[Given tonight's Monday Night Football doubleheader, ECB West Coast Correspondent Michael was given the opportunity to put the theory that he has been pestering me about for five years into writing: namely that the West Coast is ideal for sports viewing. Enjoy, and come up with some counterarguments.]
There has long since been the debate of East vs West. This has been the case all the way back to the 1840s when “Go West, young man” was the moniker for people heading to California in search of gold. And for more than a century and a half (Sunday was California’s 157th birthday) people have continued to go west and stay there. Maybe for the beaches, maybe for the lifestyle, maybe for the weather. But for West coast sports fans, possibly the best thing about living out here is God’s Gift to Sports Fans: The Pacific Time Zone.
With 75% of this country’s 300 million people living in either the Eastern or Pacific Time Zones, it is tough for leagues to televise events where everyone can watch the entire game. If they start them at 7:00 in the East, people in the West won’t even get home from work until the second half. Likewise, if they start it at 7:00 in the West, people in the East would be falling asleep in the second quarter. It is a tough balance, and logically enough, they compromise by starting most games at 8:30 or 9:00 Eastern, and I maintain that the West coast is by far the better option of the two.
With 75% of this country’s 300 million people living in either the Eastern or Pacific Time Zones, it is tough for leagues to televise events where everyone can watch the entire game. If they start them at 7:00 in the East, people in the West won’t even get home from work until the second half. Likewise, if they start it at 7:00 in the West, people in the East would be falling asleep in the second quarter. It is a tough balance, and logically enough, they compromise by starting most games at 8:30 or 9:00 Eastern, and I maintain that the West coast is by far the better option of the two.
Baltimore, 1979. Marty Bass is attacked after Orioles-Pirates World Series coverage runs into the third shift at Bethlehem Steel.Answer yourself this question: would you rather miss the first quarter, or the fourth quarter? Usually, the end of the game is the most important part to watch. Before DVR’s, that was the option that you had: if you live in the East, you may fall asleep before the end of the game, and in the West, you may not be home from work for the start. DVR’s have since negated even that issue. Simply start it recording, when you get home start watching from the beginning, and you will be caught up by the third quarter…giving you the option of being able to watch some of it delayed and skip commercials, or just to miss the beginning. In the East, your only option is whether or not you want enough sleep to work the next day. Living in Santa Barbara and having no traffic, I don’t even need this DVR option, but for those that live in cities with legendary traffic problems like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle, the DVR will be your best friend, and ensure you never miss a minute of a great sporting event if you don’t want to. Another thing that helps with that is that people work earlier hours on the West coast, partially because most companies are headquartered in the East. I know more people that work from 7-4 than who work from 8-5, and I don’t know anyone who is even allowed to show up at work later than 8am. But you work earlier, you get home earlier, and you are on time for the early kickoffs and start times which happen right after you get home, and not after an excruciating three hour wait.
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blahblahhahb lah California, circa 3,000,000 B.C. to presentSome East coast fans also scoff at the notion of college football games kicking off at 9am on Saturday, and NFL games at 10am on Sunday. While 9am on Saturday is a bit early, it typically is an ESPN Big-10 game, which probably isn’t even worth watching. And for NFL Sunday’s, I couldn’t think of a better time than 10am. Many Sundays during football season, I wake up, roll over, turn on the TV to see kickoff. Or for when I am more ambitious, many bars out here offer bloody mary specials and $1 breakfast burritos. It is quite a sight to see a bar overflowing at 10am. And this year they took the best games and put them on Sunday night. Last nights Giants/Cowboys game ended around 8:30, instead of starting around the same time, still allotting me a full hour of Family Guy to watch afterwards.
To close this article and further prove my point, I will give a few examples of times all of you wished lived in the Pacific Time Zone. The first one is one that J-Red reminded me of, Jack Morris’ 10-inning no-hitter in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. At the time, I was a 7th grade kid living in Connecticut, and only saw the few three innings of this game which started at 8:30 on a Sunday night…only reading about the end in the next day’s paper, and watching it on tape after school that day. Then you have Derek Jeter becoming “Mr. November” with his game winning home run well after midnight on a Halloween Wednesday night in the 2001 World Series. In the 2007 NBA Playoffs, the two best series (Mavs-Warriors and Suns-Spurs) both had most of their games top off at 10:45 Eastern Time, 7:45 Pacific. And then you have the best game from the 2006 NCAA Tournament, and one of the great comebacks in tournament history: UCLA vs Gonzaga in the Sweet 16. Not only because it was two west coast teams but also because of the tip-off time (10:40 Eastern, due to a long first game that night), very few people actually saw UCLA score the final 11 points in the last two minutes to win 73-71, in a game that ended around 1:00am (Eastern) late on a Thursday night.
The proof is in the pudding. People have been saying it since the 1840s, and it could never be more true to this day: “Go west, young man.” It really is a rough life, but someone has got to live it.
