Opinion: ESPN is ruining college football

ESPN's over-used "college football lives here" slogan is so true, it's sad. The self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports" currently has a stranglehold on college football, and it's ruining the sport.

With no restraint, ESPN is regularly showing college football games Tuesday through Sunday, including ECU's 13-10 win at UCF Sunday night.

So what's the problem with ESPN showing college football five or six days out of the week?

First of all, these football players are student-athletes. When television forces them to play football games on days other than Saturday, they are blatantly ignoring the student aspect of student-athlete. Playing a college football game is not a simple thing, especially in a conference as spread out as Conference USA. The three and a half hours of football shown on television is simply the final piece of the puzzle.

For last Tuesday night's ESPN game between Marshall and Houston, the visiting Cougars departed the Houston airport Monday at 1:30 p.m. and returned at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Houston Sports Information director Chris Burkhalter said in an e-mail. So Houston's players probably missed at least two days of classes, just so they could lose a football game on national television.

And we wonder why so many football players are kicked out of school or suspended for problems with academics.

After ECU's game Sunday night, the team's flight landed in Greenville around 5 a.m. Monday morning. I imagine there weren't too many football players in class just a couple of hours later, and I don't blame them. If I were a football player, I wouldn't be in class the morning after playing a football game and flying from Orlando to Greenville all in one night.

So does ESPN really care about the discomfort it causes student-athletes by playing these nontraditional football games?

"The television networks get to pick the games they wish to show, and ECU has little control over the decision to play a game on a day other than Saturday," ECU Athletics director Terry Holland said in an e-mail last week.

Well, that answers that question.

Aside from the academic issue, ESPN has created a false sense of the exposure that teams receive by playing these non-Saturday games.

Eleven years ago, ESPN first began showing Thursday night games on a weekly basis-and it worked.

It worked because the network found a niche, showing high-profile match-ups that attracted national audiences. But in recent years-especially this one-the Thursday night game has been devalued because playing a football game on a day other than Saturday isn't a big deal anymore: It's normal. ESPN has recognized this, shifting its high profile game of the week to a Saturday night broadcast on ABC-actually, "ESPN on ABC," whatever that means.

I also have to question how much exposure ECU got by playing UCF on Sunday night, especially when the announcers spent much of the broadcast talking about the BCS, politics, the Heisman Trophy, more BCS and anything else except the dismal game being played in front of them. Most UCF fans who cared enough to watch the game actually attended it. A person who wanted to watch football-but didn't have any ties to either school-was probably watching the NFL game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, which was happening at the same time as the ECU game. That means that ECU fans were the main ones being "exposed" to the game.

Despite the fact that ECU has two non-Saturday games this season, Holland tries his best to keep ECU's home games on Saturdays. According to Holland, ESPN wanted to show this year's ECU-West Virginia game on Thursday night, but Holland wanted to do what's best for all involved, and the two sides agreed to play the game on the second Saturday of the season.

"Non-Saturday games provide wonderful exposure for ECU and our athletic program on television, but those games are usually not well-attended, even when the tickets have been sold," Holland said. "Our loyalty is to the fans who come to support our team each and every home game. Therefore, we do our best to keep our home games on Saturdays to show our loyalty to those who come and sit in the heat, cold, rain and snow to cheer for the Pirates."

Holland deserves credit for his unwillingness to give in to ESPN, and I wish there were more people like him in college football. These nontraditional football games do more harm than good, but not enough people realize that.

So congratulations ESPN, college football does "live here." Unfortunately.

This writer can be contacted at sports@theeastcarolinian.com.