Ivy League football is getting screen time! Oh wait, just kidding, not Columbia
A little over a month ago, the Ivy League and the NBC Sports Network announced that between six and ten Ivy League football games would be televised, including ‘The Game’, the ever-famous matchup between Harvard and Yale.
Well, a few days ago, NBC released its lineup. And Columbia was nowhere to be found. Not only that, but it was the only Ivy to not have a single game televised. Check out a statement from NBC and the lineup after the jump.Here’s the schedule of what Ancient Eight games you can check out from the comfort of your own room:
That kind of stings, doesn’t it? Knowing that the viewership of Columbia’s football game will be down the additional 13 viewers this is sure to pull in? It’s like you can already hear Columbia fans cursing NBC Sports Network with abysmal viewership for these game. (Oh, wait, was the wish already granted?)
Spectrum wanted to know if there was any reason Columbia was, shall we say, snubbed, so we reached out to NBC and got the following statement in return:
Our goal is to showcase the most exciting Ivy League rivalries and storylines. When constructing the schedule, we take into account attractive match-ups, team records, and time-period availability. The Lions were on our air last year and we look forward to their return in the future.
Well, at least the answer wasn’t a simple, “1-9.” Suck it, Brown.
But new head coach Pete Mangurian isn’t surprised by the choices, according to his most recent blog post. Instead, he’s looking ahead to the future, and he insists, “We will not be defined by our past.” In his post, he also challenges fans to fill the stands and to come to all home games.
Well, I guess it could be worse than not having a single televised Ivy football game. We could live in New Haven.
Columbia Lions (I think against Princeton) was the first televised football game in TV history.
It was a baseball game at Baker in ’39 on the fledgling NBC station.
One speculation is that 1-9 Princeton has a game because it didn’t have one last year.
Well, at least they’re televising one Bucknell game. It’s so often that people forget about them when trying to fully cover Ivy League football. :-)
Columbia University football is a sad institution, and its players are, generally speaking, academically inferior in comparison to the rest of the undergraduate population (many players are on academic probation), and the team’s perennial losing record speaks for itself. Most football players are chronically absent to class and, when they do decide to attend class, they do not contribute to further academic discourse; furthermore, it’s embarrassing, as a student, to watch disheveled and unhygienic football players shuffle into the classroom sporting their frumpy school issued-athletic leisure wear (they are supposed to represent Columbia). In my opinion, the University should scrap the football program altogether and focus its resources on more worthy athletic pursuits, like developing an Ivy quality squash team, crew, or even promoting its world class fencing teams (the only consistently good sports program at Columbia).
I disagree the football team should be scraped, although I mostly agree with you. Let’s just say the football team needs to be reeducated in discipline, self-esteem and self-respect. This, by the way, is what football used to be all about. (I was about to rate your comment with a plus, but the “scrapping” part prevented me to do so.)
well ms Cohen – with “support” like yours – no wonder our team languishes in the cellar. Perhaps some students can go up on the free bus to the football field and see a game in person. Can’t you stick up for your school instead of tearing it down? Typical Spec stuff.
And wow Van Owen – way to stand up for another group at the school. Outrageous man! What do you do at Columbia – I’d really like to know. Takes all kinds to make a school – athletes, artists, scientists… the list goes on.
actually it’s spelled “cohan”… if you’re going to dis our writers, at least spell their names properly. are you too lazy to scroll up? and why is it that we must blindly support our sports teams to show school spirit? i didn’t get the memo that it’s 1953 and i want to date the quarterback and wear his varsity jacket too.
Further Van Owen – what is the sort of wearing apparel do you expect football players to wear to class? Three-piece suits?
What a joke – take a look at the average student and see what they are wearing.
Who really cares about fencing and/or squash anyway? Parents of players only Iexpect.
I recommend apparel that is void of sweat stains, odor, food debris, or general befoulment. Sadly, these school “ambassadors” walk around with the Columbia logo emblazoned on their chests, so maybe if they wore a coat and tie they would develop some sort of personal pride that might just carry over onto the football field, but it amounts to discipline and attention to detail, which both you and the team are sorely lacking (COHAN). I blame the team’s leadership. Columbia isn’t a football school anyway, and the dismal attendance record proves that the program isn’t very well received, and financially the team is a huge ulcer, so I would recommend cutting the team entirely.
The only good news is Columbia does not actively recruit twenty some odd apes with 400 SAT scores just to have a good team the way Harvard and Yale and Penn do. When you have 2000 per class, it is easy to do that.
oh pardon me – ms. cohan. strange spelling of the name. thanks for nitpicking. just what i expect.
I forwarded your concerns to my father. Although I have to wonder, out of both of my names, you question the spelling my last name?
