TV's influence on the College Football Schedule

The Oregon Ducks are looking at moving their game against the Oregon State Beavers to a Thursday in order for the game to be shown on ESPN and net the schools and extra $300,000. Many of the fans from both schools aren't enthused about this development.

However, it seems that such things are inevitable in today's sports landscape. As Tom Verducci said in an article about how to improve the World Series:

The biggest change in sports over the past quarter century is that the games are no longer athletic competition that happens to be televised, but rather television programming that happens to be athletic competition.

With the amount of money that is to be had from televised games, along with the role that college football has in balancing the budget for the entire athletic department, the pressure, and the desire to increase the visibility of the team and the university it is difficult to turn your back on the money in order to preserve the tradition of playing college football on Saturdays.