C’mon ESPN, Use Some Sense
Throughout this year’s college football bowl season, I have enjoyed being off work, spending time with friends and family, and watching plenty of bowl games on the ESPN family of networks.
The TCU-Boise game was a great display of competition, as well as the highlight reel catches in the North Carolina and West “By God” Virginia game. However, there is one thing that continually disturbs me through these early bowl games.
Have we heard anything about the Oklahoma-Florida game? What about the Alabama-Utah contest? Ohio State-Texas? Cincinnati-Virginia Tech?? These games are all supposed to be the biggest games of the college bowl season. However, you may have noticed if you are an ESPN viewer, such as myself, ESPN has only been hammering one big bowl game into our heads.
Yes, the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl, which is conveniently aired by ABC, which owns ESPN, has been the focus of this network. I am already so tired of hearing about this game.
They even got the senile Lou Holtz to say that he is excited more about the Rose Bowl than he is the BCS title game, which could be one of the best matchups ever!!
Obviously, there is a simple marketing strategy to all this. Fox airs the games that were previously mentioned in this column. ABC airs the Rose Bowl, and anyone who watches ESPN will have to listen to more studio analysts blabbing about this great matchup.
Okay, USC has a good defense. So does Penn State. Both offenses will probably get shut down, making for a field position, low-scoring contest. Lets talk about some other storylines for once ESPN.
I want to hear about Tebow versus the Oklahoma defense. I want to hear about the recent Choke-lahoma Sooners. I want to hear about Utah going for perfection against a SEC beast. I want to hear about all the early-season adversity overcome by both Cincinnati and Va. Tech. I want to hear about Pryor versus McCoy in the Fiesta. I want to hear about something other than how good the damn Rose Bowl will be this year!
December 30th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Totally agree!! Where is the coverage on the Sugar Bowl with the nations best lineman suspended for having illegal contact with an agent.
I know this will change when the BCS games move to ESPN.
jeremys last blog post..Kyle Whittingham gets a 5 year contract
December 31st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Again Jeremy, it seems we share the same viewpoint. It takes a suspension for ESPN to even mention the Bama game. I still have heard nothing about Cincy and Va Tech as well as Texas and Ohio St.
January 1st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I’m glad someone else noticed this. I’m nearly irate about all the ridiculous coverage of the stupid Rose Bowl, which could be a competitive game, but is the least intriguing matchup of the BCS for me.
I’m actually really interested in the Cincy/Va Tech game tonight, but it’s not like I’ve heard a single inkling about the game.
Really, ESPN/ABC hasn’t even done a good job of promoting any of their other telecasts (such as the Georgia/Michigan State game). It’s been all Rose Bowl and nothing else. But like Jeremy stated, we all know it’ll change once ESPN gets all the BCS games.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Wonder what ESPN will do now since their games are over, oh wait they will pimp the GMAC and International Bowl.
Also, still on their site is banner ads for the Rose Bowl
jeremys last blog post..Sugar Bowl Preview: Utah Vs. Alabama
January 4th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I watched First Take on the Friday after the Rose Bowl & Orange Bowl. They never mentioned the Orange Bowl (Cincy/VT), but talked about USC & Penn State for about 20-30 minutes of a 2 hour program (with almost all the rest of the time being devoted to NFL’s wild card games).
ESPN’s just another money making machine. It seems they no longer have an interest in being the leader in sports programming that actually provided solid and consistent sports programming for their viewers.