It’s out in the open now. After years of fans complaining about Big Noon Kickoff, those with a voice are saying the quiet part out loud:
It really sucks for any huge college football game to start in the early timeslot.
(Except for Ohio State/Michigan and any others where the early kick is traditional.)
The second-funniest part about Big Noon Kickoff is that it’s unnecessary. Plenty of people would watch Penn State/Ohio State if it were broadcast in the primetime window. Fox Sports isn’t gaining anything by making us move our days around to watch this game. Fox Sports did the New Coke thing: They took a perfect, beloved product and decided that making it objectively worse would somehow help.
The funniest part about Big Noon Kickoff is what it says about Fox Sports’s confidence in its own ability to draw in fans. Fox Sports started Big Noon Kickoff because it was too scared of ESPN to even try to compete in the primetime window. Fox Sports basically did the thing people accuse transgender athletes of doing: It said, “We can’t beat the big boys in the ratings game, so we’re going to try to beat up on Purdue vs. Northwestern instead.”
Credit to Pat McAfee for calling this out on College Gameday, and for calling out the unpopularity of Fox Sports’s own Saturday morning football show, and for giving Penn State fans the chance to boo their asses off. Voices need to be heard. Fox Sports sucks. Let’s talk about more of their sins.
Fox Sports Caused the Last Wave of Conference Realignment
ESPN deserves blame for this too, but it takes two to tango, and Fox Sports has been an equal partner in the war. Again, Fox Sports refuses to compete with ESPN on the actual field of play. Fox Sports refuses to chase ratings the old-fashioned way, by building a great broadcast for a great game. Instead, Fox Sports connives and fights its battles in boardroom back channels. Now Stanford’s in the ACC.
Fox Sports Is Forcing Tom Brady on NFL Fans
Tom Brady: Great quarterback. Terrible color commentator. Does he need reps? Yes. But that’s like tossing FDR into an Olympic-caliber track meet and saying he “needs reps.” Reps aren’t the only problem here! Please at least pull the plug on those commercials that equate one of the most storied playing careers in American history to broadcasting Browns/Cowboys.
Fox Sports Is Trying to Destroy College Basketball
We’re upset about Fox Sports’s imitation NIT, but we don’t expect you to be upset as well. What we do think you should know is that this tournament is an obvious precursor to Fox attempting to break up the NCAA T*urnament. Thankfully, they’re doing this in their customary buffoonish way, so it probably won’t work, but if they ever manage to hire someone competent at an executive level, brace yourselves.
Fox Sports Simply Does a Bad Job
It’s not just the Tom Brady thing, or even college football. You hear it from Big East basketball fans during conference play. You hear it from NASCAR fans when yet another race gets rained out. You hear it from soccer fans during the World Cup. You hear it from baseball fans every time John Smoltz says, “I hate the World Series, actually, and I wish it would go away.” Fox Sports’s broadcasts are brutal. They’re a bad product. They try to cut a lot of corners to compete with the big boys, and it doesn’t work. Contrast this to NBC, who stays in its lane and responds to fan feedback and might shove games on Peacock but at least does a good job with those games once you figure out how the hell to get there.
Fox Sports doesn’t respect fans. It doesn’t like sports. It is time for all of us to say this with our chests.
