FOX Sports continues to infuriate powerful people in college football with their TV scheduling decisions.
The latest to vent is Stanford coach David Shaw, who is furious that FOX scheduled the Cardinal season opener at Kansas State for noon ET, making it a 9 a.m. start time in California. He was also critical of the network for scheduling fellow Pac-12 school Oregon to play at the same time against Ohio State one week later.
“I am pissed at Fox for our kickoff time against Kansas State,” Shaw told Stewart Mandel of The Athletic. “For Stanford in particular and Oregon to be going and playing in a different time zone, and give us an early kickoff, to me, is incredibly disrespectful. And it shows a lack of understanding of what we have to do, and the way that time difference truly affects us. It shows a lack of care for our student athletes.
“That, to me, is something that is egregious, and I don’t care who I piss off, but I think they’re wrong. A lot of our people in our conference are upset too.”
Shaw wasn’t done, colorfully blasting any focus on TV ratings at the expense of his players.
“I don’t want to hear s–t about, ‘Oh, it’s great ratings.’ I don’t care about the ratings” Shaw continued. “This is either complete disregard, or lack of understanding how difficult it is to be a West Coast team that travels east and gets forced to play an early kickoff game.”
Shaw’s criticism comes after similar remarks from Oklahoma about its start time against Nebraska. The “Big Noon” window may be popular with viewers, but for anyone outside of Eastern time, it’s proving to be anything but.
