Ship sailed when ESPN dubbed a super mid Alabama LSU game the Game of the Century complete with QBs who couldn’t hit open crossing routes 15 yards downfield. I’m thinking that was around 2009 or so. Just insanely mid and we chalked it all up to amazing defense because ESPN told us so. That’s college sports now. Game of the Century….because ESPN said so.
https://theathletic.com/4759224/2023/08/08/pac-12-schools-realignment-southwest-conference/?amp=1 It irritates me a lot to see the CFB world bemoaning all of these changes. It's a lot of hypocrisy. I don't feel like the SWC or Big East castaways had all that much of a pity party thrown for them. If you're a purist who cares about the sport, tradition, regionality, and the 'student athlete' so much, then the only play is to not allow the damn games on TV. You can't turn something into a billion dollar enterprise and then get mad when it starts behaving like a professional sports league.
The only leftover Big East school was UCONN and that conference wasn't over 100 years old. It was only 40 or so. Not exactly the same thing.
Bro USF joined the Big east in 2005. That's 80 years after Cal joined the Pac 12. Apples and Oranges. USF may have technically been a Big East school for 8 years but I doubt they come to mind when most people think old Big East.
The first one ended 9-6 and Alabama won the rematch in the BCS title game 21-0. A lot of people wanted Oklahoma State in the championship game against LSU since LSU and Alabama had already played that season.
So I bring my random GF over to watch the game with my friends...she brings pizza for everybody...we proceed to eat pizza and....nothing Like 4 FGs? Worst game ever. "I promise I will make this up to you later..." I says to my GF
Basically that tv execs are betting on casual football fans with no allegiance to college football (or any college in particular) that will watch the games between big names. They therefore want to consolidate so that they are putting on big games every week between powerhouse schools like Ohio State and USC (or Texas vs Alababama, etc.) and get those fans to start watching. The argument is there are millions more casual fans without any school loyalty than there are fans in these small markets (they named Oregon State) who watch out of love for the school, rivalry, pageantry, etc. This by the way is why I say no school should be celebrating anything right now. Unless you are a blue blood, your future is in doubt. All of the Big 12 schools feeling good right now are going to be lamenting the next move of consolidation that puts all the top schools in a single conference with tv deals that eat up all the oxygen.
Wasn't this the argument behind putting Rutgers in the Big 10? They thought they'd "unlock" the New York market, but that never panned out because there aren't many casual Rutgers fans who didn't go to school there. My guess is that the widespread legalization of sports betting has looped in more casuals to give the execs the idea that they'll tune into games that don't matter to them.
No that's not the same argument at all. The argument they are making right now is that there's a huge market nationally for people who will watch college football but don't care about their personal school ties. They only care about big names. So the tv companies want conferences that give them big name matchups every week (like Ohio State vs USC, Alabama v Texas, Michigan v Notre Dame, etc. etc.) instead of televising USC vs Oregon State as an example. In the past they've believed that college football is all about people loving the traditions of rivalries and loyalty to their school, now they are betting that it won't matter at all anymore and we don't need to televise the medium or small schools at all. Example to use Rutgers: TV networks are saying they can get a LARGER audience in NY that would watch USC vs Michigan without having any loyalty to EITHER school, just casual fans interested in big names as opposed to say Ohio State vs Rutgers.
