Share
If you needed a perfect example of how television runs college football, you got one this week when North Carolina pulled out of its scheduled 2010 game against South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium.
The ABC/ESPN conglomerate went to work this summer and made everything fit nicely into its prime-time packaging of college football. Fans across the country will be the beneficiaries of a North Carolina-Louisiana State game in Atlanta to kick off the 2010 season. Ultimately, those same national fans also will get to see South Carolina against an attractive Bowl Championship Series opponent.
So, everything worked out just dandy, right? In the words of ESPN analyst Lee Corso, not so fast my friend.
Fans of the four schools involved in the TV switch-a-roo will pay the price for television's ability to dictate matchups, sites and kickoff times. The ones who should be looked after the most – the local fans – are the ones who will suffer the most.
North Carolina and LSU fans will pay extra for premium-priced tickets to the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game in Atlanta, because the game will not be included in either team's season-ticket plan. They also will fork out a small fortune for travel.
As for South Carolina fans – and the yet-to-be-named opponent – they once again get stuck in that vortex called Thursday night college football.
Despite paying for the tickets as part of their season-ticket plans, thousands will eat the expense because they cannot fit a late-night, mid-week game into their work schedules.
“It's a little inconvenient for the fans, certainly, on Thursday night,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said Thursday. “But that's just the way it is nowadays. You play when television tells you.”
That is true more than ever with the SEC recently signing a $2billion, 15-year deal with ESPN. If the sports programming network wants the SEC to play a football game at 4a.m. on a Wednesday in Puerto Rico, you can be assured the league will make it happen.
“For as much money as ESPN is paying all the SEC schools, yes, we'll play when they tell us to,” Spurrier said. “That's part of the two-way street of the deal. That's part of college football.”
This all got started because the Chick-fil-A Bowl expanded a year ago to include a season-opening game between marquee opponents, a game ABC said it would love to televise. Last year, Clemson and Alabama squared off. This season, the game will match Alabama against Virginia Tech.
Television networks never have much cared for on-site fans and the game's participants when they schedule sporting events. Thus, we have college basketball games that tip-off at 10 in the morning and at midnight.
Rare is the occasion when a school stands up to a TV edict. Georgia apparently is one of those schools. It refuses to play Thursday night football games, no doubt against the wishes of ESPN.
With the new deal between the SEC and ESPN, it will be interesting to see if Georgia sticks to its principles. My guess is we will someday soon see the Bulldogs playing South Carolina on a Thursday night. Kickoff should be sometime about 11 o'clock.
Ron Morris: rmorris@thestate.com
