David Shaw is pissed
From The Athletic
Stanford’s David Shaw frustrated with Fox for early kickoff time for season-opener: ‘I don’t want to hear s—‘ about ratings
By Stewart Mandel Jun 4, 2021 166
During an interview Friday, Stanford coach David Shaw leveled uncharacteristically harsh criticism at Fox Sports for placing the Cardinal’s Sept. 4 season-opener against Kansas State in Arlington, Texas, at Noon ET due to it being 9 a.m. on his players’ body clocks. He also hinted at displeasure within the Pac-12 that Oregon’s marquee game Sept. 11 at Ohio State will also be played at that time.
“I am pissed at Fox for our kickoff time against Kansas State,” Shaw told 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’s comments come a little more than a week after Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione released a statement that said, “We are bitterly disappointed” that the Sooners’ Sept. 18 home game against Nebraska — the 50th anniversary of schools’ famed Game of the Century — was chosen for Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff window (11 a.m. CT).
“We tried every possible avenue to proactively make our case (for a later kickoff),” wrote Castiglione. “The Big 12 Conference also supported our strenuous efforts to secure a more traditional time that would honor this game and our fans. However, in the end, our TV partner chose to exercise its full contractual rights and denied our requests.”
A Fox Sports spokesperson declined to comment about Shaw’s remarks.
Fox has enjoyed strong ratings since launching its Big Noon package in 2019 — five of that season’s 10 most-watched games aired in that window, including two Oklahoma games. But it has caused inconveniences for some of the participants and their fans. Castiglione told reporters last week he was frustrated with the “disproportionate number of (OU) home games that have occurred at 11 (a.m.)” — 23 since the 2016 season — and the difficulties they pose for fans that travel in for the games.
“They (Fox) can say whatever they want to say. I don’t want to hear crap about, ‘Oh, it’s great ratings.’ I don’t care about the ratings,” said Shaw. “… 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.”
The Stanford-Kansas State game is not technically a “Big Noon” game. It is airing on FS1, not FOX. That network’s other three time slots that day consist of a Major League Baseball game at 4 p.m. ET followed by two other games involving Pac-12 teams, Oregon State at Purdue (7 p.m. ET) and Nevada at Cal (10:30 p.m. ET), meaning either the Beavers or Cardinal were likely going to fall into the Noon ET window.
Shaw’s beef is at least somewhat rooted in Stanford’s 16-6 loss at Northwestern in the 2015 season-opener, which aired on ESPN. The Cardinal that year went on to finish 12-2 and win the Rose Bowl behind star Christian McCaffrey.
“Northwestern played great, not to take anything away from them, but we played that game half asleep, and everybody saw what we’re capable of the rest of the year,” said Shaw. “Go back to 2009 at Wake Forest (a 24-17 loss). We played a really good first half; second half, our guys are dead. Their legs are dead, it’s a hot, muggy, early-morning wake up, and our guys couldn’t bounce back.”
Complaints about kickoff times in the Pac-12 aren’t new, but usually they’re about late-night ET kickoffs. It’s also extremely unusual for a high-profile coach to directly attack a TV partner. While the Stanford-Kansas State game falls under the Big 12’s TV rights, Fox and ESPN combine to pay the Pac-12 more than $250 million a year, most of which gets distributed to its member schools. Just last season, USC and Arizona State agreed to play a 9 a.m. PT game in Los Angeles for the Big Noon Kickoff package.
“I’m not happy with Fox, and I don’t care that they’re not going to be happy with my comments,” said Shaw. “We have to start sticking up for ourselves as West Coast teams, because we’re going to get judged the same, but we’re going to be playing against guys that get to sleep in their own beds, sleep in their own time zone and wake up at 8:30 in the morning, while our guys are getting up at 6:30 in the morning and losing those two hours of sleep.”
Stanford is playing another intersectional road game this season in Week 3 at Vanderbilt. That game is airing at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ESPNU, which is available in roughly 60 million homes, compared with nearly 80 million for FS1 as of 2020.
Disclosure: Stewart Mandel worked for Fox Sports from 2014-17.
(Top photo: Jason O. Watson / Getty Images)