My two cents: Pac-12 TV schedule stealing study time
The Pac-12 scheduled Saturday’s Arizona-Oregon softball game for an 8:30 p.m., start, which meant the Ducks would have to stay an extra night in Tucson.
The No. 1-ranked Ducks left Eugene on Wednesday at midday, requiring four nights in Tucson. The league also scheduled the UA-Washington baseball game to be played on a Sunday night, forcing the Huskies to spend a fourth night in Tucson.
A week earlier, Arizona’s three-game softball series at UCLA required a Thursday afternoon departure and a Monday morning return, all spinning on the Pac-12 Networks choosing to televise the UA-UCLA game on a Sunday night.
This comes a week after cbssports.com revealed that a Pac-12 study of 409 of athletes found that they are “too exhausted to study effectively,” and that the average Pac-12 athlete spends 22 of 50 sports-related hours each week involved in travel.
My research found that the UA women’s golf team and men’s tennis team both spent 42 nights in hotels this school year. The men’s basketball team was out of town 35 nights. The softball team: 26 nights.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told cbssports.com, “The main takeaway is student-athletes are very, very satisfied with their experience. They’re pushed for sure, challenged. Sometimes (they) feel like it’s too much.”
UA athletic director Greg Byrne told me last week that Arizona received about $1 million from the Pac-12 Networks last year. The ratings for that network are dismal, and it is unavailable in millions of Pac-12 region homes.
But its practice of playing late games on Saturdays and Sundays has added not just travel expenses, but time out of the classroom. The schools may get $1 million, but the athletes and coaches probably don’t feel like a million bucks after so many extended travel demands.
