The official attendance figure of 42,479 for Saturday night's Cal-Oregon State football game at Reser Stadium "didn't pass the eyeball test," as some of the tickets in circulation "clearly went unused," according to Ken Goe of the Portland OREGONIAN. Four of OSU's eight games have begun at 7:30pm PT, "two of those at home." Another home game began at 7:00pm. The times are "dictated by television programmers who want live college football in the late time slots." Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said, "This is a topic getting discussed at every one of our meetings. We know fans are struggling with too many night games." Goe noted OSU season-ticket holders "haven't seen an early-afternoon start since August." The start times were "in the fine print when Pac-12 accepted the TV money in a deal Scott's administration negotiated that has been reported to be worth" more than $17M per school. Scott on Saturday said that he "hopes possible mergers with DirecTV and AT&T, and a possible deal between Charter and Comcast will make the Pac-12 Networks nearly universally available." Goe wrote the Pac-12 "has taken the cash and left OSU fans, many living hours by car from Reser, with some difficult decisions about how to spend their time and money on football Saturdays." Scott "didn't offer much false hope for the future." Scott: "It won't be dramatically different. There are some things we can do around the edges to make sure the nighttime games are spread evenly amongst our schools and mitigate it as much as possible" (OREGONLIVE.com, 11/1).
