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""We always keep our television partners close to us. ... TV -- ESPN -- is the one who told us what to do." - Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo

Those words rang in my head today as I watched College Football Live after work. During the program, Mark May gave his "expert" take on the State of the Big East. Spoiler alert: he didn’t think it was good.

Last week on College Football Live, Andre Ware gave a similar, damning account of the Big East after it become official that Boise State had joined the conference. Ware said that the move would hurt Boise State’s ability to schedule big-time opponents. Yes, because the Alabama’s and Michigan’s of the world were lining up to play on the Blue Turf.

Since the Big East turned down ESPN’s TV rights offer - a decision that was led in part by the University of Pittsburgh president - things have not gone well for the conference. The ACC took Syracuse and Pittsburgh. The Big 12 took West Virginia. The Big East responding by gobbling up big television markets in Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Orlando and San Diego while snapping up national football names, if not powers, in Navy and Boise State. But to hear the folks at ESPN tell it, the Big East is now a glorified version of the Sun Belt Conference.

Even the ESPN Big East blogger, Andrea Adelson, has gotten into the act with a string of sarcastic, stinging jabs at the current state of the conference. On the day Temple officially joined the Big East, she delivered this delightful shot across the bow of the conference. Adelson seems to hate the Big East, unlike her predecessor on the beat, Brian Bennett. Read the comments on the blog post - it’s not pretty. We want journalistic integrity from writers. We don’t mind homerism in small doses. We can’t stand overt negativity on a constant basis.

I’m a UConn fan, a season ticket holder living in Washington, D.C. I’ve grown up a Big East fan. I will defend the Big East until I’m blue in the face. I realize I may not always be right. But I’m not always wrong.

The Big East, in its 2013 state, is a better football league than the ACC. The ACC is 2-13 in BCS bowls. None of its teams have been in the national championship race in November since Florida State in 2000. Even if you include Miami, they haven’t had a team in the national championship race since 2003, and they were playing in the Big East......"


I enjoyed it as a read; I also happened to agree with the majority of it. Either way, read it.

I believe that you may be on to something. I don't often comment on things I don't know anything about, but it's become clear to everybody I think that to understand college athletics you just need to follow the money; in this case ESPN stands to gain more by promoting other conferences since they are no longer showcasing Big East sports. Hopefully NBC will become a bigger player as things play out.

Good little read. My favorite line:

"The problem is not with ESPN as a television outfit - the problem is with ESPN as a journalistic outlet."

The bad news for us is the masses flock to ESPN and lap up everything they say. Don't believe me, why in the hell is Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, Chris Broussard and the like on TV? They've stop being a real journalistic place a long time ago. Think the BE will get any love on college game day? Good luck, doesn't matter how good a BE team is or who they play. Yet the majority of BE fans will tune in well because that's what they do, they need their fix of Corso in some mascot head.

The good news is that I believe NBC (if that's who we sign a contract with) will spend money and push the BE. But it all comes down to on the field performance. If the BE consistently can beat their opponents from other BCS conferences everyone will take notice. Just look at TCU, Boise State, and even Hawaii as examples coming from weaker conferences than the BE. We are such a instant gratification society that we can't even let things play out in a season or two, thing have to happen right away. If the BE doesn't win a national championship tomorrow they will suck forever! Again, it wasn't that long ago that the B10 was considered the best conference, and the B12 and even the ACC when they plucked VT, Miami and BC.

I am so sick of politics.

everyday I get more and more mad.

...e.s.P.n
.........E.s.p.n
.e.s.p.N
..........I Hate Espn... See it?
.......e.S.p.n

Love it!

I believe that Lee Corso summed up ESPN's feelings nicely last year during the SMU v. UH game: "Ahhh F&%^ it!"

Its sad journalism across the board has gotten so bad, I can't even stand watching the news anymore. Now its spreading to sports, it sucks....

This is a kind of a hard question for me.

On the one hand, ESPN has absolutely had a hand in all the conference and bowl messes. You have to question their jounalistic integrity when they are the one's offering billion $ contracts to conferences and altering TV contracts and schedules to fit their programming needs. The also have a reputation of reporting other people's (i.e. local sports networks) work and taking credit for it.

