Michigan State’s Black Friday game vs. Penn State is a unique challenge

Editor's note: This article was published prior to the announcement of the Penn State versus Michigan State game on Black Friday being moved to Ford Field in Detroit.

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On Sunday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel released an incredibly informative and wide-ranging report regarding the many challenges that newly-hired Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has dealt with since assuming the role. Petitti was named as the conference’s new commissioner on April 12, with his tenure officially beginning on May 15.

The overarching theme of Thamel’s report was that Petitti was left to deal with issues that previous commissioner Kevin Warren did not complete before assuming his new role as president and CEO for the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

The most pressing problem is the incomplete longform contracts of the Big Ten’s new media rights agreements with CBS, FOX and NBC/Peacock that are set to begin for the 2023 season. This may cause Big Ten institutions to lose money.

“Big Ten schools have seen potential revenue disappear the past few months from a contract that was announced back in August as being worth an average of nearly $1 billion per year through the 2029 football season,” Thamel wrote. “More than $70 million in total is suddenly in flux – nearly $5 million per school – and it has left administrators around the league seeking answers and calling for financial accountability.”

The $70 million Thamel notes above includes $40 million that Big Ten schools will have to pay back to FOX because Warren gave NBC the rights to the Big Ten football championship game in 2026, despite not having the proper power to do so. Thamel also reports that the conference owes $25 million to FOX for games lost during the 2020 season, which was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, there were a couple notes regarding Michigan State in the ESPN article, perhaps most notably, that MSU is expected to host Penn State for a Black Friday football game on Nov. 24.

It was already known that the Spartans will end the season against the Nittany Lions, with the Land-Grant Trophy on the line, but many fans and pundits expected the contest to take place on a Saturday. However, the Black Friday game is not yet official and there is no kickoff time listed as of press time. With that said, the game is expected to be a prime-time matchup.

A Black Friday Big Ten game for the 2023 season is not actually a surprise. When the new seven-year, $7 billion-plus media distribution agreement was announced by the Big Ten in August 2022, perhaps a detail that was glossed over was that the conference agreed to allow NBC to carry a Black Friday game (which will also stream simultaneously on Peacock) and that the contest is intended to be played in a prime-time setting, according to The Athletic.

So, obviously, the Black Friday game is not a concept that completely came out of nowhere, but the teams that are actually playing in said contest for 2023 — Penn State and Michigan State — is new information.

It’s unclear how much say Penn State and Michigan State had in this decision, if any at all. In fact, Thamel reported that the “game that was scheduled before Penn State agreed to it.”

More than likely, the Big Ten wanted to include one of the conference’s top programs, such as Penn State, to satisfy NBC’s request in the new media rights deal that provides the promised Black Friday game for its inventory.

Perhaps NBC wanted the matchup as one of the more potentially impactful brand games this fall before the schedule undergoes a reshuffle when USC and UCLA join the Big Ten in 2024. It seems almost certain that FOX’s “Big Noon Kickoff” will have the rights to the Ohio State versus Michigan game to end the regular season, so the Penn State-Michigan State game was likely the best available option for NBC.

Thamel noted that MSU and PSU (along with Ohio State) “agreed to concessions” to help the Big Ten get through its current conundrum.

This Black Friday game against Penn State – likely at night in the late stages of November when the weather in Michigan is brutal – is probably part of those “concessions.” In addition, Michigan State’s night game in Columbus against Ohio State on Nov. 11 – the latest-ever home night game in OSU program history – is another one as well.

Previously, Big Ten schools had “tolerances” in place where the programs were not required to play night games after the first weekend of November. Thamel’s sources told him that several Big Ten schools – including Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State – have been pushing back on the idea of playing late-November night games under the new contract because athletic departments and coaches were “surprised” by this part of the deal.

“Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State recently agreed to concessions to make short-term sacrifices to help the league make up for some lost revenue from the NBC deal,” Thamel wrote.

Playing a game on Black Friday provides unique challenges for Michigan State Athletics, head coach Mel Tucker and everybody else involved.

It is the day after Thanksgiving where most students will have already gone home for the extended weekend. Many fans and season ticket holders will likely have already made holiday plans as well. Several people may go out of town during that time. How many fans will be willing to make the trek to East Lansing to fill Spartan Stadium on a cold late-November night? That will become even more of an issue if Michigan State once again struggles to win games in 2023.

Additionally, Michigan State men’s basketball is scheduled to play Arizona on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 23) in Palm Desert, California. That could take even more fans out of East Lansing.

Speaking of Michigan State’s men's basketball, Thamel said that head coach Tom Izzo was “critical of Warren for the lack of transparency” about the new media rights deal.

Izzo was quoted in Thamel’s article, noting that he has “concerns” about the streaming-only games, and saying that "it was not discussed with us [coaches] at all."

Now with a new commissioner in place, Izzo wants to see more clear communication from Petitti moving forward.

"Those are some things I'd like to see with the new commissioner, that there's some transparency in working together," Izzo told ESPN.

Another point of contention is that the NFL will have its first-ever Black Friday game on Nov. 24 as the Miami Dolphins will travel to take on the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.

However, that Miami versus New York game is scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern Time, so as long as Michigan State’s matchup with Penn State is played in the prime-time slot at night as expected, it should not have to go directly head-to-head with the NFL for ratings at that time.

Of course for Penn State, the Nittany Lions have the hurdle of going on the road on a short week, which is no easy task either.

If Penn State was already fighting the idea of playing night games that late into the 2023 season, and the game was scheduled by the Big Ten before the Nittany Lions even gave their go-ahead, it doesn’t seem like head coach James Franklin and PSU would be thrilled about this idea.

While it is now reported by Thamel that Michigan State will end the season on a Friday against Penn State, the Spartans will also begin the 2023 campaign on a Friday against Central Michigan during Labor Day weekend. The season-opener on Sept. 1 has already been made official by MSU Athletics, however it does yet have a kickoff time announced, but is also expected to be at night.

Perhaps a benefit of playing a Friday night game is that there won’t be as much competition at the time, with a more limited selection of college games on a Friday versus a Saturday, and the NFL game expected to end prior to the Penn State and Michigan State kicking off. Still, while that may help with the television viewing audience, it does not necessarily help bring fans to Spartan Stadium during a holiday weekend.

Of course, Nebraska and Iowa have been ending the regular season on Black Friday since the Cornhuskers moved to the Big Ten in 2011 (outside of 2020 when the schedule was altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic). In fact, Nebraska's tradition of playing football games on Black Friday goes back well before the Huskers entered the Big Ten.

Is it a good idea to play a Black Friday game? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Two Big Ten teams were going to have to do it based on the media deal, anyway, but does it put Penn State and/or Michigan State at a disadvantage?

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