(10-04-2012 09:09 AM)KnightLight Wrote: (10-04-2012 08:36 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: My quibble is with the belief that "The Big East is awful" is one of those trending topics. ....but the Big East isn't even 1/1000th on the radar of a trending topics list compared to Tebow, LeBron, A-Rod, Tony Romo interceptions, the Lakers, etc.
The above is a great definition of "fanboy"....excuse, excuse, excuse.
Trending?
Do you think anyone on this board (especially non-fan boys) cares if ESPN or anything else is "trending"?
You do...so props to that...but what you MISSED in seemingly EVERY THREAD that has talked about the CHANGE of ESPN's direction over the years (proven AGAIN by Gottleib and Patrick yesterday), is that many of the talking heads DO receive talking points on what to bring up, WHAT TO BASH, etc...regardless if its "trending" online...as much of it might be what ESPN higher ups are trying to do via the negotiation table.
As Dan and Doug correctly pointed out how ESPN/SportsCenter use to be a proud "sports news organization" yet that philosophy has been thrown out the window, especially over the last 5-10 years or so.
ESPN isn't trending?
That's what your going with today as your excuse?
I'm not quite exactly sure what you're arguing with me about here. I don't mean "trending topics" in the sense of Twitter, but rather exactly what you've said that ESPN has their internal view of what are "trending topics". If you prefer that we call them "popular topics" or "things we want to beat to death into the ground" or anything else to be clearer, then that's fine, too. And what I'm referring is NOT just the niche college football shows, but SportsCenter, PTI, Mike and Mike and other shows that actually DO form impressions among the casual sports fans.
So, if you can get off your wacky personal vendetta against me, I AM ACTUALLY AGREEING WITH YOU. I have said explicitly that ESPN manufactures controversy.
Our disagreement lies within whether ESPN actually cares enough about the Big East that there's actually some type of prime directive to bash it. I just don't think it's that important to them and the comments on this board are more of a reflection of Big East people specifically trying to look for negative comments and make a list of them. I can easily do the same thing about the Big Ten, the Chicago Bears, the Chicago White Sox, and every other sports entity that I care about and piece together quotes over the course of even a 2 week period that make it look like that ESPN is out to get them. The point is that the casual sports fan that just watches ESPN in a "normal" amount isn't going to have any idea of what the people complaining on this board are talking about (whereas it will be very clear to them that ESPN is Tebow-obsessed).
And, since many people here will flatly reject my reasoning above because they want to believe what they want to believe, even if there IS some type of prime directive to bash the Big East, a strong conference shouldn't be worried about some Andre Ware commentary. Jim Delany doesn't give a crap with all of the Big Ten bashing on ESPN over the past couple of weeks. Roger Goodell doesn't give a crap that every single ESPN writer had put him personally through the ringer during the referee lockout. David Stern doesn't give a crap that ESPN constantly insinuates that he fixes the lottery or favors certain teams like the Lakers. You know why? Because they lead organizations that are actually structurally sound with people and members that actually want to be there, so they don't give a crap what ESPN or Dennis Dodd or Comcast or any other entity says on the air. If you're structurally sound off-the-air, then all of the on-the-air stuff has ZERO impact.
On the flip side, Andre Ware or Lou Holtz or Mark May suddenly singing the praises of the Big East doesn't magically mean that casual sports fans will start watching Rutgers football instead of Alabama or Notre Dame or even your random ACC school. The Big East isn't in its position today because of the media. It's in this position because (a) it doesn't have Miami anymore and (b) the claim that the Big East has been better than the ACC in BCS bowls falls on deaf ears because the only school left that actually won one of those games is Louisville. Give the TV viewer a little credit - how much leeway do you actually think they're going to give the Big East when they've recently seen an 8-4 UConn team receive an auto-bid and the most consistent football program (WVU) has just left along with the gold-plated Notre Dame (even if it wasn't a football member)? The TV viewer isn't getting that negative impression just because of ESPN. The Big East did it to itself
on-the-field for the past several seasons (and there were a whole lot of C-USA people a year ago that were saying just that who then suddenly changed their tune when they got elevated to the Big East).