IT’S FALL. THE SCHOOL YEAR HAS JUST BEGUN. THE LEAVES ARE CHANGING FROM GREEN TO ORANGE, SWEATER WEATHER IS IN FULL SWING. AS STUDENTS ARE SETTLING INTO THEIR NEW CLASSES AND CLUBS DURING THE WEEKDAYS, THEIR WEEKENDS ARE TAKEN OVER BY ANOTHER ACTIVITY: COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
[Nat sound: cheering from the football stands, various northwestern gameday sounds from TV broadcast]
ON GAMEDAY, STUDENTS CAN DEVOTE THEIR ENTIRE DAY TO FOOTBALL, WHETHER THAT BE GOING TO THE GAME ITSELF OR PARTAKING IN TAILGATE ACTIVITIES BEFOREHAND. THE LAST TWO NORTHWESTERN FOOTBALL GAMES START TIMES VARIED WIDELY, WITH ONE KICKING OFF AT 11 A.M. AND THE OTHER STARTING OUT AT A LEISURELY 6:30 P.M. THIS CONSTANTLY CHANGING SCHEDULE RAISES THE CRUCIAL QUESTION: DO STUDENTS PREFER NIGHTTIME OR DAYTIME FOOTBALL GAMES? I WENT OUT INTO THE NORTHWESTERN COMMUNITY TO HEAR WHAT PEOPLE HAD TO SAY.
[Casey Weisman] My name is Casey Weisman!
WHEN MUSIC COMPOSITION SOPHOMORE CASEY WAS ASKED WHEN HE LIKES TO GO TO FOOTBALL GAMES, HE SAID THAT HE PREFERS DAYTIME GAMES. HERE’S WHY.
[Casey Weisman] The air at night, when I’m at a sports game, it gets pretty muggy and I don’t like the grimy feeling of it. And I just, usually get tired around that [time of] day.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE MAJOR CATE JESCKE SHARED A SIMILAR SENTIMENT TO WEISMAN.
[Cate Jescke] I think daytime games are more fun.
[Ella Barnes] Is there a particular reason why?
[CJ] I don’t know, I feel like it’s just nicer to see in the daytime, and you have time to do stuff afterward. And, if it goes late, it’s not too late in the night.
[Sydney Fener] Hi I’m Sydney Fener!
RTVF MAJOR SYDNEY FENER BEGAN BY SAYING THAT SHE PREFERRED DAYTIME GAMES, BUT CIRCLED BACK AROUND TO REALIZE THAT SHE ACTUALLY PREFERRED GAMES IN THE EARLY EVENING.
[Sydney Fener] I would say daytime, but like, middle of the day. I don’t like an early football game. Like last week, it was at, like – oh, I guess this is nighttime – last week it was at like 6:30. I thought that was a good time. I would say, late afternoon, early evening.
THEATER MAJOR OLIVER TAM ALSO PREFERRED NIGHTTIME GAMES.
[Oliver Tam] I think the night atmosphere makes for a better vibe in the football games.
FELLOW THEATER MAJOR EMMA NELSEN DECLARED THAT SHE PREFERRED DAYTIME FOOTBALL GAMES, OUT OF CONCERN FOR EVANSTON RESIDENTS’ PRIVATE PROPERTY.
[Emma Nelsen] I would say that I prefer daytime football games because it feels like the more authentic college experience! And sometimes I like to be in someone’s yard by day rather than by night because it’s nice and bright, I love nature, and – I can see all of my friends in the beautiful natural light of the sun.
A VERY MIXED BAG OF ANSWERS, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THE CONSENSUS FROM THIS BUNCH IS THAT DAYTIME AND EARLY EVENING GAMES ARE PREFERRED TO NIGHTTIME GAMES. ONE THING’S FOR CERTAIN THOUGH; NORTHWESTERN STUDENTS LOVE COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
[Nat sound: football stadium cheering sound]
REPORTING FOR WNUR NEWS, I’M ELLA BARNES.
