[NU Sports] Two words for the Oklahoma State boosters

[Peter C. Warner]

It used to be - back in the old days - the only people mewling for a
national championship game were the independents - primarily ND and Penn
State and their fans.  They had nothing else to play for.  The rest of the
nation was happy with the old system.  There were the Tangerine, Sun and
Peach Bowls and maybe a couple of others along with the Orange, Sugar,
Cotton and Granddaddy Rose.  Generally, schools with good football teams
from cold places were rewarded with a warm winter trip.   

The Rose, of course, was special because of the tradition the Rose, Big 10
and the Pac-12 (previously, Big Five, Big Six, Pacific-8, Pacific-10) built
together for over half a century.  Even outside Big 10 and Pac-12 country,
people had Rose Bowl parties to watch the game.

Then came along ESPN.  They have tried to homogenize and nationalize college
football to suit their own programming needs - everyone watch the games on
their network; everyone watch their national news programming - no need to
regionally breakdown the news, just key in on the biggest stories
nationally.  It made sense for ESPN - a national market with lower
programming cost.  As a result, many - particularly younger people - have
bought into the mantra that there should be a playoff system.

Along came Fox, its regional sports channels, eventually the Big Ten
Network, and now the Pac-12 Networks.  Fox may never get as big as ESPN, but
it has and is eroding ESPN's market.  Namely, Fox has segmented the markets
to let people focus on the markets (conferences) they are most interested
in.  Unlike pro baseball, basketball and football, Fox recognizes that there
are far too many college football programs for people to be able to have a
constant global interest in all of them.

The "partnership" announced a couple of weeks ago by The Big Ten and Pac-12
has likely been facilitated by Fox and maximizing of revenue that will occur
for Fox and the conferences as a result.  As I said last month, I think this
"partnership" signals that the demise of the BCS is coming.  The Big Ten and
Pac-12 wouldn't be doing this if they had a big concern about qualifying one
or more of their respective schools for BCS games with cupcake games.  The
Rose Bowl will likely (hopefully) contract with The Big Ten and Pac-12 to
lock in the champions for that bowl.  (If a champion is called-off to some
sort of national championship game, the runner-up (loser of championship
game or by formula) can go to the Rose Bowl instead.)

Nothing would please me more than to see Fox eventually start showing The
Big Ten and Pac-12 conference games on its local affiliates in addition to
its sports networks and to have Fox steal away The Rose Bowl (with a Big Ten
and Pac-12 lock) from ESPN.  

In short, screw ESPN and all the others (particularly ND) that want to
nationalize college football and have a playoff at the expense of the Rose
with its Big Ten and Pac-12 tie-in.



-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of bwdolphin146 at yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:32 PM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] Two words for the Oklahoma State boosters

Iowa State. 

To me that ends the discussion. Alabama's loss was to LSU, OSU's to the
Cyclones. End of discussion. 

I could live with a conference-winner only rule but for those who hold the
NCAA hoops tourney sacred, there have been plenty of times it was won by a
non-conference champ. Why is that wonderful in hoops but so awful in
football? 

I dislike the BCS myself but I want a return to the pre-BCS system of the
1980's. 

I would note though that this year's BCS games were on the whole
entertaining and well worth watching. But SJT tells me it sucks so I guess I
didn't enjoy the Rose, Fiesta, or Sugar Bowls and the Orange was enjoyable
in a weird way (how bad could Clemson get?). 

Throw in fun games from Detroit to Dallas and beyond and I enjoyed the bowl
season a lot. 

But I am told it all sucks because some people didn't see the mythical
national championship (which I really don't care about)  they wanted to, so
I guess I didn't enjoy myself watching CFB the last month. Oh well.  

Brad Wilson
Sent on the SprintR Now Network from my BlackBerryR
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