Most oft-asked questions of the week that don’t involve coaching carousel developments like Herm Edwards to Arizona State, Mike Leach to Tennessee, Willie Taggart to Florida State and Chris Petersen to Texas A&M:

(That last one was a joke; the first one was not.)

3. Could the loser of the Pac-12 championship game make the New Year’s Six as an at-large?

2. Who’s going to win the Pac-12 championship game?

1. Why is the Pac-12 championship game at 5 p.m. on a Friday …

When traffic is awful and parking is difficult and people aren’t home from work to watch and high school playoff games are scheduled and Friday at 5 is impossible for out-of-town fans and why can’t it be on a Saturday like all the other championship games and who’s running this conference and why is it all about TV, TV, TV …

How about we focus this discussion on question No. 1:

The decision to play the Pac-12 championship on Friday night.

Yes, it’s entirely about TV, and the TV dollars that TV is willing to pay for it to be entirely about TV.

That’s not always the smart way to play it.

In this case, it is.

The audience data overwhelmingly supports playing the game on Friday night.

Permit me to dazzle you with facts:

(Note: Audience numbers taken from Sports Media Watch database, which did not include the 2011 season.)

2012: Stanford 27, UCLA 24

Network: FOX

Day: Friday

TV audience: 3.0 rating/4.9 million homes

2013: Stanford 38, Arizona State 14

Network: ESPN

Day: Saturday

TV audience: 0.9 rating/1.45 million homes

2014: Oregon 51, Arizona 13

Network: FOX

Day: Friday

TV audience: 3.7 rating/6 million homes

2015: Stanford 41, USC 22

Network: ESPN

Day: Saturday

TV audience: 1.6 rating/2.6 million homes

2016: Washington 41, Colorado 10

Network: FOX

Day: Friday

TV audience: 3.4 rating/5.7 million homes

Three Friday games on Fox averaged 5.533 million homes.

Two Saturday games on ESPN averaged 2.025 million homes.

The difference (3.5 million) is greater than the average viewership of the ESPN telecasts.

And that’s not because fans love FOX almost twice as much as they love ESPN.

It’s because of the lack of competition on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Saturday lineup is jammed with Power Five championships.

Let’s use the 2015 schedule, when the Pac-12 title game was last on a Saturday, as an example.

(All times Pacific.)

1 p.m.: SEC championship (CBS)

4:45 p.m.: Pac-12 championship (ESPN)

5 p.m.: ACC championship (ABC)

5:15 p.m.: Big Ten championship (FOX)

That’s worse than any traffic outside Levi’s Stadium, but there are no options.

* The Pac-12 can’t play in the morning window (the Big 12, which enters the fray this year, will kick at 9:30.)

* It can’t play in the early afternoon window: No way FOX or ESPN would compete with the SEC championship. Related Articles Conference crisscross: Oregon State hires Smith, Edwards to Arizona State, whither Taggart and pick for the championship game

Power ratings: USC holds, Oregon rises, Washington State drops (plus assessment of the latest playoff rankings)

Basketball power ratings: Bleak week in kingdom of the blind, where Arizona State and Washington State are the one-eyed men

* Nor can it take the #Pac12AfterDark route because the FOX and ESPN windows are booked until well past 8 p.m. for long games and trophy ceremonies.

So it’s either Saturday at 5 p.m., against the ACC and Big Ten, or it’s Friday at 5 p.m., all alone.

The decision lies with the TV partners, who paid for the flexibility.

ESPN, after seeing the disparity in audience, has followed FOX’s lead. It moved the ’17 game to Friday.

Yes, audience ratings can be manipulated. But in this case, the data supporting a Friday championship is clear and overwhelming.

Even if it means there are 15,000 fewer butts in the seats.

Even if it means a few thousand out-of-town fans cannot attend the game.

The fact that Stanford is playing on a short week while USC has a bye is the fault of the regular-season schedule, not the placement of the title game (and the flaw has been corrected for 2018).

When it comes to the showcase event, Friday is the way to go:

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