At Columbus sports bars, there's plenty of TVs for Ohio State, Crew, Jackets convergence

At Columbus sports bars, there’s plenty of TVs for Ohio State, Crew, Jackets convergence

Posted by Admin October 12, 2024 Sports

If you’re a sports fan with one of those “Ohio Against the World” sweatshirts, now would be good time to put it on. Three of our state’s teams — the Ohio State Buckeyes, Columbus Crew and Columbus Blue Jackets — are playing Saturday in out-of-town games whose TV broadcasts will overlap.

Sports bars, on your marks.

“I suggest: Come early,” DraftKings Sports & Social general manager Phil Johnson said Friday.

The Short North sports bar and restaurant, where a 37-foot LED media wall can show between three and 10 games at a time, will be packed Saturday night, he said. There, like most places in Columbus that draw sports fans, some of its 22 screens in the restaurant, above the bar, near the game tables and out on the patio will be dedicated to each of the hometown teams:

Ohio State’s kickoff vs. Oregon is at 7:30 p.m. at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. The Big Ten teams are both undefeated and ranked second and third in the country right now, respectively. Sports Illustrated said their game, to be broadcast on NBC and Peacock, will be this week’s most watched in college football.
Also at 7:30 p.m., the Columbus Crew will start their game against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Crew are currently in second place in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference, while the Revolution are second to last in the 15-team standings, but Columbus is trying to improve on its lead over third-place Cincinnati .
In between the two coasts, the Columbus Blue Jackets will play the Colorado Avalanche at Denver’s Ball Arena. Their game starts at 9 p.m. Eastern on both Bally Sports Ohio and ESPN+. The Jackets started their 2024-25 National Hockey League season on Thursday.

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Given the average length of games in each sport — about 3 hours and 20 minutes for college football, 2 hours and 30 minutes for the NHL and about two hours for MLS — all three teams should be playing at the same time for at least 30 minutes starting at 9 p.m.

Until Friday afternoon, there was a fourth Ohio-against-the-world game in the mix, too. Potentially bad weather in Cleveland, though, led to a time change for the fifth and deciding game Major League Baseball American League Division Series playoff game between the Guardians and the Detroit Tigers.

The first pitch at Progressive Field now is scheduled for 1:08 p.m. Saturday. The game will be broadcast on TBS, Max and MLB.tv.

At least there’s one group of Ohio sports fans who will be jostling for tables and a TV tonight in Columbus.

Actually, if all goes according to Kyle Keegstra’s plan, no one will be left out at Shakers Public House, a 35-TV restaurant and sports bar in Worthington.

“I’m a TV wizard,” said Keegstra, the Shakers general manager, who has 15 years’ experience doing things like this.

First, he said, he has the whole place mapped out, including which of 12 Direct TV boxes in his office controls which of the nearly three dozen screens in the restaurant. (A good third of them in a specially designated room are dedicated to the Cleveland Browns on Sundays, because Shakers is an official Browns Backers bar.)

He then prints off games and times, and he gauges which events, particularly on college football Saturdays, are likely to be the biggest draws. It all goes into decisions on which game will go on the biggest screens, which will get the sound on, and which will go on at all.

“Of course, OSU, that’s going to win over anything,” he said of Buckeyes on college football game days. “They get the big screens, the sound, 80% of the TVs.”

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The same goes for Buckeyes games at DraftKings, where neon numbers above the bar list the years of OSU’s national championships in football and a final spot marked as “—-” can be subbed out easily. The decor shows a definite hierarchy that probably exists in more than a few other bars in town, although not at the R Bar in the Arena District, where the Blue Jackets rule.)

Ohio State banners line the walls at DraftKings, while there’s one framed Crew poster. There’s no Jackets swag in sight.

It’s Crew fans who don’t gather much at Shakers, Keegstra said. The Jackets draw in fans, he said, because amateur hockey leagues and youth travel teams play at the nearby Chiller Ice Works. On NFL Sundays, he said, he puts team logos on the TVs showing their games so fans can find their spots.

They probably don’t need the extra guidance, though.

“You can tell right away who someone’s rooting for,” he said.

Saturday night, they’ll be wearing scarlet and gray, black and gold or red and blue, but they’ll probably be cheering for all three combinations.

rvitale@dispatch.com

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