Primetime or Bedtime?

By Sarah McVeigh

This week, I would have liked to write about the New York Knicks. That was my plan: watch the series against the Celtics and write about it. It seems like an easy enough job.

The problem was … I fell asleep. I was asleep for three out of the four games that they have played against the Celtics. It should also be noted that, as of press time for this week’s paper, the games I was snoozing through happen to be the three games that the Knicks have won.

At least this catnap conundrum brought up another topic that I can write about this week (because I couldn’t tell you what happened during those three games).

We need to have a serious conversation about the times of sporting events. Why on earth is a playoff basketball game on the East Coast at 7 p.m.?

As most of you readers know by now, I am not originally an East Coast girlie. I am used to waking up on a Saturday morning, after a night out, and college gameday is already on TV, or the first college football game is playing. I am used to night games being around dinner time. I should not be lying in bed for the night, and my husband turns on a game.

If I am expected to support a team, why the heck are tip-offs, kickoffs, and first pitches so late?

Let’s take the Yankees, for example. Why do they play so many games at home at 7 p.m.? If I am commuting up to the Bronx and the first pitch is at 7 o’clock, I will not make it back home to Rockaway until 11:30 p.m. And on a school night? There’s just no way.

Is this only a problem that I have? Am I the lone person who thinks anything past 6 p.m. is late?

I guess if we are talking about the difference in time zones, it should be noted that if a game plays in New York at 5 p.m., it would be 3 p.m. in California. The goal is viewership. Television companies, sports teams, and advertisers all want as many people as possible to tune into the game. If people are still at the office during a game, viewership would go down.

It may be good for primetime ratings, but at what cost?

AND no one seems to care about viewership when my Sundevils play at 7 p.m. in Arizona, and that’s 10 p.m. for me here in New York! Are you nuts?!

And isn’t the goal to create future sports fans? It’s impossible to get children interested in watching sports and having a wholesome evening with your family when they have an 8 p.m. bedtime. By the time the child is old enough to stay awake for the game, the interest could be lost!

Can’t we make some sort of compromise? Maybe every home team plays at 5 p.m. If you aren’t in the right time zone, then that’s your fault, and you can adjust.

I seriously doubt television companies and sports teams care about my pleas, and so until then, I may miss important sports games that I should be writing about. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s because I am sleeping!

I really don’t plan on lecturing about sports viewership every week, but they make it so hard to watch, I simply can’t write about the actual games!