America is still a good six months from genuine, honest-to-goodness panic over the prospect of a labor-shortened or cancelled NFL season, the reality of which will surely plunge the country into a state of collective apoplexy that two wars, a recession and slowly rising gas prices could barely begin to match. In the meantime, though, with both sides retrenching for another week of hardball, the looming specter of fall Saturday's without the nation's reigning sporting monolith already has the Washington Post wondering what could possibly fill the void in the culture – NASCAR? The World Series? Hockey? Reruns of "Gilmore Girls" on Soap Net? Wherever desperate citizens turn in their hours of need, when they come, it almost certainly will not be to college football – at least, not on Sundays, despite the best efforts of some marketers beginning to see dollar signs:
College football offers the same game, a similar demographic and the same intense loyalties as the NFL. The question will be whether fans used to kicking back in their recliners on languid Sundays would be willing to shift their routines a day. Officials from the Atlantic Coast, Big East and Southeastern conferences said this week there had been no formal discussion of moving games.
Some said their member schools might be unwilling to play on Sundays even if networks or cable outlets pushed for such moves.
"If the NFL does not play their games, that will create a little void and I suspect the interest in college football will increase," said Nick Carparelli, the Big East's senior associate commissioner. "But I do not expect, if there is an NFL work stoppage, that colleges will contemplate moving their games to Sundays. Saturday in the fall is a college football institution ... a great tradition."
There also would be major competitive and logistical issues to consider, according to Randy Eaton, Maryland's senior associate athletic director and chief financial officer. "You start having to look at the competitive advantages and disadvantages of going Sunday-Saturday, as opposed to Saturday-Saturday with your team," Eaton said. "There would be some major conundrums that would be had. Last year when we moved the Navy game from Saturday to Monday, Navy just had a nightmare because so many of their fans travel from out of town."
On Twitter, SEC spokesman Charles Bloom reiterated Sunday to note that there have been "no formal discussions" within the conference about moving games to Sundays, naturally (and perhaps unintentionally) suggesting informal discussions. And why not? Where there's unfulfilled demand, the supply naturally expands to exploit it.
In this case, let's hope Bloom and his East Coast counterparts are right. Put the question in any terms you'd like: Logistically, shuffling games throws a wrench into travel and practice schedules. Nostalgically, it would violate college fans' sense of Saturday as the "sacred" day of pilgrimage, pomp and partying that connect generations in unbroken ritual. Economically, it threatens to undermine the value the college game earns by setting itself as far apart from the pros as possible on the basis of those traditions, rather than as "NFL Lite," a minor league rushing to the table at the first opportunity to snap up a few scraps. College football on Sundays doesn't just feel wrong: It's bad branding.
It would also be a risk for any teams or conferences that decided to try, when the NFL can essentially say "game on" at any point. (The player strikes in 1982 and 1987 both threatened the regular season, with far, far less money at stake, but the show eventually went on in both cases.) College football may stand to gain slightly from jonesing pro fans looking for a fix anywhere they can find it – but only slightly, and temporarily. More likely, as NYU professor Robert Boland told the Post, the coveted NFL audience is going to go "in a million places rather than one." If the amateurs are going to hold any of the spillover, it will by continuing to be what it's always been: A reliable scene built on deep-rooted traditions. If you want it on Sundays, there's always the fourth quarter of the Pac-10 night cap.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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