Now will the espn Bias of the SEC finally stop?
- Thread starter cardinalrod
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It totally will. Until summer 2015, when all the SEC teams will be bigger, faster, and stronger.Originally posted by cardinalrod:
I hope for; yes it will stop.
But I think they can't help themselves.
Follow the money ... the SEC has the most football crazy fans of any conference, and ESPN is a corporate entity that is going to cater to its customers.Originally posted by cardinalrod:
I hope for; yes it will stop.
But I think they can't help themselves.
The playoff is going to change the entire landscape of college football but like any change it will take time.
The BCS was completely bias toward the SEC. When your conference is guaranteed a spot in the final game you already have an advantage over the rest of the conferences. It was an advantage in the recruiting world. The playoff changes the conference love fest to the actual teams. It will take more than 1 year or 2 year to change but it will change. There are too many talented players and coaches in every conference for anyone to dominate this new format.
The playoff focuses in on the actual teams. FSU last year, Oregon, and Ohio State have all proven if you destroy your conference opponents and don't lose or lose 1 game it doesn't matter what conference you play in your team is legit. Alabama was legit but it has nothing to do with the SEC. Alabama is legit because they have elite talent all over the field and have a great coach.
The problem the SEC is going to have is they are going to eat themselves every year. The top of the league isn't as dominate as it used to be. The West benefited this year by the East being way down. The East will get back and the West isn't going anywhere. The other conferences their is a much bigger talent gap between the top and the middle. The is no one in the ACC (maybe Clemson) that has FSU talent. It really isn't close. Add in good coaching you get a dominate team.
What the last two years have shown is it doesn't matter what the overall strength of the conference is but how dominate was the conference champion. TCU, Ohio St, & Oregon really dominated their conferences so it isn't surprising they performed well in the bowl games. FSU completely dominated the ACC last year.
The BCS was completely bias toward the SEC. When your conference is guaranteed a spot in the final game you already have an advantage over the rest of the conferences. It was an advantage in the recruiting world. The playoff changes the conference love fest to the actual teams. It will take more than 1 year or 2 year to change but it will change. There are too many talented players and coaches in every conference for anyone to dominate this new format.
The playoff focuses in on the actual teams. FSU last year, Oregon, and Ohio State have all proven if you destroy your conference opponents and don't lose or lose 1 game it doesn't matter what conference you play in your team is legit. Alabama was legit but it has nothing to do with the SEC. Alabama is legit because they have elite talent all over the field and have a great coach.
The problem the SEC is going to have is they are going to eat themselves every year. The top of the league isn't as dominate as it used to be. The West benefited this year by the East being way down. The East will get back and the West isn't going anywhere. The other conferences their is a much bigger talent gap between the top and the middle. The is no one in the ACC (maybe Clemson) that has FSU talent. It really isn't close. Add in good coaching you get a dominate team.
What the last two years have shown is it doesn't matter what the overall strength of the conference is but how dominate was the conference champion. TCU, Ohio St, & Oregon really dominated their conferences so it isn't surprising they performed well in the bowl games. FSU completely dominated the ACC last year.
Follow the apparel money in this instance. ESPN answers to the Apparel companies. And all entities, top to bottom are businesses first. No matter what their marketing machine says otherwise. Remember. Any news = commercials and agendas.Originally posted by PushupMan:
Follow the money ... the SEC has the most football crazy fans of any conference, and ESPN is a corporate entity that is going to cater to its customers.Originally posted by cardinalrod:
I hope for; yes it will stop.
But I think they can't help themselves.
To me the only conference that has any thing to complain about is the PAC 12, they shined and outside of Oregan nobody really gets much pub because of playing later being in the West Coast time zone. The Big 10 had a good bowl season but did receive a fair share of Pub from the media, no other conference really shined to say they were unfairly treated by the Media except TCU proved a point.
A third of those teams are in the MST. Combine PST and MST and you have a good portion of the population. It's really about apparel sales IMO and nothing more. Given PRO competition, education, disposable income and cultural acceptance, I suspect the SEC buys the most gear per capita.
