Though he was doing exactly what he is supposed to do as commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, the appearance by Greg Sankey on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay on the morning of the SEC Championship game in December didn’t sit well with very many of the non it-just-means-more crowd.
It was tacky, self-serving and egotistical all rolled into one. Basically, Sankey was lobbying for two teams to get into the College Football Playoff if Georgia were to lose to Alabama later that night. (Which the Bulldogs did.)
It was about 20 minutes of yukking it up with Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, et. al. before punctuating it with this line: “Let’s go back to like Sesame Street … one of these things is not like the other, and that’s the Southeastern Conference” when talking about the teams competing with Georgia and Alabama for spots in the semifinals.
The point is not that Sankey said those words.
It’s that ESPN gave him the forum to say it.
College football, as we all well know, is in a state of upheaval right now. You may be mad about NIL or the transfer portal or about conference realignment. For goodness sakes, there’s talk about blowing up the 12-team CFP — before they even have one – in favor of 14 teams.
And of course, Sankey and the SEC are trying to drive that bus also.
But the biggest issue in all of this is not Greg Sankey or the Big Ten or whether a Group of Five conference winner should automatically be one of the playoff teams.
It’s that ESPN owns all of it.
Let’s see now … playoff teams (however many there are) will be chosen by a committee. You know who doesn’t do that and has run a pretty a pretty successful operation for quite a few years? The NFL, where the teams automatically qualify.
No committee needed. Outside influences, perceived or otherwise, carry no weight.
You know what else the NFL does differently that college football doesn’t? One network doesn’t control the entire playoff structure. It may be hard to keep up with, but there are games telecast over a variety of networks throughout the playoffs, leading up to the Super Bowl, which rotates between networks on a yearly basis.
That’s about as fair as it can be.
ESPN has broadcast every game in the 10 years of the previous playoff structure. You think they are just going to step away and wait for a phone call as to who has been chosen by the committee? There are 1.5 billion reasons why that’s not going to happen.
Look at it this way: If CBS got to choose who played in the Masters, do you really think the U.S. Mid-Amateur champion would be in the field?
ESPN has never been shy about pushing agendas (many would argue non-sports agendas as well) and you need to look no further than the Heisman Trophy, which ESPN almost prides itself on who should be the week-to-week frontrunner. Three guesses – and the first two don’t count — as to which network has the rights to the Heisman Trophy presentation.
“ESPN has worked very closely with the College Football Playoff over the past decade to build one of the most prominent events in American sports. We look forward to enhancing our valued relationship over the next two years, and then continuing it for six more as we embark on this new, expanded playoff era,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “This agreement further solidifies ESPN as the home of college football, as well as the destination for the vast majority of major college championships for the next eight years.”
If college football were truly interested in the best interests of college football, it would start having its signature event being shown on as many as networks as possible. That would minimize the influence, to whatever degree that might be, a network has.
Unless you have a pre-determined number of teams from each conference (another self-serving Sankey agenda being pushed), the College Football Playoff is always going to have a certain number of teams that have to be chosen as at-large.
But this is also a TV show.
TV shows have ratings.
Ratings mean money.
The line “follow the money” was made famous by Hal Holbrook in the movie All The President’s Men. We just might not like where that leads.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com