How the NCAA inconvenienced people who want to watch the women's volleyball Final Four on television
In just a couple of hours from now, at 6 P.M. CST, the first of two national semifinal matches in the NCAA Division I women's indoor volleyball tournament, BYU vs. Stanford, will begin. Both of the national semifinal volleyball matches are airing on ESPN tonight, with the second match, Nebraska vs. Illinois, scheduled to begin no earlier than 8 P.M. CST. Both games will be played at a neutral site in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Target Center, which is normally home to the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the NHL's Minnesota Wild, but has been converted into a volleyball venue for the national semifinal games tonight and the national championship game on Saturday.
Given the title of this blog post, you may be asking yourself, how exactly is the NCAA inconveniencing people who want to watch indoor volleyball on television tonight?
I'll explain how the NCAA is inconveniencing volleyball fans. For those who might have a rooting interest in either BYU or Stanford, they are playing in the first of two semifinal games, which is scheduled for 6 P.M. CST, which is 5 P.M. MST, or 4 P.M. PST. A lot of people who would have a rooting interest in either team otherwise be able to watch BYU face Stanford in the first national semifinal would be at work and not able to watch part or all of the game on television unless their cable or satellite television subscription that includes ESPN includes a DVR, and they have the telecast of the game in question set to record. It's not as much of an inconvenience for fans of either Illinois or Nebraska, although, with both schools located in the Central Time Zone and the game being played at a neutral site in the Central Time Zone, an 8 P.M. start is quite late, but not unheard of, for a college volleyball match (I don't recall a single in-conference Big Ten volleyball match starting later than a few minutes after 8 P.M. CST/CDT during the regular season), and that assumes that the BYU vs. Stanford match ends before 8 P.M. CST. If the BYU vs. Stanford match needs all five sets to decide a winner, a five-set NCAA volleyball match can take anywhere from two and a half hours to three hours to complete, which could push the start of the Illinois vs. Nebraska game back to possibly as late as 9:30 P.M. CST, since, when multiple college sports events are scheduled for the same venue back-to-back, there is a bit of intermission (usually somewhere around 15-30 minutes) between matches. That would be an extremely late start for a college sports event of any kind, and could result in the Illinois vs. Nebraska game finishing around or even after midnight CST.
The NCAA should have scheduled the Illinois vs. Nebraska match to be the first semifinal, and the BYU vs. Stanford match to be the second semifinal. I'm not sure at all why the NCAA scheduled the BYU vs. Stanford match as the first semifinal and the Illinois vs. Nebraska match to be the second semifinal. That scheduling would have been far more convenient for those watching the women's volleyball Final Four on television.
Given the title of this blog post, you may be asking yourself, how exactly is the NCAA inconveniencing people who want to watch indoor volleyball on television tonight?
I'll explain how the NCAA is inconveniencing volleyball fans. For those who might have a rooting interest in either BYU or Stanford, they are playing in the first of two semifinal games, which is scheduled for 6 P.M. CST, which is 5 P.M. MST, or 4 P.M. PST. A lot of people who would have a rooting interest in either team otherwise be able to watch BYU face Stanford in the first national semifinal would be at work and not able to watch part or all of the game on television unless their cable or satellite television subscription that includes ESPN includes a DVR, and they have the telecast of the game in question set to record. It's not as much of an inconvenience for fans of either Illinois or Nebraska, although, with both schools located in the Central Time Zone and the game being played at a neutral site in the Central Time Zone, an 8 P.M. start is quite late, but not unheard of, for a college volleyball match (I don't recall a single in-conference Big Ten volleyball match starting later than a few minutes after 8 P.M. CST/CDT during the regular season), and that assumes that the BYU vs. Stanford match ends before 8 P.M. CST. If the BYU vs. Stanford match needs all five sets to decide a winner, a five-set NCAA volleyball match can take anywhere from two and a half hours to three hours to complete, which could push the start of the Illinois vs. Nebraska game back to possibly as late as 9:30 P.M. CST, since, when multiple college sports events are scheduled for the same venue back-to-back, there is a bit of intermission (usually somewhere around 15-30 minutes) between matches. That would be an extremely late start for a college sports event of any kind, and could result in the Illinois vs. Nebraska game finishing around or even after midnight CST.
The NCAA should have scheduled the Illinois vs. Nebraska match to be the first semifinal, and the BYU vs. Stanford match to be the second semifinal. I'm not sure at all why the NCAA scheduled the BYU vs. Stanford match as the first semifinal and the Illinois vs. Nebraska match to be the second semifinal. That scheduling would have been far more convenient for those watching the women's volleyball Final Four on television.
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