When it comes to college football Saturdays, overruns are the nature of the beast. Even though the sport has tried to cut down on the length of games with various rule changes, there are always going to be times when games run long, especially if plenty of points are put on the board.
That’s what happened yesterday in the TCU-SMU game that aired on The CW. Although TCU didn’t appreciate their visit to ACC country being relegated to the Nexstar broadcast network, it was SMU and the ACC who had last laugh in a 66-42 victory.
Naturally, the game ran well over time with Purdue and Oregon State waiting in the wings. And given this is The CW we’re talking about and not ESPN, there wasn’t an ESPNEWS or ESPN+ to put the start of the game on. Instead, that honor went to the home of Chris Cuomo, Bill O’Reilly, and the odd political appearance of Stephen A. Smith – NewsNation, which is also owned by Nexstar.
With the TCU-SMU matchup running long, the start of tonight’s game will be televised on NewsNation.
— Purdue Football (@BoilerFootball) September 22, 2024
It’s incredibly funny that when games go long on The CW, their next game starts on NewsNation.
“Let’s take a break from ‘Honest Reporting With Chris Cuomo and Bill O’Reilly’ and send you to Purdue vs Oregon State.”
— Brendan Dzwierzynski (@BrendanDzw) September 22, 2024
With the SMU/TCU game running long, the Purdue at Oregon State game won’t be on The CW, but will begin on NewsNation. I’m not kidding, #B1GFootball pic.twitter.com/6VWHY6lwWT
— Matt Coatney (@Coatman1) September 22, 2024
This has to be the first live sporting event in the history of NewsNation, but interestingly the channel has a long record of showing sports in its previous lives. NewsNation’s lineage includes the WGN SuperStation, which was long the national television home of the Chicago Cubs and other Windy City sports. However, it transitioned into an all-news format in 2021.
If Fox Sports can shift games to Fox Business and CNBC can air curling, rugby, and other things then I guess NewsNation can moonlight as a sports network too. An SMU ACC game causing a Pac-2 game to move to the home of Bill O’Reilly is about the most perfect sentence you can envision to describe the bonkers state of college football and media in 2024.
