MACtion comes to Kinnick Saturday

'MACtion” is coming to Iowa City Saturday.

For the last few years, Mid-American Conference football has been epitomized by that term. Ball State, which was part of 7-1 in the MAC and 10-3 overall last season, plays at Iowa Saturday.

The football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday started using #MACtion in 2008, but it took on a life of its own on a Tuesday night in November 2011 when Northern Illinois beat Toledo in an insane MAC game on ESPN2, 63-60. Twitter had a veritable explosion of fans and media people hashtagging 'MACtion” in reference to the game as it unfolded.

It's amazing what a catchy hashtag can do. The term stuck, and was applied to several more MAC games in 2012. MAC football suddenly had an image of entertaining, anything-goes football for a prime-time audience. MACtion, indeed.

'It kind of grew organically,” MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said in a phone interview Wednesday. 'It was so pervasive that we trademarked it.”

The conference, however, couldn't trademark the hashtag. No matter. Its profile has been enhanced by far more than a catchphrase. Last month the conference announced it had agreed to a 13-year extension of its media rights contract with ESPN, for a projected $100 million. That altered the final three years of the contract that was in place, and added 10 years to it, through 2026-27.

The previous deal had been worth about $1 million per year to the league. That was about $90,000 a year per school. Now, that jumps to over $650,000. It isn't Big Ten Network money, but it's a big shot in the arm for a so-called mid-major conference.

At the heart of the contract are the midweek football games the MAC has played and will continue to play on the network.

'Playing some midweek games, and in particular the ones in November, gave us a set of time slots in which we could be the only college games on television,” Steinbrecher said.

'(Midweek games) aren't everyone's cup of team, but they helped grow our football brand and the quality of our football. In a perfect world, everyone would play Saturday at 1 o'clock. But if you want national exposure, there are only so many windows. We've gone from a regional brand to a national brand of football.”

Six MAC games were televised on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on ESPN2 last year. Sports Media Watch said they drew between 435,000 and 1.05 million viewers. The league's title game between Northern Illinois and Bowling Green had an audience of 1.87 million.

For those critical of teams playing in the middle of the week, Steinbrecher said 'I don't understand the concern from so many people. It's not an academic issue. Football players miss less class time than any other sport. We have a rule that the home team has to be in class on the day of the game.”

It's also helped the league significantly that in 2012 Northern Illinois became a national story in the 2012 season. It won 12 straight games, including a double-overtime triumph over Kent State in the MAC championship game. It then proceeded to the Orange Bowl.

Ball State gets a chance Saturday to make national waves for the MAC if it can do what Northern Illinois did last season, and beat Iowa in Kinnick Stadium.

'They are a well-coached team,” Steinbrecher said. 'Coach (Pete) Lembo has done a magnificent job building that program. He took it over at a low point and very quickly revamped the program, upgraded the recruiting.”

It's not really 'MACtion,” however, unless it's a Tuesday or Wednesday night in Toledo or Muncie, and the crew in charge of the down-and-distance chains are exhausted from hustling up and down the sideline.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@sourcemedia.net