The World According to Ohio State’s 2024 Schedule: Geopolitics, Glaciers, and Gridiron Gospel

Ohio State Football Schedule, or How the Midwest Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Empire
By “Diplomatic” Correspondent, somewhere between Berlin and a layover in Detroit

Columbus, Ohio—population 906,000, time zone UTC-5, export commodities: soybeans, insurance salesmen, and unfiltered dread. Every autumn the city’s pulse syncs to a drumline that can be heard, if you cup your ear correctly, across oceans. The 2024 Ohio State football schedule has dropped, and while locals fret about Purdue’s trap-game potential, the rest of the planet is quietly calculating the geopolitical fallout.

Let’s zoom out. In a year when the Arctic is issuing eviction notices and BRICS nations are drawing new trade routes like graffiti on a bathroom stall, eleven Saturdays of scarlet-and-gray pageantry might appear trivial. Appearances, dear reader, are how we ended up with both the Treaty of Versailles and pumpkin-spice hummus. The Buckeyes’ itinerary—Notre Dame in Week 1, Michigan in Week 13, assorted directional schools in between—functions as a soft-power broadcast tower. ESPN’s satellite footprint reaches 200 countries; the marching band’s rendition of “Hang On Sloopy” therefore qualifies as cultural carpet bombing, only with more tubas.

Consider the supply chain. Nike’s latest limited-edition jersey (retail: $149.99, stitched by hands whose overtime pay is a philosophical debate) ships from Ho Chi Minh City to Columbus via the Suez Canal—yes, the same trench where container ships now practice synchronized parking. Each “THE” Ohio State helmet decal contains trace amounts of coltan, mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo under circumstances that would make a Victorian coal baron blush. So when Marvin Harrison Jr. high-points a fade route on September 7, tiny fragments of central Africa briefly orbit inside Ohio Stadium’s halo of LED screens. Globalization: it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

International viewership numbers are classified somewhere between Coca-Cola’s syrup formula and the nuclear codes, but industry leaks suggest Saturday Buckeye games draw larger combined audiences than the last three COP climate summits. One plausible reason: the climactic drama is more reliable. You can almost set your watch by a late hit out of bounds and the subsequent fifteen-yard morality play. Meanwhile, polar ice shelves calve off with the predictability of a fumbled punt.

The schedule itself reads like a Pentagon risk-assessment matrix. Sept 21: Marshall—soft landing for the offensive line, harder landing for anyone still paying student loans. Oct 5: at Michigan State, where the turf is rumored to contain shredded diplomatic cables. Nov 16: at Rutgers, the NATO expansion nobody asked for. Each venue becomes a pop-up consulate for Buckeye Nation, complete with its own micro-economy of Airbnb price gouging and artisanal moonshine. European diplomats stationed in D.C. have been spotted in the Shoe’s C-deck, practicing the subtle art of pretending to care about pass interference.

Currency traders have noted a modest but measurable uptick in the dollar index during home-game weekends. Economists call it “the Brutus effect”: foreign alumni liquidate euros, yen, and increasingly, Chinese yuan, to secure last-minute tickets. One Frankfurt banker told me, off the record, “We hedge against Bundesliga volatility with Ohio State futures. Safer than Greek bonds.” Somewhere, the ghost of Woody Hayes just smiled, or perhaps it was merely wind across a gravestone shaped like a goalpost.

And then there is the Michigan game—November 30, the closest thing North America has to a border skirmish without invoking cartels. Embassies issue travel advisories for Toledo. The British ambassador once asked if the rivalry qualified as a “frozen conflict”; I replied only if you ignore the frostbite. At press time, rumor has it that both teams will wear carbon-neutral jerseys woven from recycled campaign promises. Sustainability sells, especially on eBay three years later.

So what does the 2024 Ohio State football schedule mean for a planet lurching from crisis to crisis? Simple: it’s a scheduled crisis we can all agree on. While glaciers divorce continents and central banks play Jenga with interest rates, 105,000 people will gather under an artificial Midwestern sky to chant in unison about a state they already inhabit. The spectacle won’t reverse climate change or untangle supply chains, but for four quarters it provides the illusion that somebody, somewhere, has a plan—and that the plan involves a 240-pound tight end running a seam route. If that isn’t the most honest metaphor we have for our current world order, I’ll eat my press credential.

Kickoff is at noon. Bring sunscreen and a passport—metaphorical or otherwise.