The flipside to that is the more ways you allow fans to stream a game, the more concern there is that they won’t want to actually attend them in-person.

Thompson argues there are some things about actually going to the game that just can’t be replicated.

“You don’t get the fan experience,” He said. “You don’t get the tailgate, you don’t get the pregame, you don’t get the euphoria of being at the game. But you can follow the event, and in our part of the world, it’s cold, it’s snowy, it’s drizzly, oftentimes it’s night, and that’s a challenge, blending and balancing the two.”

Another challenge facing the conference is scheduling. Thompson said the conference needs to schedule better “creatively” across all sports and is in the middle of a multiyear process to emphasize that.

For football, his recommendation is that teams schedule one non-conference game against a challenging opponent, two against teams that are even counterparts and one that should result in an easy win.