Posted on 08/12/2023 4:32:03 AM PDT by MtnClimber
You don’t have to dig too deep in any mess these days to find lefties from Hollywood and academia at the heart of things. Or sometimes a principled conservative fighting them.
That’s certainly the case now with the latest round of football conference musical chairs. And with it, the old sport may be losing much of its fun, tradition, rivalry, and sportsmanship,
Sheer stupidity explains a lot of what happened, but there is also something more sinister at the heart of it in my opinion . The Mouse and his evil four-letter network, EPSN.
The big-money era of college sports began in the 1980s after the NCAA lost control over TV rights in a famous court case. With cable TV millions, ESPN and its broadcast sister, ABC, started signing up every big football and basketball conference. They also subsidized the proliferation of holiday season bowl games.
But the Disney Corp. bought ESPN/ABC, getting them in bed with the same people who brought you affirmative action and DEI: the college presidents.
With cable TV money stagnating in the 2000s, even for sports programming, Disney pursued a strategy to weed out all but the highest TV ratings schools from its patronage. (Not unlike how Paul “Bear” Bryant used to overrecruit players, then ruthlessly cut all but the best. Getting rid of the players he no longer needed was the main reason for his infamous summer “two-a-day” practices)
Disney’s ESPN had TV deals with all the “Power 6” conferences 20 years ago, but in my opinion quietly sought to wreck two of them, the Big East and the Big 12, by encouraging other conferences to poach their members. This started in 2003 when the ACC took Miami (led by Donna Shalala), BC, and Virginia Tech....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Let’s hope that streaming services will kill ESPN/ABC.
I actually prefer college sports die in its current form. Only actual students should be able to play, and not differ in requirements for entry to the university.
Someone’s favorite team got left out. Too bad.
Vax Tec? :)
The one issue I see with streaming services is ease of use. If you have Cable or Satellite TV, you can jump from channel to channel up to the entire channel list of the provider, record several shows while watching something else, if you have multiple streaming services and want to switch to another program on another streaming service, it’s cumbersome to do that, throw in the cost of subscribing to multiple streaming services and before long you will be paying a similar price for streaming services compared to cable or satellite service.
Its a stupid article. CBS has the right for the majority of the big SEC games not Disney. Texas and OU are now moving to the SEC. And on and on.
For example, the last time a Big 12 team won the natty was 2005 Texas Longhorns. Before that was 2000 Oklahoma. (Don't go back to Nebraska's 1994 and 1995 nattys because they were in the Big 8 at the time.) So for the 6 seasons of 2000-2005 the Big 12 had 2 national champions -- IMHO that's pretty good. Since then, nothing.
Since 2006 (17 seasons from 2006 to 2022) the SEC has won 13 nattys, with 3 others won by ACC teams that are in the southeast footprint (Clemson twice and Florida State once). Of the past 17 seasons, the only time a non southeastern team won the natty was only once: 2014 Ohio State of the Big 10. So all of the conferences are chasing the SEC specifically, and the southeastern region in general. They all want the kind of success and money the SEC teams are enjoying, and I can't blame them.
“ it’s cumbersome to do that, throw in the cost of subscribing to multiple streaming services and before long you will be paying a similar price for streaming services compared to cable or satellite service.”
It is cumbersome, but a year after cutting the cord I am still saving $100/month.
No question right now it’s more economical to cut the cord and subscribe to a few streaming services despite the cumbersome nature of switching between shows and services.
Two things could change that, many of the streaming services are losing money and the only ways to make that money up, is to add more premium content or increase the price or both.
Disney’s service is hemorrhaging money, ESPN is hemorrhaging money in general, they are really over paying for content and their woke programming is driving people away.
The only reason I watch ESPN is to watch my favorite team play when there is no other option.
Eventually, cable and satellite services will start an ala carte service where you pay for what you watch and bundle your own package rather than pay for a bunch of channels you don’t want.
If the streaming services somehow worked out a deal where you could subscribe to multiple services under one subscription and make it perform more like traditional cable and satellite service while still being lower priced, then you would have something.
If you have a streaming service like YouTube TV or Hulu Live, it’s easy. They have guides like cable or satellite.
We cut the cord and used both of those live services for awhile.
This year, after college football season I turned off Hulu live. I love not having contracts and being able to turn on/off the streaming services.
Disney.
Is there anything they cannot ruin?
Uh, no.
Admittedly I do not directly subscribe to any streaming service, I get Amazon’s Streaming service because I am a Amazon Prime Customer.
I have Roku device I use to watch Steve Bannon’s War Room.
Switching within and from one service to another is cumbersome at best for these two.
Amazon especially is not user friendly, their search is not great and as far as I can tell has no ability to sort or order the results into things you want to see.
Amen! And there should be no football before Labor Day or after New Year's Day, no playoffs, no weekday or Sunday games and no kickoffs after 7:30 pm.
“Its a stupid article”
All of the networks threw money at college football. But the author knows good audience.
And no indoor stadiums or Astroturf, or neutral site games.
Football was meant to be played in the elements, on grass.
Unfortunately you and I are in the minority. All these “adults” who schedule their lives around ghetto 20 somethings playing with a ball is a sad state of affairs.
I can’t even read a sports news story since it’s filled with Ebonics.
I only watch tennis on occasion, and the commercials are all ghetto trash now.
The promotion of ghetto black culture is disgusting.
Eventually conferences will go away.
The programs will decide they don’t need the conferences and will create their own organization and negotiate their own TV deal.
If done right, that could be a good thing.
I have proposed created a structure that basically has about 10 divisions each with around 7 teams, based on geography and traditional rivalries. That covers most of the current “Power Conference” teams.
You then have a Second-Level for the other Division 1 teams, they will play in divisions aligned with the top-level, so that covers all 130+ Division 1 teams.
And in a given season, there will be a playoff to determine which Second-Level teams get to play in the Top-Level the next season.
I agree, but for different reasons. Sports in educational institutions needs to simply die, period. Nothing more than intramural. It's corrupting, with ghetto fools who can't read getting scholarships. Coaches making triple in salary what teachers make.
It's a travesty and needs to end.
We have the same reasons.
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