UH Football, ESPN and the cord

UH will be playing Navy at 11:00 this Friday because ESPN says so and the AAC and UH agreed to the contract. If this was on a Saturday I would be there. Unfortunately Friday morning is dialysis for my wife. But ESPN, Fox, CBS, etc. dictate what time and day the games will be played.

So, this is what college FB has become, especially for the G5 or “untouchable” college football teams. The P5 teams live in Nirvana, everyone else is on the outside.

ESPN will lay off 100 people this month after laying off 100’s over the past two years. ESPN has according to SI “dropped in households from 100.13 million in 2011 to an estimated 87.5 million households today.” Yes this is because of politics being brought into sports and NFL politics, etc. But some G5 college FB fans are waking up and cutting the cord against the “we own you and you will pay for our cable/dish service. You will do this even though we are destroying your fan base and telling the world your team is inferior to those P5 teams that are vastly superior even if this is not true.”

This past October ESPN lost almost 600,000 customers who cut the cord.
ESPN, FOX, showed their power when they put the BIG12 and their school presidents in their place and basically said you change the contract and accept what we will give you or we will see you in court. These presidents got on their knees and asked where do they sign. The power is in the media, not the schools. Yes the school presidents could have said no and gone to court. But they knew doing that would harm them and the P5 FB world.

Funny thing is since I cut the cord I do not miss it and I have discovered that like many have had to go “cold turkey” because of Harvey. My brother’s home is waiting on contractors to rebuild and he is without cable while living at his daughter’s home. His son in law has introduce him to Sling, Hulu, etc. and many other on line sites.

Disney will see to it that ESPN survives if they purchase Netflik and other companies so they can leave or reduce their cable footprint. But they will not support UH and G5 teams any more than they are now when this happens.

They have already decided that UH/G5 teams are not worthy of P5 Nirvana and will not change UH’s classification in their caste system. It has become so obvious that Tilman Fertitta has purchased the Rockets and now is looking at the NHL. He has equality in those leagues and will not be told to “shut up and know your place” in the P5 Nirvana and G5 untouchable world of college FB.

They love the annual G5 Team of the Year - UH in 2015, Western Michigan in 2016, and UCF this year. What happens if there are no ranked G5 teams at the end of a year? That’s when the talk of a separate classification for the G5 will gather real momentum the G5 could lose all hope of ever getting a shot at beating the “big” boys in the playoffs.

The ESPN/Media also love the G5 HC in Training “Coach of the Year”. We have seen the media build up and promote the next hot P5 HC and unfortunately UH has experienced this 3 times now. First it was Briles, then Sumlin, and recently Herman.

ESPN/Media has now a new season that begins in the last quarter of the FB season. It is the “who is going to be rewarded with a great P5 HC job this season” and with each G5 game they broadcast they focus attention to these hot HC’s and potential P5 schools they might go to.

It is not that UCF or Memphis are good teams, it is about will the UCF HC go to Nebraska or will the Memphis HC be at this or that P5 school next year. The G5 team is not promoted, it is the promotion of the HC and the elevation of this G5 HC to the P5 Nirvana teams of college FB.

They have no concern of how their actions in promoting the G5 HC will hurt the G5 FB program because they are “untouchables” in the college FB caste system. They just do not matter.

UH would have had a good to great year with Orlando at DC and Herman at HC this season. Unfortunately this time last year ESPN/Media was involved in who will get Herman, Texas or LSU.

Now UH has a new P5 HC in training and fans must endure the learning curve and many coaching mistakes, hires, etc while the HC trains to become a P5 HC. He will be at UH no more than 3 season because if he is successful he will be promoted up to the P5 level or he will fail and be let go. Either way UH will start over again and rebuild.

Fans will be expected to tithe so they can purchase their season tickets, go to the games when ESPN/Media decide when they will be played, and shut up and not complain. Just like any other “G5 untouchable fan”.

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Is this a hunch or do you have sources? I know they were always talking about it, Coaches always denying. Not sure if that is what I would call involvement.

The involvement is that which is being said/suggested during the FB game telecast. The play by play, game commentator, etc. will talk about the available P5 teams and then say something like “coach Rule is rumored as a possible candidate as a replacement for Art Briles at Baylor, or some believe that Taggart at USF is a possible candidate for the Oregon job.” Then they might ad that “he would make a good P5 HC for them or some other P5 school.”

This happens now during broadcast of Memphis, SMU, UCF and yes Navy games (though he is right now saying he is happy at Navy). They are not directly involved in the selection committee but are actively promoting the new best candidates from the P5 HC’s in training G5 HC’s.

So they’re the source of the “rumors”. Probably have ex-CIA working for them.

Baylor at TCU is also at 11 a.m. on Friday.
UT and WV played at 11 last Saturday. We’re not the MAC. Otherwise, we’d be playing tomorrow and Wednesday night.

And? A coach that can go make P5 money is not going to stay at a G5 school. A coach that is worth a damn is not going to sit and hope for a NY6 bowl when he could possibly play for a national championship. Has zero to do with ESPN mentioning it on a broadcast. It’s reality. Any coach that does well in the AAC is gone the next year. That zero to do with ESPN, Fox, whoever and everything to do with resources and where G5 schools are right now. It sucks to be in the G5 because you know that any success you have is going to be short-lived but that is where we are at right now.

FS1 has lost more homes that ESPN, so is that because they have brought politics into sports? Discovery Channel has lost more than both is that because they are bringing politics into their programming? The reality is that EVERY cable channel is losing homes. When people cut the cord, they cut EVERY channel. So this idea that people are cutting cable because of ESPN is bizarre but seems to have gotten traction because people have a bone to pick with ESPN. I cut the cord went to a streaming service to save money, not because of ESPN.

Just alot of weird “conclusions” in your post that aren’t really based in reality.

You REALLY think that ESPN is to blame that Herman isn’t here? You REALLY don’t think he was talking to other teams before it got out? You think Herman wasn’t thinking about leaving at all until he saw a "false report on ESPN? okay man. Can your next post be about Area 51, or what REALLY happened to JFK?

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No, they ARE the rumors. With ESPN’s dominance of the sport they set the storylines. It’s more like the WWE than an actual competition.

Dude you just proved his point. If the media sets the storylines, then they create the “news”. WWE is perfect example of his point.

I should have given a sarcasm alert because I don’t believe that for a minute. If true, I’m just wasting my time as a sports enthusiast and should start looking for something else to do with my money and time.

Since the split of Division 1 in 1978, 25 teams have moved up to what is now called FBS. A bunch dropped down in 1981, like the entire Ivy League and SoCon, but a bunch of those came right back in 83, and aren’t included in the above number.

Point is, the money influx has created a ton of opportunity for small schools. What hasn’t improved is the distribution of money or opportunity to compete, which is more the fault of commissioners like Jim Delaney and Mike Slive than it is ESPN making decisions.They are complicit in going along, but the conspiracy is within the NCAA and constituent conferences. Everybody is just trying to make money off the deal.

I often advocate for getting the money out of the game, but with the full knowledge that a lot of teams wouldn’t survive losing the subsidy, and small schools like the Sun Belt and C-USA would be first out.

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