![TREVOR RAINBOLT (via the GeoGuessr World Cup Grand Finale): Consus! The first official GeoGuessr World Champion. He did it from the qualifiers. He’s done it! He’s done it! GABE SHUMWAY: That was the culmination of GeoGuessr’s first-ever World Cup event. But what is GeoGuessr? It’s a video game you play using Google Maps, where you’re placed in a random Google Street View location and must guess where you are. You may recognize it from your TikTok For You page, where someone happened to guess Brazil based on the red soil. It may be something that you played with your friends, determined to find out where you were. But what makes this game so appealing? What is causing this surge in worldwide popularity? Today we set out to find the answers behind GeoGuessr’s meteoric rise. SPENCER McLAUGHLIN: I’m somebody who really likes geography, really likes maps. As somebody who kind of likes to think that I at least have a decent view of what the world looks like and what different parts of the world look like, this is literally just examining how well you know the world. EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: That’s Spencer McLaughlin, a Weinberg freshman here at Northwestern. He was initially drawn to the game through a YouTube video he watched nearly ten years ago. Even though he played the game in a history class, it never stuck until the pandemic. During this time, he picked it up again and began playing with friends regularly. Ryan Almeida is a visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Hamilton College. He chose to become the faculty advisor of Hamilton’s GeoGuessr Club after falling in love with the game under similar circumstances. RYAN ALMEIDA: I really picked it back up during the pandemic – probably it was 2021-ish when I really got back into it. And I think a lot of people got into GeoGuessr during that time in part due to wanderlust and sort of not being able to travel. SHUMWAY: McLaughlin started a geography club at his New Jersey high school that quickly took to GeoGuessr as a form of entertainment. As the club gained popularity, the game became more competitive among its members. McLAUGHLIN: We had, like, a March Madness-style bracket where everyone could compete. We also had, like, when we were playing casually, a leaderboard system, where we had this really complicated Excel spreadsheet where you would put in your scores for individual games and it would give you like an ELO or, like, a rating for your place in the club. SHUMWAY: These competitions also take place at the college level, with schools competing virtually. Hamilton’s GeoGuessr Club has both hosted and attended various collegiate competitions centered on the game. ALMEIDA: You have two people per team. Each person places a guess where they think it is on the map, and then whichever guess is closest to the spot gets the most points and the highest score from each team is subtracted. And so the difference represents sort of the score for that round, and people are given a set amount of health. And so if one team gets 4,000 points, the other team gets 3,000 points, the losing team will subtract 1,000 points from the score. CRUZ: And last year, the world’s greatest GeoGuessr players gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, for the first-ever GeoGuessr World Cup, which ended with Patrick Noordijk, known as Consus, being crowned as the eventual champion. This year’s World Cup is already underway, with regional finals for the Americas taking place this weekend. Europe and Asia will have their own regional finals before the top 24 players globally square off in the two-day grand finale this September. But even if you’re not a pro at identifying random spots around the world, you can still find something to enjoy in GeoGuessr. ALMEIDA: There’s quite a diversity in the way students and folks approach how they’re going to figure out where they are. Some people clue straight into something like vegetation or the biome they exist in, right, looking for whether the trees look tropical or whether it looks like an arid climate or whether it looks relatively temperate. Folks can be really interested in looking for things like architecture or potential language clues, right, and I think a lot of that just has to do with sort of what people naturally gravitate to when they’re playing. And so I think one of the fun things about GeoGuessr is there's not really sort of one of those things that trumps the other, right. You really do need to sort of have this holistic view of the world. [music] SHUMWAY: For WNUR News, I’m Gabe Shumway. CRUZ: And I’m Edward Simon Cruz. Audio of Trevor Rainbolt taken from 2023 GeoGuessr World Cup: Grand Final Day](data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCAyMDQ4IDExNTAiIHdpZHRoPSIyMDQ4IiBoZWlnaHQ9IjExNTAiIGRhdGEtdT0iaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZ3bnVybmV3cy5vcmclMkZ3cC1jb250ZW50JTJGdXBsb2FkcyUyRjIwMjQlMkYwMiUyRmdlb3N0b3J5cGljLUdhYmUtU2h1bXdheS0yMDQ4eDExNTAuanBnIiBkYXRhLXc9IjIwNDgiIGRhdGEtaD0iMTE1MCIgZGF0YS1iaXA9IiI+PC9zdmc+)
