Is ESPN already burying the Big Ten?
I have noticed this season that the Big Ten is increasingly an after thought of ESPN. We all knew this would come next year with the new contract, but it appears from where I sit that it is already in full swing. We are barely covered on game day and on the college final show it was not until well after the first break that they got to any Big Ten games despite OSU and Michigan being ranked 3 and 4. It was also two Big Ten games that they saved for dead last in coverage.
it will be interesting to see how this looks next year, but I suspect it will be hard to find Big Ten coverage at all next year on ESPN. I know it is not what it used to be, but I hope this does not hurt recruiting.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:07 AM ^
But he is right that ESPN is now promoting Clemson as better than Michigan. The Clemson team I've watched a few times this season probably stands a good chance of losing in Kinnick. Michigan went in a controlled the game with relative ease. Clemson doesn't do that and ESPN won't even think to ask if they could have done the same as Michigan. They have a narrative and part of that narrative is to take out as much of the B1G as possible so their cash cows (SEC and to a lesser extent ACC) can make more money.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:16 AM ^
I don't disagree with the general point of this thread, that ESPN focuses more coverage on what they televise (probably outside of PTI). Hockey and UFC are good examples of this.
But the fact is Michigan has no path to the CFP this season without beating Ohio State, and what ESPN says doesn't impact that. Colorado State, Hawaii, and Connecticut are a massive anchor on their chances. I watched Joel Klatt on Colin Cowherd's show and he openly mocked it.
But if anyone disagrees with me, please let me know what the path is for Michigan without winning at Ohio State. I think it's pretty unlikely Ohio State loses twice without one of those losses being to Michigan.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
OSU loses PSU and B1G championship games would be about the only one. Or M blows out everyone but JJ is hurt @OSU (but healthy for bowl/playoffs)?
I agree with you tho, neither scenario is anything to worry about.
October 2nd, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
Pretty simple.
Michigan loses a close game at Ohio State.
All of the team currently immediately behind them end the season with two losses.
October 2nd, 2022 at 7:54 PM ^
But in your scenario for those teams with two losses, did one of them come in a conference championship game that Michigan would not be playing in? Or did they play an extra game and win a conference championship game with 2 losses?
I think it will be hard for Michigan to get in without winning the conference or beating OSU because of how bad the rest of the schedule is. Big Ten is a little down this year, and the non-conference is just terrible. In your scenario, Michigan may end the year by beating only one ranked team (PSU) and playing only two teams that end up ranked.
October 2nd, 2022 at 2:43 PM ^
Narrative matters. It mattered in 2006 ; it mattered in the numerous SEC rematches in the championship games.
Clemson is S&P #18; #4 espn power rankings. They beat just beat s&p #28; we just beat s&p 29 and put up 27 against #1 defense. Yet Clemson is asserting themselves?
yes, let the season play out as you don’t know what’ll happen. But it does not need to be a forgone conclusion that UM is out with an OSU loss.
October 2nd, 2022 at 5:25 PM ^
Yeah, but TBF cbssports (one of the sites people are recommending over ESPN) also gave Michigan a C+ for Saturday's win:
It seemed like the Wolverines were going to cruise against Iowa, but the offense went stagnant in the middle stages of the game. They found a way to take it 27-14, but it was the second week in a row that they looked less than stellar.
Meanwhile giving Clemson an A+ for theirs.
That does certainly does not match my own perceptions of watching both games (or an understanding of the tasks and objectives of the game for Michigan, which was to avoid mistakes and stay in control and win in notoriously difficult place to win, with a young QB making his first road start; meanwhile Clemson looked shaky for much of what I saw of their game).
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:46 AM ^
You must always remember what ESPN stands for— Sports is not first, it’s Entertainment.
October 2nd, 2022 at 11:05 AM ^
And that's how it should be.....for everything but college football. Every other sport, the home team has their own channel basically. And then we watch ESPN for an entertaining summary of the rest of the country/world.
But CFB is it's own beast. For 12 or so days of the year, you focus on your own team, and also focus on everybody else's. The home channels and the national channels kind of merge into regional ones. There's no Michigan only show after like with Red Wings post game, but there's channels for B1G. But then nothing like MLB network for every single game played either. (We don't want to see E Tenn. vs. M. Utah St.).
