College football is back. Instead of starting with a bang, however, it was more like a whimper.
And that’s a huge economic problem.
Last weekend and the upcoming weekend were golden, gift-wrapped scheduling opportunities for the college game. Labor Day doesn’t fall until Sept. 7, meaning the NFL’s first game isn’t until Wednesday, Sept. 9.
If Week 0, which next year will be Week 1, began on the Thursday of last week, college football could have had control of the national football narrative from Thursday, August 27 through Tuesday, Sept. 8. Nearly two full weeks. Instead, it missed a massive opportunity by scheduling a slate of games, at best mediocre, that only the most die-hard college football fans cared to watch.
Take a look at the Week 0 schedule:
- North Carolina v TCU
- NC State @ Virginia
- San Jose State @ USC
- Jacksonville @ North Dakota State
- Sacramento State @ Eastern Michigan
- Hawaii @ Stanford
- New Mexico State @ Florida State
- Memphis @ UNLV
No offense to these institutions, and I realize many of these games were penciled in years ago, but these are uninspiring openers filled with low-value inventory.
I realize it was Week 0, but Week 0 is now dead. We can go back to counting from 1, like most people. Treating it like a throwaway weekend is economically inefficient and irresponsible. Schedulers should avoid these types of matchups to kick off the season, especially in years when the NFL starts later than normal.
The NFL learned this lesson years ago. Pro sports usually develop innovations that ultimately trickle down to the collegiate level. But for some reason, the “fast out of the gate theory” at the start of the season has failed to make its journey to college football. That needs to change if the college world wants to see significant increases in rights fees in the coming years. Fixing the schedule to make the entire season relevant, not just October and beyond, may be the most impactful change conferences should consider.
Let’s take a quick look at how the NFL is starting its season in the next couple of weeks:
- Wednesday, Sept. 9: Patriots @ Seahawks (Super Bowl rematch), NBC
- Thursday, Sept. 10: 49ers @ Rams (Melbourne), Netflix
- Sunday, Sept. 13: Cowboys @ Giants, NBC
- Monday, Sept. 14: Broncos @ Chiefs, ABC/ESPN
- Thursday, Sept. 17: Lions @ Bills (Stadium opening), Prime Video
The NFL schedules top games in exclusive windows spread out over the first week of the season. They do it for one reason: to make more money.
This is the model that college needs to work towards. Forget that it’s pro versus college. That’s not the point. The point is to maximize your audience across limited windows, not cannibalize it.
Let’s take a look at the collegiate side of things. If my schedule sleuthing is correct, only four games between preseason AP Top 25 teams are scheduled during the first five weeks of this season. That’s certainly not what anyone would consider a fast start. When did the college game write off September? Networks need bigger early-season games to justify higher rights-fee increases and to take advantage of the late NFL start. To really get streamers into the sport, you need predictable, exclusive windows that they can sell subscriptions around.
Not to mention, conferences need early-season success stories to strengthen playoff narratives and brand value. A stronger start to the season should lead to better audiences both early and late, as fewer top matchups will go head-to-head later in the season. Buy games, mismatches, and low-interest out-of-conference matchups aren’t going to get conferences the rights-fee increases they’ll be looking for.
If you look at the top-10 Nielsen-rated college football regular-season games in 2025, four occurred in August, one in September, and five in November. Looking at the 25 top-rated games, four occurred in August, five in September, seven in October, and nine in November.
This breakout shows me two things.
First, August games between top brands/teams will draw big numbers. Opening week last season featured Texas-Ohio State, Notre Dame-Miami, Alabama-Florida State, and LSU-Clemson. College football needs more of that.
Second, October and November had a disproportionate number of highly rated games. Yes, as the season comes to a close, games will mean more, and more games will be in-conference rivalries, which always draw bigger numbers. But if the goal is to increase television revenues in the future, scheduling needs to place more big games in August and September to smooth the effect across the entire season.
With Week 0 becoming Week 1, the opportunity to play top out-of-conference games early stands out as a huge opportunity to deliver some significant ratings out of the gate. We know they’ll draw numbers if the matchups are good. Last year’s Texas at Ohio State game was the second-highest-rated game of the regular season. It was played on August 30.
My intent is not to place blame here. Significant headwinds make scheduling top-flight games early in the season difficult. No central body exists to make these games happen. The CFP committee has made things difficult with what seem to be constantly changing metrics for what is needed to get into the playoffs. Is it record? Is it strength of schedule? Is it the computer? Do early-season losses matter more than late-season ones, or is a loss a loss?
I was buoyed recently by talks of an SEC-Big Ten out-of-conference scheduling partnership, but those talks seem to have cooled. If the two conferences want to maximize future revenues, the talks should resume. The audience is there. The money is there. The only thing missing is the scheduling strategy to capture it. Such partnerships would become particularly important if the playoff expands and conference championship games are eliminated. In that scenario, maximizing regular-season matchups will become paramount.
One objection I frequently hear is “nobody is on campus” until September. The fact is that in the Autonomous Four conferences, only two schools weren’t in session at the end of August: Northwestern and Stanford, both of which start this year on Sept. 21.
Then there is the heat argument. Yes, it was hot in Los Angeles last Saturday. It was hot in many places. But let’s not blame the sparse attendance at the Coliseum on just the heat. Average August temperatures in Los Angeles are 85 degrees. Hardly sweltering. Downtown temperatures were in the mid-90s, which is warm for LA. I think the matchup and start time were more to blame.
I understand the heat argument. I live in the Phoenix area where it was a toasty 117 degrees last week. Night games and domes, where possible, can help, but don’t entirely solve the heat problem. Smarter scheduling can.
At the end of the day, smart minds in the college football and television worlds need to get together and figure out the early-season matchup issue. Start to treat the start of the season as a premium asset, not a dumping ground — and finally fix the scheduling strategy that keeps suppressing the sport’s own value.
Oh, and while they are at it, figure out a way for the CFP games not to go up against NFL games.
Bob Thompson entered the television business in 1981, when he sold his first cable subscriptions to a nice lady in Aloha, Oregon. In 1989, he moved to the programming side with Liberty Sports’ RSN group. Liberty Sports was later sold to Fox, where he rose to President of Fox Sports Networks and Fox Sports International. He stepped down from full-time work at Fox Sports in 2009 but remained an advisor through 2015. He continues to work in the industry through his company, Thompson Sports Group LLC.
