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Two days before the game, N.C. State senior associate athletics director David Horning already was imagining what ESPN's cameras might capture Thursday night when Florida State visits Carter-Finley Stadium.
Horning envisioned shots of the stadium with flashing lights on the rides from the opening night of the State Fair in the background.
“To get this exposure on national TV at your stadium with our fans is obviously valuable,” he said. “ … We have a chance to put our best foot forward.”
That's true for N.C. State and Raleigh. ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions Dave Brown said the network's Thursday night games have achieved ratings of 2.6 in 2006, 2.5 in 2007 and 2.6 so far in 2008.
A 2.6 rating translates to almost 3 million viewers.
Scott Dupree, vice president for sports marketing with the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in an e-mail that a sold-out game at Carter-Finley will easily generate more than $1 million for the local economy. Out-of-town fans traveling to Raleigh provide a big boost to hotels, restaurants and retail stores.
But that would be true regardless of which night the game was held.
The added benefit of Thursday night is the national broadcast with little or no competition from other games.
(The only other game Thursday is Brigham Young vs. Texas Christian, which is nationally significant but has a less attractive TV deal with the Versus network.)
“ESPN does a great job each week of showcasing the venue, the host university and the city,” Dupree said. “It's like a three-hour promotional video for N.C. State and Raleigh, and college football fans all over America will be watching. The result is a series of positive impressions that, combined with other events, broadcasts and media coverage throughout the year, help to brand this region as a great sports destination.”
Despite all the benefits, there are drawbacks to having Thursday night games:
Coupled with rush-hour traffic, cars traveling to games on a weeknight can cause gridlock.
Fans, especially those who don't live close to campus, can find it difficult to attend when work and school are scheduled the next day.
Recruits typically can't come for visits because they have school the next day. So in essence, the school loses a home football game for recruit hosting purposes.
N.C. State coach Tom O'Brien said the recruiting drawback is offset by the idea that many recruits will be watching at home because there aren't many other football games on at that time.
“So if they want to be part of that and play in that type of game, and this happens to be our second this year, this would be a pretty good place to come to school,” O'Brien said.
Traffic snarls also are less a problem for N.C. State than other schools because Carter-Finley Stadium is located away from campus.