12 Responses:
This was too long for me to read. My attention span won't allow it.
However, I will agree that there is a lot of appeal to watching sports early. I'd rather miss the start of a game at 5 than miss the end of a game at 2 a.m.
I agree. I will be getting a dvr and a big screen soon and can't wait to fastforward through the garbage commercials.
West Side World Wide.
Chris, I understand you are a Chargers season ticket holder. How much did you get from a Bears fan for yesterday's tickets?
Michael is giving me a hard time about not posting my counter-argument. Here is part of it:
1) East Coast people, for the most part, don't work out in the morning and arrive at work prior to 8:00am. Many of us report to work around 10am, and staying up til midnight or a little later does not crush our feeble granola weakened souls.
2) 10am is WAY TOO EARLY for an NFL game to start on television. You can't even drink beer that early. You shouldn't be eating an omelet and having your morning coffee when Michigan-OSU kicks off at 9am.
3) When events are tape-delayed, the East Coast sees what happens three hours before the West Coast. This is, of course, presuming that American Idol and the Olympics constitute sport.
4) We get late local news right after the game. West Coasters get a re-run of Desperate Housewives. With Desperate Housewives, no one wins.
5) We have time to do marriage-preserving stuff like mowing the lawn prior to the beginning of the weekend games.
Having spent the summer in Seattle but as a permanent resident of the East Coast, I feel well qualified to put my two cents into this one. Granted I left before football season, but I want to refute a few points.
First, I worked essentially a 9:30 to 6 shift in Seattle, as did many of my co-workers. In fact, I noticed no difference in hours between my east coast job a couple years ago and my west coast job this summer.
Second, as a result of those hours, I was frequently done with dinner just in time for the start of Sportscenter, the 11 pm, everything's already over for the night Sportscenter. I was lucky to have a Mariners game, if they happened to be on the West Coast. On days when I did arrive in front of the TV earlier, I felt lame watching baseball in the middle of the afternoon. Even if that was working out for me, what am I supposed to do when the game ends at 8 or 8:30?
Third, I was still awake to see all of those late-night examples you listed (at least the ones I was old enough for, I don't even remember the early 90's). I saw USF beat Auburn this Saturday after midnight. I saw the awesome USC-Fresno St. game when Reggie Bush ran wild. I saw UCLA crush Gonzaga's hopes. I saw all of the D'Backs World Series.
Finally, what happens if you actually go out and get drunk on a Friday or Saturday night? Are you still going to wake up for that 10 am game? I guess the DVR is pretty critical to the argument there. Are you going to record all 4 9am games on a Saturday morning just in case one of them (WVa-Marshall) is better than expected? What happens if your wife wants you to go to church on Sunday morning in the middle of the Skins game?
J-Red: "10am is WAY TOO EARLY for an NFL game to start on television. You can't even drink beer that early."
Not true.
I've lived on both the east coast and the west coast, and I can say without a doubt that I prefer watching sports on the west coast.
Dammit Dewey. You can't start bringing logic and experience into this.
And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the Ravens don't win 13 this year. Not because we had a crappy game tonight, but because everyone is hurt.
Man, I could barely stay up to watch Kyle Boller's interception.
Kyle Boller interceptions are like subway trains. There's always another one if you wait patiently enough.
J-Red talks about the "marriage preserving activities." Well how about going out on a Saturday night with your "wife" huh? In the east, the marquee game (this week: USC/Nebraska) wont even kick off until 8:15 and end until close to midnight. In the west, it will be over before 9pm, and sitll allow you your entire evening to go out with the misses. In the west, you can do both, in the east, you have to choose between the two. Again, the west coast rules. And having lives in both places (20 years in California, 6 years in the northeast) and in the middle (the better part of 3 years in Louisiana), I consider myself an afficionado on the subject.
And we dont get Desperate Housewives reruns...more like Family Guy marathons. And with those, EVERYONE wins...except the misses, of course.
I am neither from the east or the west coast, but from the midwest...our life starts at 5 am in the morning in hopes to make it to our 6 am job. I work 12 hours a day monday-friday, and am happy to do so since jobs are hard to come by. I hurry home for dinner, a meeting, and visit with my family. it is usually lights out for me by 10. late night games are rough because I usually don't make past kick off and have to watch the recap on the early morning news. by the time sunday rolls around, i am one tired puppy and a good time for me in lying on the coach watching my beloved lions and taking a brief nap here and there. As i get older, i get tired and enjoy the simple things in life. since the lions won last week, the thrill will last me for the week even if we won against the raiders.
5am? I think that's last call around here.
Honestly though, if you are in a part of the country where 60-hour weeks are the norm, you aren't going to want to watch ANYTHING once you get home. You have just enough time to eat dinner and kiss the kids goodnight before getting back into bed. Does it really matter what time the events start?
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