I love Rebecca Cohen
and yeah, queezy, I am dissing spec writers – love to tear down the school don’t they? Why not “diss” them – looks like that is their stock in trade. Kinda makes me queezy.
The Spec writers love to dis everyone, the school, the administration, the sports teams, etc. But say something against them, and they get all crazy defensive. Point all their errors, misquotes, misspellings, and they are their with their quick response. Yes, and by the way, I do feel students should encourage and support each others endeavors.
I wonder if you can figure out on your own how your comment contradicts itself…
How does this post dis the football team? This is an honest question, not trying to be snarky. I suppose there’s the allusion to the abysmal viewership, but as we’ve seen from the last few years, attendance at games is low. I don’t see any knock on the football team (just from other commenters).
I also don’t see Spec “tearing down the school.” Perhaps you’ve gotten this impression from the opinion page, which is largely written by contributors to the paper, i.e. non-staff. In fact, my friends who write for Spec Sports are some of the most dedicated Lions fans in this school.
I hate LeBron…
They’re playing LeBron, we’re playing Dwayne Wade
Hey Lion Fan, the only way the name Cohan can be spelled is C-O-H-A-N. If you think that’s “strange”, it calls into question your perspective on anything. I’ll give your regards to George M. if I ever run into him..
oh for god’s sake. i questioned your count of tv fans of lion football as being 13 viewers. that is all. You are supposed to be learning journalism, but for the most part, I find some of the Spec’s viewpoints of athletic teams to be mostly snide and demeaning, and this thread is pretty demonstrative of that.
Cohan is a lovely name. And I will keep my good eye on my “perspective” since I made an error in a Spec writer’s name. Sorry about that.
Touchy today are we?
Rebeka is worse. I guess her parents didn’t know how to spell anything. LOL.
As an alumnus — and since you care about our football team, I’m guessing you are a pretty old alumnus — I think it’s sad that you have nothing better to do than engage in ad hominem attacks on college students who don’t write exactly the words you want to see in the school paper.
It’s nice that you think everyone should support the football team, since it’s an important part of the school — but you don’t seem to think that going out of your way to insult a student-run college paper is inconsistent with that philosophy.
I love the football team. I will always root for them. But they were absolutely terrible last year. What is the paper supposed to do, pretend they were great? Get over yourself. The football program isn’t going to crumble over a couple of jokes.
I’m glad Columbia football will not be televised. It’s certainly premature. Coach Mangurian has to prove he can recruit and build a team that can play a full four quarters of football, on offense and defense, and defeat the opponent. Although the program showed signs of life in 2010, in 2011 the Team showed they couldn’t even spell the word d-e-f-e-n-s-e. It is my great hope that Coach Mangurian succeeds in every respect and that the Team will soon be known for a tough-as-nails defense.
Very well said, UnionLeague. I too wish coach Mangurian all the best. I want to see the Lions in the middle of the Ivies. I think we can do it!
Wow, i stirred up a hornet’s nest. Yeah, how dare I be an “old” supporter of the football team. Maybe you youngsters could learn some perspective too, and not dismiss people on campus.
And since some fine readers are all over me about this issue, why can’t Ms. COHAN just report the facts, and refrain from making statements that denigrate the team.
Let’s face it – the Spec and also the band has a history of mocking athletics and the football team. Isn’t that the job of our opponents and their followers?
This is a blog and you are entitled to your opinion, but I take exception to the constant mockery.
You “pretty young students” might want to gain some perspective and empathy along the way. Hope you get jobs, yo!
GO LIONS FOOTBALL!!
best regards
Pretty Old Alumnus
Location: Rocking Chair
I’m gonna cut you some slack on this since you’re old, but you should really Google the difference between a newspaper article and a blog post. Or Ask Jeeves, or write a letter to Dear Abby, or whatever it is that you oldsters do when you want to know something.
I must disagree with you. I’ve been reading the Spec for time now, and although there are adverse comments to athletics from time to time, they are also quick to praise athletic achievements. The trouble with the football team recently is that they haven’t been up to the expected standards, and actually need to be straightened out. I hope Coach Mangurian is able to do so. It looks like it isn’t just a matter of doing standard training drills, but recovering discipline, self-respect and self-esteem, which includes practices outside the field. The team wil be praised again when it does the minimum to deserve it.
As the Band declared: they wouldn’t have crossed the line if the team had crossed the line more often…
The Spec writers neeed to look at other school’s papers such as Harvard, Princeton Stanford, etc. Their articles have a completely different flair toward their school. They report news and updates of the university, without all kinds of degradation, opinions, crazy bloggers, unsupported conspiracy theories etc.
Actually I believe the Spec does a great job by objectively reporting and commenting on every kind of events, particularly sports. If the football team sucks, someone needs to say so.