Labor Day game?
I believe the ACC. It's on ESPN either way http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/072015aab.html
Re my previous question--which Rutgers game (or games) might be chosen. Also, potentially, at what point in the season might be the more likely choices. Thanks for any insight you can provide.
@agentofamour - Chosen for what exactly? Television or are you asking about chose to move to a Friday night. They'll all be televised and the Washington game, which was moved to a Friday night, will air on either an ESPN Network, FOX or FS1. Other Rutgers games during the early season will be set aside in late May or early June. I don't know if the rules regarding Big Ten night games require night games to continue to be selected in the spring, nor if homecoming games will have their start times set in the spring too.
I'll do a follow up post on the first three weeks on the season in a couple weeks.
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