On the other hand, Colorado and Utah have been eyeing the PAC 10 for decades. Nebraska has wanted into the Big 10 for generations, and god knows Texas and A&M were going to do exactly what they wanted to do, in-state politics notwithstanding. So it's not like this whole conference affiliation thing was cooked up by them. Furthermore, the old-boy network of conferences and bowls found plenty of people on the outside looking in. In MANY ways the BCS has given the underdogs a shot - no matter how remote - to compete. The winner of the old WAC (new MWC) was NEVER going to go to the Rose Bowl.

So I'm not always happy with ESPN, but I'm not ready to blame them for everything.

Bottom Line-The Big East hasn't delivered with quality Top Ranked Football teams. The Big East needs their Utah, TCU, Boise or BYU(been awhile) to run the tabl;e. If you want to be considered for a National Championship-it might help to have a National contender. Has the Big East had a team that finished in Top 4 in the last decade? Maybe Louisville one year was close

A couple of years back, WVU was poised to the National Championship Game, but then stubbed their toe against Pitt. That's the closest the conference has ever come.

While my current film has a great chance to end up on ESPN, my next film will deal with some of these issues.... if you know what I am up to (as I know some of you do), please don't post it here. Shhhh!

But I will tell you that after my current project (which is about a different college football program in the '80s - talk about type casting), my next one is explosive.

leopold wrote:This is a kind of a hard question for me.

On the one hand, ESPN has absolutely had a hand in all the conference and bowl messes. You have to question their jounalistic integrity when they are the one's offering billion $ contracts to conferences and altering TV contracts and schedules to fit their programming needs. The also have a reputation of reporting other people's (i.e. local sports networks) work and taking credit for it.

On the other hand, Colorado and Utah have been eyeing the PAC 10 for decades. Nebraska has wanted into the Big 10 for generations, and god knows Texas and A&M were going to do exactly what they wanted to do, in-state politics notwithstanding. So it's not like this whole conference affiliation thing was cooked up by them. Furthermore, the old-boy network of conferences and bowls found plenty of people on the outside looking in. In MANY ways the BCS has given the underdogs a shot - no matter how remote - to compete. The winner of the old WAC (new MWC) was NEVER going to go to the Rose Bowl.

So I'm not always happy with ESPN, but I'm not ready to blame them for everything.

While ESPN has had "a hand" in much of the the realignment process, there were certainly other factors at play in many of those moves.

With respect to the Big East and the ACC, ESPN has had an enormous impact. Once the Big East decided not to accept ESPN's low ball offer, ESPN has done everything it can to detroy it.

Why?
1) Conferences now know what happens if you cross the people at Disney.
2) ESPN doesn't want competition from NBC. They know that NBC needs lots of content. If the Big East gets a good deal from NBC, other conferences will look to shop their TV packages when they expire.

If I counted correctly:
- SMU, Houston, Boise State, Temple, SDSU, Cinci, Louisville, and Rutgers all played in bowl games. They went 5-2.
- UNC, NC State, Florida State, WF, GT, VT, Clemson, and Pitt played in Bowl games. They went 2-6 with many of the losses blowouts.

Nevertheless, ESPN would tell you that the Big East is not in the ACC's class for football?

I think a better title for this thread is "Is Anyone Surprised By the ESPN Smear Campaign?". Sadly the day of journalistic ethics and neutrality are long gone, and ESPN is only interested in looking out for its own monopolistic grip on sports broadcast rights. A conference turned them down; of course ESPN is going to go after them guns blazing. And worse, most people are compelled to believe it due to any other contradictory opinion that has the reach that the Giant Rat affiliate has. Hopefully NBC comes in strong and offers a solid alternative, but anyone who expects anything but this from the Worldwide Leader has WAY too much faith in them.

ESPN is one great big promotion vehicle for itself. Those of us who were around in '82 remember that ABC decided that the Sugar Bowl match up between undefeated Georgia and once beaten Penn State would determine the national championship. The only undefeated team when the dust cleared? SMU. National Champion: Penn State. And I clearly remember that scumbag Joe Paterno shamelessly proclaiming PSU national champs on television the next morning before the final polls came out. And ABC leading his parade. Nothing has changed.