St. Edward's opening football game on August 31st will be broadcast on ESPN. The Eagles are playing something called "Gilman Academy", which is apparently from Baltimore.
The game will be at 4pm on Labor Day Sunday, so it won't have a huge audience. However, it will be some nice exposure for Lakewood and FFL Stadium. First Federal is getting some nice return on their $32K per year naming rights deal.
Re: ESPN Coming to Lakewood
Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:44 am
by Matthew Lee
This is amazing news. And, Michael, you will be wrong (in a good way) about the audience. Pro Football will not have started yet. College football will have kicked off but nothing major on at that time. America will be hungry for football. It will get decent ratings as bars across America will have it on so people can watch classic, mid-American football. This is, indeed, great exposure for Lakewood!
Re: ESPN Coming to Lakewood
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:40 am
by marklingm
Mike,
Ryan Salo may have something to do with this since he was, after all, on assignment for ESPN while breaking the LeBron James story for the "LO News Crew."
Thanks, Ryan!
Matt
Re: ESPN Coming to Lakewood
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:29 pm
by Michael Deneen
Matthew Lee wrote:And, Michael, you will be wrong (in a good way) about the audience. Pro Football will not have started yet. College football will have kicked off but nothing major on at that time. America will be hungry for football. It will get decent ratings as bars across America will have it on so people can watch classic, mid-American football.
Actually, Labor Day weekend is TV ratings death. Millions of people are traveling or grilling out, leaving fewer people at home or in bars. That's why the NFL decided a few years ago to push back its opening week (when I was a kid, the NFL started on Labor Day weekend). Many colleges (especially those that lack huge followings) have their opening games on that Thursday night in order to help home attendance...they know that many of their fans will be out of town on Saturday. Labor Day Sunday is generally one of the slowest sports days of the year (like Christmas Eve or the day after the MLB All-Star Game), which is why they are showing high school games.
It will be a nice bit of exposure for the town.....the "Lakewood" brand will be prominently displayed. Hopefully St. Ed's will get a respectable size crowd at the game (or at least enough to fill the Bunts side, which will the side seen on TV).