It's really, logically, regional, IMO. (The regions are arbitrarily assigned based on contracts and $$$, but the point stands).
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:50 AM ^
Wish Desmond would leave espn.
October 2nd, 2022 at 9:53 AM ^
Fox big noon kick off IGNORE game day
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
Fox Big Noon features extremist right wing nut job Clay Travis.
That decision alone tells viewers, "We're not interested in being taken seriously as a legitimate sports show."
Watch Game Day.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:50 AM ^
You guys are arguing CNN vs. FOX like they're actually trying to give you news and not entertainment (or confirmation on your biases) first.
College Gameday and Big Noon Kickoff are literally the same thing.
College Football entertainment shows geared towards a specific audience and getting viewers (and thus more money).
Watch whatever you want...just know that it has an agenda, like most TV. We have to stop watching TV like it's designed to do something it's not.
That would be like getting on Twitter or Instagram and using it as an accurate depiction of reality or learning about sex from PornHub, lol.
None of the shit is real. Just bits and pieces and you have to be smart and honest enough to take most of it as face value and go on about your day. It's all exaggerated.
Even the Weather Channel was exaggerating the fucking weather!! It's the WEATHER!!
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:03 AM ^
We're featuring weekly on a major broadcast network. Michigan will benefit.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
who cares? espn sucks. sucked for over a decade.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:42 AM ^
I suspect this hurts recruiting less than it hurts the 35-50 year old dudes who got accustomed to ESPN being the 'one stop shop' for CFB broadcasts through the years.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:48 AM ^
The "world-wide leader" no longer includes the Big Ten as part of its world.
October 2nd, 2022 at 10:54 AM ^
It is amazing how much ESPN doesn't matter when you just don't watch the garbage that it has become.
October 2nd, 2022 at 11:49 AM ^
Without doubt - ESPN is doing what is "best" for ESPN / ABC.
Let's just see where Game Day goes in a couple of weeks. Will it be at the Tennessee - Bama game, or at the PSU - Michigan game?
A quick look at the ESPN web site's "schedule" of games. If you notice - they don't indicate the broadcast network for any game carried by Fox.
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:35 PM ^
Game Day is going to AA in 12 days - I’d give 10:1 odds on that. They have already been to Knoxville once this year.
As for ESPN’s college football schedule - maybe I’m blind but it sure looks like they have competitive networks listed.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/schedule/_/week/6/year/2022/seaso…
October 3rd, 2022 at 10:13 AM ^
Nittany - I would love to see the PSU - Michigan game as both 1) the Game Day location, and 2) at night.
I appreciate your reply about the ESPN site and schedule. It may have been a browser issue with my iPad - when I was using Chrome to view the schedule. Like you - I can see the full schedule - including Fox broadcasts, now.
Enjoy the bye week - and, if you'll be making it to Ann Arbor for the game on the 15th - safe travels and enjoy the visit. FWIW - I'll be at the PSU - Michigan game. And, if you would like any insights on Ann Arbor - places to go - etc. - please ask, I'd be happy to share my perspectives.
October 3rd, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
I'm not sure what schedule you're looking at but the schedule has always had other networks:
https://www.espn.com/college-football/schedule/_/week/6/year/2022/seaso…
Rutgers-Nebraska game on FS1 is there, also Bill Connelly's number one point in the lead article today on their CFP home page is UM's increased chances of getting in the CFP.
I don't think they have a bias against UM in other sports, they gush about UM hockey like it's Alabama football, ESPN radio hosts on an evening show talked about how great Carol Hutchins has been, on and off the field, when she announced her retirement, how hard it is to establish that kind of program in the north.
That being said, I do think it's good to have other networks in sports and I wasn'ta big fan of them getting of people like John Clayton.
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:25 PM ^
What's new?
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:26 PM ^
We can say what we want to feel better, but if the Big Ten could be the primary conference of ABC/ESPN while the SEC was spread across the disjointed combination of Fox, CBS, and NBC, we would take that trade.
ESPN is the sports network of record, like it or not. Multiply this times ten for college football. Their influence in college football is unparalleled, which they earned over 30+ years of dedicated coverage.
Fox, CBS, and NBC have other fish to fry. They are not even sports networks. What they do cover in sports will always be overshadowed by the NFL.
