Making the case for FOX's Friday night college football slate, how Smackdown factored in
College football is coming to Fridays on FOX for the upcoming season this fall. It’s another weeknight for the sport to take over and could work wonders for the network’s ratings for that slot.
On3’s Andy Staples spoke about the addition of a college game on Friday to FOX’s football slate during his show this morning. He sees it as a positive based on what he knows about television ratings on that night. That’s especially so when you compare a live sport broadcast to a usual show. While it’s a good thing for fans, he thinks it’ll be even better for the channel based on the money and viewership of a game over almost anything else.
“It’s interesting because I had this conversation with my friend, Stewart Mandel from The Athletic, a few years ago,” said Staples. “I remember we were talking about this because he sent me a copy of the weekly TV ratings. Not the cable ratings but the network ratings that have all the scripted shows, your NCISs and all that.”
“Friday night was amazing because Friday night has always been kind of a ratings graveyard for those guys. But Stewart and I were talking about this. I’ve talked to, actually, some people who work in Hollywood about this too. Like, the cost of scripted shows is so astronomical compared to the cost of live sports,” Staples explained. “Like, we talk about how much these networks pay to televise these college football games. It’s still a bargain compared to making a scripted show and praying that people like it, praying it works. So this is a much more cost-effective thing for FOX to do, especially as they lose Smackdown.”
That brings it around to Staples’ other point regarding the move of the WWE from FOX. However, he thinks it’s okay to no longer have that if they fill that slot with a college football game that fans might usually lose in the shuffle on a normal Saturday.
“The reason that FOX is doing this is they lost WWE Smackdown. That’s going to USA Network,” said Staples.
“Like, probably, the math in the Smackdown decision is, hey, we don’t want to overpay for Smackdown, which is expensive, when we already own all these rights to college football,” Staples said. “We can take a game that maybe we wouldn’t be able to give enough shine to on a Saturday. Or maybe we’d have to put it on FS1 on a Saturday. We’re going to put it on big FOX, give those programs the center stage, and, also, probably get about the same rating we get as a Smackdown show or, definitely, better than a scripted show.”
Having football on one more day is a great thing for fans. It just might be a conflict for those who also hope to consume the action under Friday night lights at high schools across the country.
Still, as Staples said, it’s okay to pick one or the other, especially considering how accessible that live television is.
“I realize that there are some people saying, ‘Okay, Big 12 country, Big Ten country – that is an attack on high school football’. You’re going to have to let that go, especially, like, in the Big 12,” said Staples. “The teams that came from the American? They were already playing on Friday nights. They already kind of crossed the rubicon on that one.”
“Plus, you’re at the high school game. There’s a timeout, it’s halftime – you can pop it on your phone now,” Staples added. “You can still watch a little bit.”
In the end, FOX is hoping this will be an eventual and clear win-win for them. They get an extra night of similar or improved ratings and numbers while fans of teams that could fill those slots would have an better stage to compete on.
“This is much more cost-effective for them,” said Staples. “This makes perfect sense.”
“That will be an interesting little wrinkle. I do think, if you’re a college football sicko like me and like all of you guys, it’s going to be fun,” Staples said. “It’s going to helpful.”