Awful Announcing reports on ESPN exec's statement about CFP expansion

Quote:Speaking on this week’s SBJ/SBD Media Podcast, ESPN Executive Vice President of Programming and Scheduling Burke Magnus said ESPN is “not at all” advocating for the current four-team format to expand, worried that any expansion could weaken college football’s regular season.

Because so much of its fall schedule is dominated by college football, ESPN finds it especially important to keep the regular season relevant. Magnus pointed out that ESPN has invested more in college football than “any other category that we do,” given all of the rights deals the network has with various conferences.

“I would worry a little bit that conceivably any change might bring with it some unintended consequences relative to the regular season,” Magnus said. “I also look at the totality of college football and making sure that they don’t unintentionally water down the competition during the regular season such that playoff bids are determined in advance or that we go back to the automatic qualifying business of the BCS, which was not the sport at its best.”

There's more interesting tidbits in the article, but there you go.

I find this fascinating for several reasons.

1) If ESPN is scared of weakening the draw and appeal of the regular season then I can definitely see why they would be against it. An 8-team playoff could be good for a lot of people, but it does run the risk of devaluing conference championships and certain regular season games.

2) ESPN clearly invests more in college sports than anyone else. They have a vested interest in the health of the game. Perhaps then that informs their views on how to guide expansion in a way that both pads their bottom line and contributes to the overall quality of the game.

3) It also means they have a vested interest in other college sports. We kind of already knew that I guess. Now that they're openly talking about it, perhaps that raises some questions about other college sports that aren't necessarily as healthy as they could be...such as basketball.