Mississippi State University Athletic Director Scott Stricklin tweeted that he had made a big mistake. 
All season long, the jumbotron has been a distraction to the football games. Sunday morning, Stricklin replied via Twitter to a couple of complaints about the video board. Mostly, he responded with the short response, “Agreed,” to the online complaints. 
Though Stricklin did tweet, “IMO, big board should enhance, not dominate, game experience. We’ve crossed that line. It’ll get fixed.”
 The complaints have been around all season, but Saturday’s game felt like a tipping point. It was the first time all season the video board felt like it hurt the excitement of the crowd.
Saturday, MSU scored on the Alabama Crimson Tide.
As imagined, the sellout crowd exploded. The score was 10-7 with the Bulldogs trailing in the third quarter. The hopes of the fans were at the highest they have been in years. The crowd was in a frenzy. The clangs of cowbells filled the air. This was the closest MSU had felt to elite competition since Jackie Sherrill walked the sidelines.
And then, a shrill Janis Joplin came over the loud speaker asking God for a certain automobile. Everyone’s eyes looked up at the video board, and all of a sudden — silence.
Two more commercials would follow, and the crowd had been taken out of the game completely. 
The jumbotron should never distract the fans from what they are originally there to do — watch and cheer on their team. 
When Stricklin took over as the athletic director, he said he wanted to provide every fan with a great game experience. He is even the chairman of an SEC committee that is a “Working Group on Fan Experience.” 
The committee was made to help get more fans to attend the games after the SEC saw its fourth-straight drought in average attendance for the season. The massive amounts of commercials and music at odd times throughout the game have failed in its endeavor. 
Stricklin has acknowledged the problem and has promised to fix it, which is all anyone can ask for. However, do not expect any changes for the Egg Bowl this year. When asked about changes for this year, Stricklin tweeted “Contracts are currently in place that require certain ads to be run at specific timeouts. Need to gain flexibility.”