ESPN is putting Prime Time in prime time.
Brandon Marcello of 247Sports reported Tuesday that ESPN and the Pac-12 are in the process of moving the Arizona State-Colorado game to Week 0, thereby putting Deion Sanders's FBS debut in a standalone broadcast window.
Networks have noticed audiences' hunger for football in late August, and have responded by serving up an appetizer before the 5-day feast that is Labor Day weekend. Last season's Nebraska-Northwestern game, for instance, drew a healthy 4.42 million viewers for Fox on Aug. 27, the fifth-most watched game of Week 0/1, according to Sports Media Watch.
Late August is expected to become a fixture of the FBS schedule once the new College Football Playoff contract begins in 2026.
The #Pac12 is working to finalize a Week 0 matchup between Colorado and Arizona State in August, a source tells @247Sports. ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit said/reported on #CFP broadcast the two will meet in Week 0.
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) January 10, 2023
Game would mark the debuts of Deion Sanders and ASU's Kenny Dillingham.
The Pac-12 schedule has not been set yet. Senior associate commissioner for football operations Merton Hanks told the San Jose Mercury-News late last month that "there are some things we're taking another look at."
“We hope to get it out relatively quickly,” Hanks told the paper. “There are some things we’re taking another look at, so we’ve asked the athletic directors for more time. It’s difficult because there are so many good teams."
Deion's scheduled opener is, as of now, slated to be Sept. 2 at national runner-up TCU. The Buffaloes then return home to face Big 8 rival Nebraska and then in-state rival Colorado State on Sept. 16 before opening Pac-12 play with an as-yet-undetermined opponent.
Both the TCU and Nebraska games will be big in their own right, but they'll be big amid all the other big games of Weeks 1 and 2.
It sounds like ESPN wants to capitalize on the curiosity around all things Coach Prime -- the game would also be Kenny Dillingham's debut at Arizona State but... let's be honest -- and the Pac-12 would like to keep all that curiosity to itself, rather than shine the spotlight on a Big 12 stadium.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
Wednesday Update: The NCAA has denied this request, according to multiple reports on Wednesday.
CU and ASU sought to move the game to Week 0 in part get on TV, but also to avoid playing nine consecutive weeks during the meat of the season. Since many of other teams play nine straight weeks, the NCAA didn't want to create a precedent and so it denied the waiver.