The disjointed combination of Fox, CBS, and NBC is not going to carry the Big Ten's water when it comes to advocating for things like rankings and playoff spots.
October 2nd, 2022 at 1:22 PM ^
It's not 2010.
October 2nd, 2022 at 1:46 PM ^
It's not 2040 either. The rumors of ESPN's impending death are greatly exaggerated.
October 2nd, 2022 at 2:14 PM ^
They're not going to die. They're just losing cultural influence. They already have significantly so since 2010. No-one on ESPN today has the relevance or influence that say Kornheiser and Wilbon had at the peak of their relevance.
Younger people just aren't turning on their TV wondering "I wonder what the guys on ESPN are saying about this."
That doesn't mean these formats are dying, they'll always have their fans, it just means their ability to shape the narrative is shrinking continuously.
It's a bit like talk radio that way. It'll always exist, but it's never going to have Rush Limbaugh in the 90s influence again.
October 2nd, 2022 at 8:03 PM ^
ESPN won't die but it is being hurt badly by cord-cutting. According to the Wall Street Journal, ESPN has lost half its value and a third of its earnings since 2014
Disney doesn’t break out ESPN’s financial performance, but a former executive estimated the network generates in the neighborhood of $3 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually, and has a valuation of around $25 billion.
That’s about half of what ESPN was valued at by analyst Matthew Harrigan in 2014, who at the time projected its Ebitda to be around $4.5 billion. Mr. Harrigan declined to comment.
Here's a link (note it's paywalled); https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-espn-spin-off-third-point-loeb-11660863537?mod=Searchresults_pos14&page=2.
According to the article, some shareholders have urged Disney to let ESPN loose.
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
I rarely watch the "mothership," but find myself drawn to a lot of the ESPN+ content like MLS and USL along with various D-II and III broadcasts. It came with my Hulu (owned by Disney) subscription. I can also lull myself to sleep with international Cricket in the wee hours, so there's that. Haven't watched SC in years though. The Score app with Twitter links does me just fine for scores and highlights. I suspect fragmented viewing like this may become more of the norm in the future.
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:51 PM ^
In the ESPN power rankings they have Clemson at 4 with a “dominant 30-20 win” over NC state and they have Michigan at 5 as having “avoided the trap” and winning “despite” two scores from Iowa. Love the narrative differential.
October 2nd, 2022 at 5:45 PM ^
To be fair Tom VH wrote up that retro on the game and also wrote a far more glowing one about OSU.
I think there's a sense around media types that UM is a paper tiger while Clemson is presumed to be great (despite a lot of evidence they are just fine) and so they're treating both teams as such. I listened (briefly) to the Cover 3 podcast after this game and they similarly talked up Clemson and talked down UM for largely the same reasons even though reality is different.
Also, NC State being #10 was based purely on preseason rankings - they certainly haven't played like world-beaters this season.
October 2nd, 2022 at 1:44 PM ^
If Michigan was having the season MSU is right now you can bet they would be killing Harbaugh early and often on all their shows.
October 2nd, 2022 at 2:28 PM ^
The sooner espn goes bankrupt the better
October 2nd, 2022 at 4:33 PM ^
What is espn?
October 2nd, 2022 at 5:54 PM ^
Why is Gamora??? (I mean ESPN)
October 2nd, 2022 at 5:00 PM ^
All these networks are corporations first and foremost, and buy and show CFB as a way to promote their other shows and content. The same is true for their sports "news" and commentary. They have an economic interest in drawing attention to and promoting their own sphere of coverage, and ignoring or minimizing the rest.
Excluding ESPN from the new TV deals probably will hurt the B1G and its teams. While ESPN isn't the only place for somewhat comprehensive coverage of CFB like it once was, it does have a larger voice in setting the agendas. That will affect rankings and discussion, which will affect recruiting and postseason (including playoff) opportunities.
October 2nd, 2022 at 7:20 PM ^
Its their only option after what Georgia and Alabama looked like yesterday.
October 3rd, 2022 at 8:43 AM ^
I doubt the kids are watching SportsCenter any more.
It's like MTV now. Less sports and more hatchet throwing and corn hole.
kids get info immediately. They don't wait for it on SportsCenter.
October 3rd, 2022 at 8:44 AM ^
Just win. The rest will take care of itself.