Notes: Big Ten Homecoming, Arizona Bowl, Links to Previous Articles

* While we wait on finalization of the Big Ten TV contracts, here's the list of Big Ten homecoming games that have been set so far.  In the past, the start times were set for these in April or May, usually after night games were designated unless a homecoming game was moved to the evening.  I do not know if they will continue to have homecoming start times set in the spring.  Nearly all Big Ten stadiums will have permanent lights coming into the 2017 season due to the expiring TV contracts where primary networks (ie: ABC/ESPN) paid for temporary lights, so this process could be changing.

I was unable to find homecoming dates for Nebraska or Rutgers through the schools or other news reports.  I am currently connecting Ohio St.'s homecoming to this page about the Nursing major's events for homecoming.

9/23 - Michigan at Purdue, Rutgers at Nebraska
10/7 - Illinois at Iowa, Penn St. at Northwestern, Maryland at Ohio St.
10/14 - Michigan at Indiana
10/21 - Indiana at Michigan St., Illinois at Minnesota, Maryland at Wisconsin, Purdue at Rutgers
10/28 - Wisconsin at Illinois, Rutgers at Michigan, Indiana at Maryland
11/11 - Rutgers at Penn St.

FOX has their network upfront on 5/15 and ESPN has theirs the following day, so maybe those are the two dates to look out for.

* One of the items that may not have carried over as part of the Campus Insiders & ASN joint venture is the rights to the Arizona Bowl, which have been picked up by CBS Sports Network.  A few years back, it was thought that the game would end up on CBSSN, but never did.

An astute observation on the date of the game (December 30th):

@mattsarz What an interesting date they chose, same day as the Fiesta Bowl.

— Sean O'Leary (@stholeary) April 18, 2017

To be clear, the Fiesta Bowl organizing committee does also hold the license to the Cactus Bowl, but the Arizona Bowl is under its own operating committee.  With that said, the games will probably overlap in their timeslots as my expectation is the Fiesta will lead into the Orange Bowl, which has been scheduled for a primetime start.

* In the area of self-promotion:

• I wrote a piece on the remodeling of American Sports Network, which includes new backdrop programming from Campus Insiders and 120 Sports.
• Went through the exercise of guessing weeks zero through three again now that a handful of games have been set for TV
• Weeks Zero & One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• A breakdown of televised men's basketball games by conference.