Members of the Ohio Normal Meeting are very involved about school soccer.
A invoice has been launched within the legislature to ban Ohio State and different state colleges from taking part in most of its residence video games earlier than 3:30 p.m. Underneath the phrases of the proposal by Rep. Tex Fischer (R), video games together with at the least one state college and video games together with top-10 groups could be prohibited from beginning sooner than the mid-afternoon. With one exception.
“Division (B) of this part doesn’t apply if an earlier begin time of a school soccer sport between two groups is a university soccer custom,” the invoice states. “For this objective, a ‘school soccer custom’ is a begin time of a sport between the groups of two establishments whose soccer groups have competed in opposition to one another at the least fifty instances and the beginning time has been the identical for at the least ninety-five per cent of these video games.”
In fact, that caveat would exempt Ohio State’s annual rivalry sport with Michigan from the ban. The Buckeyes and Wolverines have historically performed at midday ET on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
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The invoice comes amidst a lot consternation amongst Ohio State followers with the Massive Ten’s media rights contract with Fox. The community will get the choose of the convention’s high sport each weekend in soccer season and locations its marquee sport of the week at midday ET as a part of its “Massive Midday Saturday” programming. With different high video games across the nation later within the afternoon and within the night, Fox has been rewarded with robust scores within the time slot.
That point slot has closely featured Ohio State. Seven of the Buckeyes’ 12 regular-season video games had been at midday ET in 2024 and 6 of these video games had been at residence. Marquee contests vs. Penn State, Indiana and Michigan had been all on Fox at midday.
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The early begin instances have drawn frustration from followers who attend the video games for a lot of causes, together with the lack to tailgate through the day. However Fox is an enormous purpose why Ohio State and different Massive Ten groups get a lot cash per yr. It’s exhausting to see OSU and different Massive Ten colleges buying and selling much less TV cash for fewer early kickoffs.
The invoice to ban early kickoffs comes simply months after a invoice was launched to ban flag-planting at a football stadium. That invoice was spawned by Michigan’s flag-planting display following the Wolverines’ 13-10 win over the Buckeyes in 2024. Ohio State went on to win the Faculty Soccer Playoff after the loss to the Wolverines.
