I am struggling with my emotions over the announcement that beginning next year, the Big Ten Conference will start playing and televising games on Friday nights.

My dilemma is that I understand why the MHSAA is so upset about the announcement while I also understand the Big Ten’s point of view.

I guess my real struggle is whether or not I believe that this decision will have a real impact on high school football games outside of East Lansing.

There should be no concerns in the Ann Arbor area since Michigan has already announced that it will not take part in those games.

The MHSAA has been fighting to keep Friday nights sacred for high school football.

Does anyone really believe that fans will stay home to watch Rutgers play Maryland over their favorite local high school team?

I highly doubt it.

Michigan State has been playing Friday night games to open the season for six years now. I have not talked to any fans who said they were skipping the local high school games to watch the Spartans destroy Furman.

“We are saddened by this decision. We had hoped that the Big Ten Conference would stay above this. We think this cheapens the Big Ten brand,” MHSAA Executive Director John E. ‘Jack’ Roberts said. “Fans won’t like this. Recruits won’t like this. And high school football coaches won’t like this.”

I doubt the Big Ten is going to lose any sleep over that criticism.

Let’s face it, college football is a money making machine and the Big Ten is trying to cash in just like every other league around the country.

Roberts also said that he believes that college football games on Friday nights will leave high schools as a secondary priority for media outlets.

I highly doubt that as well.

I can tell you here at Leader Publications we would never skip a high school game in order to cover a Big Ten game.

He does have a point when he mentioned that more than 80 radio stations cover high school football games and many of them also cover the Spartans or Wolverines.

I believe locally our radio stations still cover the high school games and then broadcast the other games on a sister station or via tape delay.

Roberts also makes a strong point that football is struggling because of bad publicity over injuries, which had caused a decline in participation.

But again, I do not believe that playing a few Big Ten games on a Friday night is going to cause a further drop in participation.

Perhaps my biggest struggle with this situation is that I feel that this is a “boy crying wolf” situation.

Because Michigan State plans to limit the number of times it plays on Friday night and Michigan has refused to play on Fridays, maybe the MHSAA should take a breath and try to relax.

Let’s see if there is any impact before you start shouting at the top of your lungs that the sky is falling.

I believe high school football has a strong enough fan base to survive anything college football throws at it.

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.