Pac-12 Moves to Reduce Number of Saturday Night Football Games|Ucla Hot Topics|Team BattleGround|College BattleGround

While Bruin fans were following along with all the news about UCLA’s new apparel contract yesterday, the Pac-12 Conference made a few announcements of its own.

The Pac-12 announced that it is taking action to reduce the number of Saturday night football games. Specifically, a Pac-12 Network game can now start at either 2:30 or 6 pm locally and overlap with an ESPN or FOX exclusive TV window. The change is expected to reduce the number of Pac-12 Networks night games by as many as four games.

Four games doesn’t seem like much when you consider that there are 13 weeks to the college football season.

But, anything the conference can do to reduce the number of night football games is certainly welcome from a fan perspective. This is especially true for Bruin fans because the Rose Bowl is so far away from campus.

The conference also announced that it will impose institutional fines for court and field storming. Beginning in the Fall, the conference will fine schools $25,000 for the first offense, $50,000 for the second offense and $100,000 for the third offense.

Finally, the conference announced that the Pac-12 Networks will commence eSports competitions this coming year. Under this proposal, teams from campuses will participate based on a specific video game. The competitions will include head-to-head matchups in studios as well as a tournament in conjunction with a Pac-12 championship event. The game titles and event formats are still to be determined.

“eSports is a natural fit for many of our universities located in the technology and media hubs of the country,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. “Pac-12 Networks’ commitment to innovation as well as its natural tie to our universities and established media platform make it the perfect organization to develop the framework for eSports intercollegiate competition.”