Before examining the "commercialization" of college football, it might help to explain what is meant by the term. There were debates about the commercialization of college football when Ohio Stadium was built in the early 1920s. Comparing that to the era of ESPN vs. The Big Ten Network only highlights the fact that "commercialization" is a relative term that only has meaning when given context. The context for the current climate of sports in general and college football in particular can be distilled to one word: Television.
Heisenberg Would be Proud
On September 30, 1939, NBC broadcast the Waynesburg vs. Fordham game from Triborough Stadium in New York City. It is doubtful that anyone in attendance or anyone watching any of the estimated 1000 television sets that it reached had any idea that this change in the way that a game could be observed would have such a profound impact on the game itself. One could understand if the observers of that first college football telecast (from a single, field-level camera) were skeptical about the future of the medium. The world at large gave it little notice and less fanfare. The commercial-free birth of what would become a multi-billion dollar industry might as well have occurred in a manger on the other side of the planet. Only a birth that did occur in such a place has had as great an impact on the way that people would one day spend their weekends.
The Good Old Days?
While the first telecast was commercial-free, it would not be accurate to say that college football was free of commercialization. There never was a time when it was 0% commercial, any more than it is 100% commercial now. While some who read this may beg to differ, the recent debates over conference expansion have made some things very clear: among them, that college presidents still hold a great deal of power in the world of college football world and that they are motivated by academic prestige and power as well as by money.
