By Matt Neznanski
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Monday, August 27, 2007 12:00 am
In Corvallis, businesses brace for football season, even when it begins on a Thursday night.
Despite this year's mid-week start to Beaver football, hotels and restaurants are ready and expect to see big crowds.
"We're treating it like a weekend day," said Randy Leppkeman, pub manager at McMenamin's on Northwest Third Street. "We're pretty much scheduling everybody and we'll do the best we can."
Thursday night's game against Utah was not bumped to mid-week for television, as is often the case, but because of it.
Oregon State University plays its second game in Cincinnati on Sept. 6, a game that was scheduled on a Thursday for the chance to appear nationally on ESPN. In order to have a full week to recover, the team opted to shift the Utah game ahead two days.
But the byproduct of pitting two teams together on a Thursday is that it attracts the attention of TV networks. So this Thursday's game will also be on television, broadcast here on FOX Sports Northwest, on another regional network in Utah and on the FOX satellite system.
At this point, it's almost become a tradition to play on Thursday for the first home game of the season, says Steven Fenk, assistant director of sports information for Oregon State University.
"I don't think we'd want to do it in the middle of the season," Fenk said. "That might cause some problems."
Fenk said the university struggles to fill the stadium during these early season games anyway, but it has for years because Oregon State starts football before classes.
Despite that, there's no room in some local inns.
"We're 100 percent full and we have been for about a month," said Nathan Storms, services manager at the Holiday Inn Express on the River.
At Salbasgeon Suites, demand has exceeded supply this week just as for any other football game. And while Nathan Nusbaum, the hotel's director of sales and marketing, said he's appreciative of any football business, Thursday night games mean visitors don't add the extra day to their stay.
"Thursday night games are becoming more commonplace," Nusbaum said. "They're not as profitable as a Saturday game, but people still stay."
Reporter Matt Neznanski can be reached at 758-9518 or matt.