This past Saturday evening, Arizona State and its faithful welcomed in a new era in football as head coach Dennis Erickson took to the field for the first time. There was great speculation on how his team would play against a San Jose State team who out of the Western Athletic Conference won nine games as well as a bowl game in the previous year. But as those 54,405 fans at Sun Devil Stadium would see, Erickson would answer all questions, leaving nothing unsaid as he won in dominating fashion, 45-3.
But what if you weren't one of the 54,405 fans at Sun Devil Stadium? What if you had left town for the holiday weekend or had simply had plans that made in impossible for you to attend the game?
Unfortunately, if that was you this past Saturday, then you had to hear about the "new era in Sun Devil football", because the game wasn't on TV. Anything short of turning on your radio meant your knowledge of our new football team was limited to ESPN or local highlights, all which had to deal with Michigan, Tennessee, and Notre Dame losing. Of course you could have been patient and waited for the newspaper, but if you're a student that probably meant Monday for the State Press. But alas Monday was a holiday, so on Tuesday every student at ASU finally got to understand how great of a start Erickson is having. On Tuesday.
And they say news travels fast.
It doesn't make much sense. That night, Fox Sports Arizona was airing the Southern California season opener against Idaho. Now in certain situations I might even understand this. USC is the number one team in the nation; they are going to have many close and exciting games this season.
But Idaho? The freakin' Idaho Vandals out of who the hell cares what conference? How does USC v. Idaho beat out the Sun Devil's home opener?
That day, eight Pac-10 teams played: Arizona, ASU, UCLA, California, Oregon, USC, Stanford and Washington State. The only two teams that were not available on cable were Oregon and Arizona State University.
That's right, even Wildcat fans could find their game this past Saturday night.
Of course you could have also watched the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to not sell out their stadium as they fight for a pennant, but anything short of a ticket or a radio Saturday night left you in the dark.
Now I understand the possible strategy involved. Blacking out the game forces fans to buy a ticket. But coming off a disappointing season in which ASU had to beat Arizona simply in order to make it to a bowl game (which they lost), there was absolutely no justification. Not to mention the fact that Sun Devil Stadium has an occupancy of 73,379, an occupancy that hasn't had a sell out since the 2005 USC game.
And it's not like fans didn't show up. As stated there were over 54,000 fans in attendance. Not everyone in a city so vast can make it to the game, and the athletic office at ASU should realize that it is not just Tempe that ASU is advertising its team product to. Live here long enough and you'll notice Phoenicians have an interesting tendency to jump on any wagon that might be heading somewhere. But how do Athletic Director Lisa Love and ASU realistically expect to garner support or excitement when ASU's brutal domination of another team (they didn't even allow a touchdown!) was not able to be seen by those curious enough to give a damn?
Soon they'll be printing shirts that say, 'Sun Devil Law #34: We want your money.' You don't demand your fans or play media tricks on them to get them in your seats. You earn them. And on Saturday night the Sun Devil football team did just that. They earned every fan that would have and could have watched. They earned it through all the summer workouts and practices they had leading up to the moment our student body got to meet and see the coach and team that might just figure out how to turn a football school back into a football school.
It's too bad ASU and the city of Phoenix only had 54,000 people watching it.
Throw me an email: joshua.spivack@asu.edu.
