Surprise Surprise!

The Ivy League has officially announced the television schedule for the 2015 football season.

It turns out Columbia will have not one, but TWO Friday night games on its schedule this fall to accommodate an more ambitious slate of coverage from NBC Sports Network, (NBSN)

We already guessed the week 3 Ivy opener at Princeton would be on a Friday night, but the season finale at home against Brown is also now a Friday night game on NBCSN, moved from Saturday November, 21 to November 20th.

Also, the day game against Yale will be televised by FOX College Sports.

And here's an additional surprise: despite no TV coverage that we know of yet, the week four home game against Wagner is now a night game. It will kick off at 6pm on October 10th.

Since the start time for the week six game against Dartmouth is now officially 3pm, I think there's a still a good chance that game will be televised.

Columbia's Homecoming game against Penn will begin at 3:30, thus accommodating all the Homecoming Day festivities.


Some thoughts:

-I can't remember the last time I looked at Columbia's or any Ivy team's upcoming schedule and times and really noticed this many changes. This is the kind of change that's good. It shakes up a brand that needs shaking up.

-I really like adding two night games on weeks where Columbia will probably need some help getting some new fans into the seats. The first-ever game against fellow NYC team Wagner is a great game to move to 6pm. The game will still end early enough to ease the noise fears from the Inwood. And it will start late enough to allow for Wagner fans to get in from Staten Island and everyone to get a chance for a nice late lunch/early dinner tailgate or picnic going.

-The season finale against Brown could be a chilly affair, but the week 10 games can often be a big problem attendance-wise since they're up against Harvard-Yale. Putting this game on Friday night avoids that problem while also showing NBCSN's unique commitment to the league by airing two Ivy games on the same weekend. (When was the last time that happened?). And one BIG DEAL is that those of us who have always wanted to go to the Harvard-Yale game but didn't want to miss Columbia's season finale now have the best ever option to do so.

-The newbie in all of this for the Ivies is the American Sports Network. It is not televising any Columbia games this fall, but it is doing seven games including what looks like a few marquee match ups. They include the Princeton-Dartmouth game in the final week of the season, the Princeton-Harvard game, and the Penn-Harvard game. That's some very good real estate for a newcomer, but all the ASN games will also still be available on the Ivy League Digital Network.