Here’s the latest confirmation that big-time college sports have no educational purpose and no reason for being on campus.
As the NYTimes reports:
The games will not just be televised by ESPN. They are creations of ESPN — demonstrations of the sports network’s power over college football.
The teams were not even on each other’s schedules until ESPN, looking to orchestrate early-season excitement and ratings, went to work. The 2013 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic came together more than two years ago when one of the network’s programming czars noticed that Alabama was not scheduled to play this Labor Dayweekend, brought the Tide on board and found a worthy opponent.
Far beyond televising games, ESPN has become the chief impresario of college football. By infusing the sport with billions of dollars it pays for television rights — more than $10 billion on college football in the last five years alone — ESPN has become both puppet-master and kingmaker, arranging games, setting schedules and bestowing the gift of nationwide exposure on its chosen universities, players and coaches.
Turns out, the college teams are just content-creators for ESPN.
Sheesh.
Every Monday morning during the season, a group of schedulers meets on ESPN’s campus to decide which games to broadcast and which channels will carry them. Under its contracts with conferences, ESPN has the right to set kickoff times.
Joe Faraoni/ESPN
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