HuskyHawk
The triumphant return of the Blues Brothers.
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- Sep 12, 2011
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You're posting on a faulty premise, basing game start times on the Eastern time zone. A Western division is perfect for start times later in the day: Football 7 P.M., 10 P.M. Basketball 9 P.M. 11 P.M. Eastern. Fox Sports & NBC Sports need live programming for those time slots. That's prime time on the left coast.
There is no way you're going to have a league with enough "western" schools that they can simply play themselves. They will need to play on the east coast at 7:00, and the ratings for those games will suck out west. Then UConn and others will need to play in the west, at 10:00 eastern, and the rating for those games will suck on the east coast. There's a reason Monday Night football moved to 8:30. You cannot get decent ratings nationally for any game that ends after about 11:30 eastern.
Yes, there may be some value with a local west coast focused sports network, but the value of western sports on a national level is inherently lower than it would be in the east or central.