What started out as a network determined to promote sports in America has morphed into something completely different. ESPN is no longer about sports, ESPN is about power and money. In their quest for power and money, ESPN is almost single-handedly destroying sports as we know it. ESPN is destroying the way we watch sports, destroying the way we think about sports, and worst of all, ESPN is destroying sports itself. I could spend days talking about how ESPN has destroyed how we watch and think about sports, but in the interest of time I will focus my attention on two things about ESPN. First, I will discuss how ESPN's sports score ticker at the bottom of our television screens has turned from a convenience to an annoyance, but more importantly, I will discuss how ESPN has destroyed what used to be the greatest sport on the planet, college football.
There was a time when the ESPN sports score ticker at the bottom of our television screens were useful. There was also a time when horse-driven buggies, Sony Walkmans, car phones, and VCRs were useful as well. Unfortunately, ESPN fails to acknowledge that the continual running of sports scores at the bottom of the screen has become nothing but a waste of space. This is 2015, and in 2015 most American households have at least one computer in their homes with Internet access. If I'm watching a game on TV and want a score from another game, I have two options. I can ignore the game I am watching on TV and concentrate on the sports score ticker at the bottom of my screen, patiently waiting for the score I want to flash across my screen. Or, I can pause my TV, open my laptop, and check the score I am interested in. I do not miss any of the game I am watching and I find out the score I am curious about much quicker. ESPN seems to be under the impression that nobody can obtain information about sports without them.
That said, it keeps getting worse. In case you have not noticed, the ESPN sports score ticker is slowly creeping up our television screens. It used to be at the very bottom of the screen, not anymore. Now there is a nice size gap between the ticker and the bottom of the screen. I anticipate by the year 2017 the sports score ticker will be in the center of our TV screens. They don't care that you don't care about getting the final score of the Reds vs. Cubs game 45 times during an NBA playoff game, they are going to show you the final score of the Reds vs. Cubs game 45 times anyway. It makes sense, it's difficult to remember a score after viewing it only 35 times, 45 times seems appropriate. It gets better ... or should I say, worse. You're sitting in your living room watching your beloved Lakers playing the Celtics, and at the bottom of your screen the sports score ticker goes berserk, flashing, "UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE" every time any team in any other game scores a run or point. If I cared so much about the Dodgers vs. Marlins game that I wanted to know every time a team scores a run, I would be watching the Dodgers vs. Marlins game. How does this logic elude ESPN executives? As if flashing UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE at the bottom of our screens wasn't enough, ESPN has now added "SCORE UPDATE" to their arsenal. The worst part about the "SCORE UPDATE" feature, half of the time it's not even a score update. SCORE UPDATE, SCORE UPDATE, SCORE UPDATE, SCORE UPDATE - Ohio St has the ball 3rd and 4 on Michigan's 32 yard line. Excuse me, but that is not a "score update," it's an update. A score update is when a team actually scores.
ESPN used to be a great station, and the sports score ticker used to be a convenient way to obtain sports scores from around the country. The sports score ticker is nothing but a waste of space today. It's almost as annoying as watching ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball so you can hear Joe Morgan talk about how he is in the Hall of Fame for three hours. It's time has come and gone, and ESPN officials fail to recognize the sports score ticker is no longer useful.
However, ESPN's continual use of the sports score ticker is only a minor annoyance compared to what ESPN has done to the greatest game on the planet, college football. College football used to stand for what is pure, it was a bunch of young men competing in a sport for the love of the sport. Most college football players will never see a single day in the NFL. College football was not about the money, it was about the competition. ESPN has changed all of that. August 25, 2008, the day college football died. That is the day ESPN signed a $2.25 billion contract with the collegiate Southeastern Conference (SEC). Now ESPN has a financial interest in promoting the idea that the SEC is the best conference in college football (a completely unwarranted idea).
I will give credit where credit is due, the SEC absolutely figured out a way to beat the system, they figured out how to make their conference appear to be stronger than all other conferences. It was a rather simple formula, in fact. First, don't ever, EVER, play out of conference football games on the road. In the past 20 years, over 85% of out of conference football games for SEC teams have been played in SEC stadiums. The next closest conference is the Atlantic Coast Conference, which played just over 65% of its out of conference games in their home stadiums. No team in the SEC has accomplished this feat better than the University of Georgia. In 1967, Georgia got on a plane to fly to Houston for an out of conference football game. Forty-one years later, in 2008, Georgia boarded another plane to fly to Tempe, Arizona to play Arizona State. For 40 years, the Georgia Bulldogs did not board an airplane for an out of conference game. The only out of conference games Georgia played away from their home stadium in those 40 years were Georgia Tech and Clemson, both of which are a little more than an hour bus ride from Georgia's campus in Athens. The University of Florida is not far behind Georgia either, as they went almost 25 years without boarding a plane for an out of conference football game. For comparison purposes, the University of Southern California Trojans board an airplane every single year for an out of conference football game.
