Friday night lights are coming to the Big Ten.
The league's new television agreements with ESPN/ABC and Fox will include a package of six prime-time Friday games starting in 2017, Commissioner Jim Delany told the Tribune on Wednesday.
The selected games will be revealed this week.
"All things considered," Delany said, "we thought it was worthwhile to dip our toe in the water."
With the exception of Labor Day weekend, the league has turned down Friday night games, citing a conflict with high school football and concerns about impacting class time and campus logistics.
Delany said the league is reluctant to ask schools with giant seating capacities to host Friday night games, so don't expect games to be played at Ohio State or Penn State.
And Michigan is flat-out saying no to Friday night games, both home and road. Delany said he believes the school simply prefers Saturday games for "consistency of presentation."
Delany said there will be three conference games and three non-league games in September and October. No team will play more than twice.
When Delany became commissioner in 1989, he said, the league had 16 televised football games. Now that number is 95, and he said the result is that the Saturday TV windows "become cannibalized."
So the league is bucking its own tradition to create a new TV window _ on a somewhat limited scale.
