An Open Letter to Big South Conference Administrators and Coaches: Part I

The Big South Conference is more than athletics.  The Conference is woven into the very region it serves, bringing jobs and revenue to its member universities as well as their local communities.  Students are provided both lifelong education and (in some cases) wealth through NIL opportunities.  As the governing body for athletics, it is the responsibility of the Big South to maximize revenue sources for its member institutions as well as its athletes.  This means more butts in seats or more eyeballs on ESPN+ fueling commercial sales.  These series of articles are written from the perspective of a Big South fan that would like to better support the Conference.

Problem 1 – Overlapping Start Times: Within either Men’s or Women’s basketball, Big South games are all scheduled at the same time.  This eliminates the ability to watch more than 1 Big South game live, which diminishes viewership and revenue opportunity. As an example, on Saturday, January 10^th, all 4 Men’s basketball games are scheduled either at 2PM or 2:30PM.  By comparison, the Atlantic 10 has games on the same date scheduled for 12PM, 2PM, 3PM, and 4PM.  The Southern Conference similarly spaces their start times from 1-4PM. 

Solution 1 (Easy): The Big South should spread games across multiple start times to allow fans to watch as much live action as possible.  This may be more challenging for weekday games, but it should be very easy for weekend games.  There are 4 games on each day of conference play for Men’s (or Women’s) basketball respectively.  Having the 4 spread across a 12PM, 2PM, 4PM, and 7PM start time would give Big South fans the opportunity to watch all the conference games and potentially even attend 2 games in-person. 

Problem 2 – Competing Men’s/Women’s Game Times: Many of the Men’s and Women’s basketball games are scheduled at the same time.  This often makes it impossible to support both teams and decreases revenue.  As a fan of both the Men’s and Women’s basketball teams, I would like the opportunity to travel to both games or at least watch both games live.

Solution 2a (Minimally Challenging): Schedule the Women’s games to play at different times than the Men’s games for any given university.  For instance, if the UNC-Asheville Men play at 12PM, the women should not also be scheduled at 12PM.  This will at least give fans the opportunity to watch both games live.  Where possible, space the games out enough to allow fans to travel to each event.  While this might not be reasonable for all games due to distance (i.e. Longwood vs. Charleston Southern), this is certainly manageable for other games.  Imagine being able to watch the Winthrop Women play USC Upstate at 12PM at the Winthrop Coliseum and then being able to travel 1 hour to watch the Winthrop Men play USC Upstate at 4PM at the G.B. Hode Center.

Solution 2b (Moderately Challenging): Schedule the Women’s games on different days than the Men’s games.  The current schedule of Wednesday/Saturday games allows for a full day off on Sunday, which is highly desirable for the student athletes.  But there are other solutions that still allow for a down day.  The men are often called to flex to Thursday games to suffice ESPNU broadcasting requirements. So why not have all men’s weekday games on Thursdays and women’s on Wednesdays?  Granted, it would only allow for 1 day for the men before their Saturday game.  However, that will be the expectation for MTEs and end of year tournaments anyway.  If that is not palatable, how about women’s games on Tuesday/Friday nights, which would allow them to have a full down-day on Saturday (or Sunday) per their choosing. 

I have spoken to many Big South fans that are impacted by these issues.  And I know many fans that would like to open their wallet wider for the Big South if given the opportunity.  I will continue this series throughout the season to shine a light on ways the Big South Conference could better support their member institutions and athletes through increased revenue opportunities.