Colin Cowherd had some good points regarding bias. Basically he says ESPN is a media company that makes money on viewers and listeners. So why would they show bias to a league that has most of its teams in very small markets in the poorest part of the country. He said last night was good for them as it showed off the Big 10 and Pac 12, both located in much larger markets in parts of the country with much higher incomes. They can make more money in the Midwest and Far West than in the South.
Basically saying the SEC bias is a myth, at least as far as ESPN goes. Their bias will always be to increased revenue. Not sure if that is 100% true, but it makes sense
Basically saying the SEC bias is a myth, at least as far as ESPN goes. Their bias will always be to increased revenue. Not sure if that is 100% true, but it makes sense
I must have been misreading all their pumping up the sec for the past several years then. This year they virtually had every team from the sec west in the top 5 at one point or another. No, they don't controlled the polls, but the do controll the propaganda to influence them.
Poor people still own TVs and the SEC area by far loves college FB much more than the Midwest and west coast.
The problem is, they don't just report them; they build them up and talk down on other conferences.
Colin Cowherd also said that ESPN overpaid for the rights to SEC games, but to be the number one sports network they had to have it. ESPN are very tied to the SEC like no other conference. They were very worried about NBC Sports and Fox Sports expanding their networks at the time.
I agree with Collin ESPN is all about the eyeballs. The playoff probably drew incredible numbers. The BCS system was bias toward the SEC. At the end of the day ESPN has to create programming that draws eyeballs. That is why the playoff committee ended up giving weekly standings. It created a weekly conversation and interest. I didn't care because it was pointless until the season finished up.
They are heavily invested in the SEC so they are going to promote the SEC like they promoted Big East basketball back in the day. The problem with the BCS system is ESPN had significant influence or many perceived ESPN to have influence. There was also a perceived conflict of interest during that era.
The old BCS system had Alabama vs Florida State. It would have been a complete blowout which would have feed the SEC machine. That pretty much sums up why everyone outside of the SEC hated the BCS system.
The playoff system eliminates the influence ESPN really has in the process. Early and even midseason rankings don't matter. Your recruiting rankings don't matter. The number of future NFL stars on your roster doesn't matter. At the end of the year who did you beat and who did you lose to is all that matters. The season will play itself out. When you have any team in a power 5 conference just destroying their conference opponents that is a good team. That is a team that will stand toe to toe with any conference champion.
They are heavily invested in the SEC so they are going to promote the SEC like they promoted Big East basketball back in the day. The problem with the BCS system is ESPN had significant influence or many perceived ESPN to have influence. There was also a perceived conflict of interest during that era.
The old BCS system had Alabama vs Florida State. It would have been a complete blowout which would have feed the SEC machine. That pretty much sums up why everyone outside of the SEC hated the BCS system.
The playoff system eliminates the influence ESPN really has in the process. Early and even midseason rankings don't matter. Your recruiting rankings don't matter. The number of future NFL stars on your roster doesn't matter. At the end of the year who did you beat and who did you lose to is all that matters. The season will play itself out. When you have any team in a power 5 conference just destroying their conference opponents that is a good team. That is a team that will stand toe to toe with any conference champion.
He's misleading imo. Which is interesting since he has his own radio show. Ratings don't mean a thing without a sponsor to write you a check. ESPN cares about sponsors and sponsors care about ratings. That's how it works.
If the big dog sponsors withdrew their money, ESPN would be hard pressed to replace that cash. Not many companies have that kind of advertising budgets.
This post was edited on 1/3 11:28 AM by OmegaCard
What will happen is that they will start to send 2 teams to the 4 teams playoffs. Mississippi st. Would have been the 2nd SEC team if they would have beat Ole Miss in their final game. They would have been #4 and it would have guaranteed a SEC team a spot in the title game. It will be interesting to see how the preseason rankings are when they come out. Last season preseason AP poll had 8 in the top 25 and 3 others received top 25 votes. UK, Arkansas, and Tennessee are the only schools not to receive votes.