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ABC/ESPN losing part of BCS??

Buckskin86

Moderator
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2004-11-21-hiestand_x.htm?POE=SPOISVA

Fox to announce deal to air Fiesta, Orange, Sugar bowls in '06
In TV college football, Fox will start at the top.
On Monday, Fox will announce a four-year deal to carry four Bowl Championship Series games, according to an executive familiar with the negotiations, starting with bowls after the 2006 regular season. In displacing ABC, Fox will break into college football by paying at least $20 million annually each for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls as well as a new fifth BCS bowl to be played at the site of the national title game about a week before that game.

Fox's $80 million total for four BCS games is up from the $76.5 million total that ABC averages for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls. Through an existing deal, ABC keeps the Rose Bowl — and thus the BCS title game every four years.

Weird. Only in the crazy quilt of college football's method of crowning a champion could a network step up to buy the biggest games. It's as if Fox, whose main college football coverage consists of less-than-marquee Pacific-10 and Big 12 games on cable's Fox Sports Net, didn't carry the NFL — but got to buy the AFC and NFC title games and the Super Bowl.

But expect Fox, which relies on big sports events to help build its network, to keep shopping for college sports. College games, along with the package of eight NFL games on Thursday or Sunday now up for grabs, could help Fox launch a cable sports channel meant to compete with ESPN. But even if that doesn't materialize, Rupert Murdoch's Fox already has opened up another front in its TV sports' rivalry with Disney's ABC and ESPN. And the big winner, so far, are the colleges who've found another buyer for the exploits of their student-athletes.
 
I'm not the biggest Murdoch or Fox fan, but ESPN desperately needs competition. They've been on top and alone far too long, and have the over-the-top cocky swagger that goes along with that. How about a Big Ten deal with Fox?
 
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ABC pulled out of talks for the BCS contract. They did not feel it was financially feasible. I guess FOX Sports does.. but at the same time, with ABC pulling out of talks, I'm sure the BCS was able to lower their asking price to sell it.
 
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Fox has awful coverage in my opinion...I just hope they find some real announcers to do the games, because the chunps they have doing the fox sports net games won't cut it...and I think it would be foolish to bring in NFL guys to do it
 
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I agree, Fox coverage is garbage. Their announcers are not good and the station does not even offer HD in my area. CBS and the SEC are awesome for showing their games in HD. I end up watching them every week because of that. I wish ABC would do that for some Big Ten games.
 
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studio team, too

If you think Mark & Trev are brutal towards OSU ... FOX has KWI in their studio.

If they were to get the Big10, they would probably pillage the ESPN+ guys for their teams since those guys have been doing the games for a few years.
 
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The way ABC sees it, is they only need one bowl game to use as a vehicle to promote quality programming like "Housewives Desperate for Makeovers: Outhouse Edition." Coming up with an obscene promo to air in front of each game would be too much work.
 
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ntd said:
Fox has awful coverage in my opinion...I just hope they find some real announcers to do the games, because the chunps they have doing the fox sports net games won't cut it...and I think it would be foolish to bring in NFL guys to do it
Have you ever watched the garnet and grey play on espn?

Fox's announcers really aren't any worse than those fucks. Plus, Fox brought in a lot of veteran talent to go along with it's new talent, when they started doing NFL games. I think that they'll do the same for college football.
 
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I don't think you can rate Fox's current announcers with this scale. With the addition of a power conference contract, there would immediately be a ton of openings for announcers, and Fox appears to be willing to pay for quality. With that in mind, I don't really care....any competition for ESPN is good.
 
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IronBuckI said:
Have you ever watched the garnet and grey play on espn?

Fox's announcers really aren't any worse than those fucks. Plus, Fox brought in a lot of veteran talent to go along with it's new talent, when they started doing NFL games. I think that they'll do the same for college football.
That is true about some of ESPN's staff certainly

Fox was able to bring in a lot fo that talent because CBS no longer had football...and they got more when the AFC switched to CBS from NBC.

ABC is only giving up the BCS bowls AFAIK, so I doubt Fox will get any worthwhile talent from them
 
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I can see Fox signing up one or two conferences so that they can have double headers either nationally or for regional play. Add Fox Sports into the mix to have a second tier network much like ESPN to cover secondary matchups within the conference(s). Fox has three regional carriers in the Pacific, Central and Atlantic to be able to carry this off. I believe with the latest happenings with the BCS and Fox we may be seeing the landscape change again.

Fox with the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and fourth bowl vs ABC with the Rose sure makes things interesting. The Big Ten contract is coming up with ABC. Is ABC going to keep it or give it up. The latest with ESPN and Ohio State is not going to help matters. Andy Gieger making statements that the Big Ten office and other AD's and Presidents within the Big Ten no happy with ESPN's conduct involving Ohio State could make things interesting.

For the younger members of the audience who do not know or understand the history of the Big Ten, I will make some points. The Big Ten was organized as an academic consortium first and an athletic conference second. For many years, schools of the Big Ten did not play schools from certain regions of the country due to discrimination and/or perspective on the student/athlete in higher education. The alliance of the Big Ten and Pac Ten in the 40's was due to conferences having similiar views on education and athletics. All of the Big Ten schools are members of the Association of American Universities, a consortium of universities that are heavy into academic research and graduate and professional education. There are 62 universities from Canada (2) and America (60) that are members. The Big Ten has 12 members of this group (includes the University of Chicago). To join this group requires an invitation and a 3/4's approval of current members. Like wise 7 of 10 schools from the Pac Ten belong to the AAU.

Alot of other schools/fans look at the Big Ten with disdain. Part of this they blame on our tradition and history without knowing our history and tradition. They think sports first and academics second if at all. Big Ten schools think acadmics first then sports. We were one of the first conferences to have requirements that a student/athlete must be progressing towards a degree. They do not realize how significant the academic/research side of our institutions. This current year Ohio State reached over $500 million in research dollars. I know that scUM, Wisconsin, Penn State and Illinois have received more than us but their are only a handfull of public schools that recieve more than us.

To end this I will recall the story of one Earle Bruce. Earle's carreer at Ohio State was ended due to a knee injury. He was recruited to Ohio State by Coach Wes Fesler. With Coach Hayes coming on board, Earle knowing that his carreer was done, he decided to head home to Maryland. Coach Hayes asked about Earle and what happened to him. He was told that he was headed home. Coach Hayes sent an assistant after him to bring him back. In so many words, Coach Hayes told Earle that even though he was done athletically he was still on scholarship and he was here to get an education. Coach Hayes felt that Earle had offered his services to Ohio State and it was Ohio State's responsibility to fullfill it's responsibility to give Earle an education. Now remember this was the early 50's when athlete's were a piece of meat that if something happened (injury) they were done and on their own. But not at Ohio State or the Big Ten. This is part of what makes us different.
 
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