Arizona football game goes untelevised making it difficult for students to watch game
As Central Michigan University’s football team continues to receive media attention, it is only natural the team plays new schools.
That can put CMU out there on a national front. It can give the team and the school more exposure.
But that exposure doesn’t mean a thing if the students and Mount Pleasant locals can’t view the game. The season opener at Arizona should have been on television so CMU fans could see it.
The football team is playing an impressive array of opponents this year: Arizona, Michigan State and Boston College. These are colleges outside the Mid-American Conference, teams Central traditionally does not play. Wins, and sometimes even close losses, can generate national buzz.
But the team’s primary fan bases — students, Mount Pleasant residents and many alumni in Michigan — didn’t get to see the team’s 19-6 loss at Arizona on Saturday. The CMU Athletics Department resorted to promoting the CMU Sports Network radio broadcast instead through its Web site, cmuchippewas.com.
The department considers it a victory for CMU to play a Pac 10 team for the first time. But is it really a victory when your fans can’t conveniently watch the game on television?
Although the game could have been viewed on the computer, many telecasts required fans to pay $10 for tape-delayed viewing. If inclined, they could have shelled out that money, hooked their laptops up to a television and displayed the telecast on a bigger screen.
That was a solution for some fans. But it is way too inconvenient for most. Many had to resort to the radio or get updates via play-by-play on a random sports outlet. Central Michigan Life provided live chat and game coverage straight from Tucson, Ariz.
But if you’re a program pushing for national prominence, how is it okay to keep your loyal fans anxiously awaiting the start of the football season from watching their team play a Bowl Championship Series opponent?
Playing in markets on the other side of the country is not national exposure when die-hard Chippewas fans have to resort to the internet for updates. Think of who is more important — the people who pay to come see your games at Kelly/Shorts Stadium or people who had no idea a Central Michigan University existed before it took the field against their team.
CMU still has plenty of away games to play this season — six, in fact. Some of those games, especially Saturday’s at Michigan State, could be entertaining. Thankfully, that game is on ESPN2.
But from now on, the university and the athletics department should push to have every single away game televised for fans.
