AMES – No. 3 Iowa State vs. Arizona was a fun game to watch. It had it all: competitive Big 12 teams, a strong home crowd and a buzzer beater to force overtime.

Unfortunately, there are probably a lot of people out there who missed it. That’s because the game started at 9:30 p.m. CT.

That all goes back to the world we now live in with superconferences. The Big 12 is the only conference in the country that has schools in all four time zones. The ACC and the Big 10 also have schools that are both in the Pacific and Eastern time zones.

It’s frustrating, I won’t lie. Having to wait all day to see your team play and having the game finish the day after is not fun for anyone.

I understand what drives it all. Money.

Conferences used to be regional, but when the bigwigs figured out that there was a potential to reach untapped markets, they of course took advantage of it. 

Why wouldn’t the Big 10 try and take the Los Angeles and Seattle markets? They already had New York and Chicago, so why stop there? Add that with a brand like Oregon, and the Big 10 was in a great situation.

Think of conferences as TV packages now. Each group of teams are TV partners or TV groupings. Not conferences.

Plus, each conference even has specific channels they play on. SEC on ESPN, Big 12 on FOX and ESPN, ACC on ESPN. The Big 10 has taken the most, with ESPN, FOX, CBS and NBC.

But with all of that change and expansion comes difficult logistics. Travel time, travel costs, time changes, late games and everything in between make things muddled for student-athletes. 

This season, the Iowa State men’s and women’s basketball teams stayed in Arizona for a few days to play both Arizona and Arizona State. It makes sense; it’s less travel since the teams were already there, but they had to miss days of class.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s tough when athletes have to travel a long way, but multiple days rather than one, or multiple time zones can take a toll. Starting the games so late doesn’t help.

Now, yes, there are primetime games, usually around 7 p.m., sometimes 8 p.m., and that’s fine. I love it when ranked teams face off then. It’s when West Coast teams host East Coast or Central Time zone teams that bugs me, especially when the games start so late.

For example, Syracuse, a school from New York, has to travel to California this week to play Stanford. That game doesn’t start until 8 p.m. PT. That’s 11 p.m. ET. Syracuse will stay in northern California to play California at 10 p.m. ET Saturday too.

The Orange might go back home, but maybe not. If they don’t, that’s basically a full week of class those players are missing.

In what world does that make sense? How is that fair to the fans? Syracuse supporters won’t know who wins until the day after, much like what happened in the Arizona vs. Iowa State game.

I can deal with late games, but even I have my limits. Iowa State’s game at Arizona started way too late.

Expect to see more of these late start times though. The superconferences are here, and they aren’t leaving any time soon.