The next step in the SEC's plan to pull the wool over people's eyes, the quality of the opponent they play out of conference. College football is divided into four main divisions, 1A is the highest level, 1AA follows, Division II is essentially made up of very small football programs, and Division III is basically the weakest division in college football. Yes, I know they have renamed the divisions in college football to some stupid collection of letters, but real college football fans will always recognize the divisions as 1A, 1AA, Division II, and Division III. 1A teams are forbidden to play teams from Division II and Division III, the different in talent is simply too much and we would end up with a bunch of 90-0 scores. However, 1A teams are allowed to play 1AA teams, and most of them do. In fact, only three programs in 1A college football have never played a 1AA team, USC, UCLA, and Notre Dame. Some teams play a 1AA team every other season, some play one every few seasons, but SEC teams play a 1AA team every single season, and always in SEC stadiums. So the SEC's recipe for making their conference look stronger than it really is is a rather simple one, play nothing but cupcakes out of conference, and always play those cupcakes in SEC stadium. In reality, the SEC is nothing more than a bunch of teams who have beat other teams who have beaten absolutely nobody except other teams who have beaten nobody. Records get padded and teams appear better than they really are due to their padded records. But people were beginning to catch on to the shell game the SEC was playing, people were beginning to talk about it, talk about how the SEC doesn't ever play any legitimate teams outside of their own conference. The gig was about up, the SEC needed to do something, and it needed to do something fast.
Enter ESPN and its $2.25 billion contract with the SEC. Now the most influential sports entity in the world has a financial interest in promoting the idea that the SEC is stronger than any other conference. That's not a conflict of interests??? The more powerful the SEC is perceived to be, the more advertising dollars roll through ESPN's doors. You don't have to look far to see examples of how ESPN promotes the idea that the SEC is superior to all other conferences. On October 28, 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine released an article exposing how ESPN promotes teams from the SEC and demotes teams from other conferences. Earlier in the 2014 season, the defending national champion, Florida St, who is not a member of the SEC, played Wake Forest. At the time, Florida St was one of two teams in the Top 5 that was not in the SEC. On ESPN's flagship program, Sports Center, the anchors described Florida State's victory over Wake Forest ... Florida State "barely escaped" and "struggled." Wake Forest took Florida State "down to the wire." Sounds like a close game, huh? Wake Forest really gave Florida State a game, right? Florida State beat Wake Forest 43-3. What a struggle, they barely escaped, Wake Forest took Florida State down to the wire. If that wasn't pathetic enough, how about we look at how ESPN reports games with a common opponent. Oklahoma is a member of the Big 12 Conference, Georgia and Tennessee are both members of the SEC. Tennessee played both Oklahoma and Georgia. How did ESPN report the final scores of these games? "Oklahoma holds on to beat Tennessee 34-10." Whew!!! Barely escaped that one, just four more touchdowns out of Tennessee and Oklahoma loses. How about the Georgia vs. Tennessee game? Georgia beat Tennessee 35-32. If 34-10 is "holding on to beat Tennessee," then I wonder what 35-32 is. Georgia's nickname is the Bulldogs, and they are frequently referred to as the "Dawgs." Tennessee's nickname is the Volunteers. How did ESPN report this nail-biting 35-32 victory of Georgia's over Tennessee? "Dawgs run away from Vols." Hmm, so 43-3 is barely escaping (when it is not an SEC team winning the game), 34-10 is holding on for the victory (when an SEC team is the loser), but when an SEC wins a game 35-32 ... it's running away with the game. HUH ?!?!?!?!?
ESPN continually reports stories of players in other conferences getting in trouble, and buries stories about SEC players getting in trouble. A University of Alabama player player was arrested for possession of 100 grams or marijuana and having $5,000 in cash. Sure sounds like a drug dealer to me. Not to ESPN it doesn't, they reported it as a "small amount of marijuana." What? 100 grams of pot is a "small amount"? That's a quarter-pound ... POUND of marijuana. That is a massive amount of marijuana, but ESPN reports it as a "small amount." ESPN clearly favors the SEC and they clearly favor the SEC for their own financial interests. In doing so, they have completely altered college football and titled the deck towards the SEC. Teams from other conferences are at a disadvantage, they have to earn everything they get. Teams from the SEC get everything handed to them. College football used to be about the competition, the love of the game. ESPN has turned college football into a business, it's own personal toy. The SEC is an absolute fraud, it is nowhere near as good as ESPN makes it out to be, and because of the relationship between ESPN and the SEC college football has lost its innocence. College football has just become another professional sports league, and its owner is ESPN.
ESPN used to be a great station, but it's time for the Old Yeller treatment, it's time to take it out back and shoot it.
References
Burchette, J. (2014, October 28). The Worldwide Cheerleader: ESPN and the College Football Playoff. Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-worldwide-cheerleader-espn-and-the-college-football-playoff-20141028
Division I-A Conference Index. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia_conf_index.php
Georgia Game by Game Results 2005-2009. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/sec/georgia/2005-2009_yearly_results.php
Georgia Game by Game Results 1965-1969. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/sec/georgia/1965-1969_yearly_results.php
Smith, M., & Ourand, J. (2008, August 25). ESPN pays $2.25B for SEC rights. Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2008/08/20080825/This-Weeks-News/ESPN-Pays-$225B-For-SEC-Rights.aspx
Southeastern Conference Index. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/sec/index.php
Photographs
(2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from https://twitter.com/sec
Android. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.espn.score_center
Pix For Old Yeller And Travis. (2014, January 1). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from http://pixgood.com/old-yeller-and-travis.html
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