The South Carolina Gamecocks are just over a week away from their annual spring game, but this year, it won’t be televised. Head coach Shane Beamer explained the decision behind this choice.
Spring football is underway across college football, and one of the most talked-about events each year is the spring game. While some schools, like Texas, have opted not to hold a spring game, South Carolina will be hosting one for the fans in attendance, but it won’t be shown on TV.
Beamer clarified the reasoning for this decision, saying it simply made more sense for the program. “I would say it’s independent. But from what I can tell, I think most of us are on the same page. The best I understand it is we had an opportunity to either televise the spring game, and I don’t know if it would have been live. I don’t know if it would have been replayed at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. I don’t know. Or (we can) put together, it was either a 30-minute or 60-minute show to basically document your football program on SEC Network.
I chose the show because I just felt like, from a recruiting standpoint, if I’m a high school recruit, yeah, I love what we do in the spring game, and I love the competition and the energy and the fans that people get to see the players on television. But we’ll have so many players that will be here in person for the spring game, I felt like it would be more beneficial for us, from a recruiting standpoint, to be able to put together a show that can highlight our program.”
While Beamer acknowledged that he understands the disappointment of fans who want to watch the spring game on TV but cannot attend in person, he emphasized that only two of the 16 SEC teams will be televising their spring games, and South Carolina is simply following the trend.
“I certainly am sensitive to the people that want it on television, that aren’t able to get here to see it in person, and I certainly respect that. I’m sorry that it won’t be on television for those people that enjoy watching it on television. Hopefully, you can get here in person to see it. I know not everyone can. But then there’s also the competitive aspect of it as well.
And frankly, if I think I read that of the 16 SEC teams, two of them are maybe doing a televised spring game. I believe, I think I saw that (Texas) A&M was and somebody else, if I’m not mistaken. But from a competitive standpoint, if there’s a spring game on television, we tape it and we watch it, and that’s how we can watch personnel. We could watch their spring game and just kind of get an idea about personnel and who’s lined up where, and things like that as well.”
