As college football conferences continue to fight for viewership and attention, a perfect storm is brewing that could result in more college football games airing on Friday nights. Scripted television audiences continue to get older, making relatively younger live sports viewers extremely valuable.

Prior to 2020, before streaming services were abundant, scripted programming dominated over-the-air television. The idea of airing sports on weeknights—when these scripted programs were cheaper to produce and often attracted more viewers—would have been laughed out of the room. Even the NFL wasn’t spared from this. It’s part of the reason Fox ended its deal to air Thursday Night Football a year early in 2021.

But times have changed. Since 2020, the audience for scripted programming on television has gotten significantly older.

Take the week of October 20, 2025, for example. That week, Game 7 of the ALCS aired on FOX, Monday Night Football aired on ABC, and the NBA had its opening night doubleheader on NBC.

According to data from the TV Media Blog Substack, the median age of people watching these events was 53.9 for the NBA on NBC, 57.8 for ALCS Game 7, and 60.6 for Monday Night Football on ABC. These were the three youngest median ages for shows that week.

For scripted programming that same week, the median age ballooned. 9-1-1: Nashville on ABC did best, with a median age of 62.9. But many shows had a median age over 70. On CBS, NCIS, FBI, Matlock, and Elsbeth all had a median age between 74 and 75.

For advertisers, the key age group they want to target is between 18 and 49. An 18-year-old will likely be buying Coca-Cola products for the next 50 years. A 75-year-old might only buy Coke for the next five years. Which would you rather invest in?

The thing about these scripted programs is that there’s no particular benefit to watching them live. You can enjoy the same experience watching a show on Paramount+ that you can on CBS, and you don’t have to work your schedule around it.

But, especially with social media, sports are still best enjoyed live. That means that sports viewers on television remain, relatively speaking, young—which makes live sports valuable to advertisers.

In recent years, Fox has given up on scripted programming on Friday nights in favor of live sports outside the summer. The NBA will dominate NBC’s Tuesday night schedule from October to April. ABC simulcasts almost all of ESPN’s Monday Night Football games on Monday nights. All of these networks once relied on scripted dramas in those same slots.

At the same time, college football conferences are always searching for new ways to get their programs on television with as little competition as possible. To varying degrees, the MAC, Conference USA, and Sun Belt all air games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, when there is far less sports competition.

ESPN and Fox already consistently air college football on Friday nights. Unlike other weeknights, Friday doesn’t make scheduling difficult or significantly hurt attendance. But for both networks and conferences, it’s worth exercising some caution before expanding too much on Friday nights.

Friday nights are known as a ratings black hole. It’s one of the nights people are most likely to be out of their homes and not watching TV.

There is also a danger of over-saturating Friday nights. Right now, there are usually two Power Five conference games on Friday nights: the ACC or Big 12 on ESPN, and the Big Ten or Big 12 on FOX. That’s great, especially for the ACC and Big 12, which get a rare window with little competition. But if ABC starts airing an SEC game and NBC also adds a Big Ten game, Friday nights lose their advantage compared to Saturday nights.

High school football also poses a problem. Federal law restricts the NFL from broadcasting games on Friday nights during the high school football season in order to protect the sport. High school athletes deserve the Friday night spotlight too.

That being said, there are still some ways Friday nights could work. Fox has recently expanded the number of Saturday night college football doubleheaders the network will air. As soon as November 22, I’m told, NBC could air a Saturday night college football doubleheader. But neither network has ever aired a Friday doubleheader.

Additionally, while Friday nights remain relatively unsaturated, they could be a good way for smaller college football networks to build a more consistent audience. TNT with the Big 12 and The CW with the ACC and Pac-12 come to mind. Both networks struggle to stand out on Saturdays, especially when they don’t feature top-25 teams.

The other thing that Friday unlocks is, well, another weeknight—specifically, Wednesday nights. Wednesday nights are another night with little competition. NBC was not afraid to remove scripted programming from Tuesday nights, so it stands to reason another network might be willing to do that with Wednesday nights.

Of course, scheduling games on Wednesday nights is an issue, especially when teams play on Saturdays. But the extra day of rest from playing on a Friday could make conferences much more comfortable scheduling short-week Wednesday games.

As these conferences continue to battle for visibility, and the scripted program audience continues to age, don’t be surprised if even more unorthodox TV windows start featuring college football.