12th Man Magazine

Editor
Homer Jacobs

Contributing Writers
Rusty Burson
Jim Molony

Contributing Photographers
Kevin Bartram
Glen Johnson

Inside the Aggies | The Program Guy | The Hot Corner

Inside the Aggies.

Broadcast Blues

By Homer Jacobs

There were the LSU Tigers... At home. At night. Against No. 1 Florida. Beating No. 1 Florida. The ESPN cameras and "College Gameday" Crew were on hand.

There went the goal posts. And the nation watched with envy.

Aggie fans surely did. A&M fans surely would love to knock off the nation's top-ranked team at home and at night.

And, to make matters worse, the Tigers danced on the Aggies' own network. Or so it used to be.

ESPN's field microphones picked up the Tiger Den din. The best sports jingle in the business (Come on, sing along with me) played background for LSU's night of glory.

And the best college football announcer around, Ron Franklin, spewed his baritone voice, while the sport's best analyst, Mike Gottfried, broke the game down in his usual outstanding way.

Saturday night LIVE? You bet. For comparisons, all a fan had to do was switch over to the drab and dull Oklahoma State-Colorado broadcast on Fox Sports Net.

Oh sure, the game was exciting, with OSU pulling out a thrilling 33-29 victory before the home folks at night. Of course, Fox is no ESPN. The network doesn't own a field mike to pick up crowd noise. And, although Fox's announcers aren't as bad as some of the ABC boys, the duo was no Franklin and Gottfried.

Yes, the SEC game of the year was played on ESPN, and the nation watched. The Big 12's game of the week was played on its No. 2 network, Fox, and no one watched or cared.

Such is life as a member of the Big 12, the forgotten dozen toiling on ABC regional TV or Fox at night.

Where is Dave Barnett and Raycom when you need them. Oh, that's right, the talented Barnett calls games for ESPN.

So while the ACC, the SEC, the Big East and Big Ten flourish with exposure in ESPN's 75 million homes, the Big 12 and Pac-10 muddle through in relative television obscurity.

Somehow, when the television deals were inked two years, ago the Big 12 boys got snookered.

Somehow, Big 12 commissioner Steve Hatchell and the conference higher-ups jumped for the Delorean because it cost the most and looked the best. All the while, the hip and more popular Ford Explorer drove off in search of new passengers.

The Big 12 decided to fly Continental instead of good ol' Southwest Airlines.

By now, most fans and, hopefully, the Big 12 realize bigger was not bigger when it selected ABC and Fox (back then it was Liberty Sports) for its television contract for football. Sure, the two anted up for a $145 million pact (that includes basketball on ESPN) until the year 2003 (until the year 2000 with ABC for football).

So what has the Big 12 received for its deal with the two? Basically the worst television contract in the country.

First of all, ABC's production of college football has become so weak that its new head of production was hired away from ESPN this year to rebuild the network's reputation as a college football staple. And his first hire to add more quality announcing depth? The polished team of Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson, two former ESPN guys.

And it's not just the announcing teams on ABC that are sub-par, but the productions are marred with technical difficulties and that lovely "bonus coverage" that hits the network each Saturday. Bonus coverage means the original broadcast - like Texas-Oklahoma Oct. 11 - has lost its feed, so time to head east for Penn State-Ohio State.

For the most part, ESPN's productions are crisp and emphasize the pageantry of the game. Yes, ABC has the voice of college football, Keith Jackson. But his best "Whoa, Nellies" were blurted out several Sugar Bowls ago.

And while Fox Sports Net at night can be picked up on Fox channels nationwide, when fans want to watch college football, they tune into the total sports network.

Twelve years ago, it was actually the total Aggie network. It's not a reach to say that Texas A&M football ushered in the popularity of college football on ESPN.

In its infancy, ESPN was a kick boxing, nine-ball, Australian rules football network that began to show those first round games of the NCAA Basketball Tournament in the early 1980s.

Suddenly, the American public began tuning into the strange cable network. A guy named Dick Vitale was born.

But in 1985, the network reached out for college football, and it landed at Kyle Field.

Veteran announcer Jim Simpson and sidekick Paul McGuire were assigned to call the A&M-SMU game in 1985. And McGuire became so enamored with the 12th Man Kickoff Team - as did ESPN - that the network returned two weeks later for a Kyle Field game featuring the Aggies and Arkansas Razorbacks. The Aggies had won two close games (19-17 over SMU and 10-6 over Arkansas), and ratings were respectable.

The network capped off its regular season coverage with a Thanksgiving night game that saw A&M rip Texas, 42-10. Apparently the suits in Bristol, Conn., liked what they saw.

ESPN would broadcast the A&M-Texas game from 1985-1989. CBS aired the game in 1990, while the Entertainment and Aggie Sports Programming Network would air the games from 1991-1993, with all the games coming at night and on Thanksgiving.

And of the Aggies' 25 appearances on the network, 21 of those ended in A&M victories.

ESPN's last broadcast of the Aggies came at the 1995 Alamo Bowl, also an Aggie win. That game became the network's highest-rated bowl game ever.

Now, the Aggies' only exposure nationally is if the ESPN trio of Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit mentions the team on one of its pregame shows, which rarely happens these days because none of the three has seen A&M play that much.

Yes, the night games on Thanksgiving night have been replaced by America's Cup sailing, while ABC moved the traditional game between the Aggies and Longhorns to 10 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving. You can bank on it that no one west of El Paso even sees the first half of this game.

And it's not just the Aggies who are suffering from bad TV scheduling and a lack of TV exposure caused by this terrible television contract. The Nebraska Cornhuskers are in the middle of another national title run, and only an ABC regional audience for the Washington game has seen this team play.

You don't think ESPN would like to televise a Husker game or two? They would love it, and so would the typical college football fan.

And ESPN wanted the Big 12 deal badly, but could not come up with the big money like its parent company ABC and weak sister Liberty Sports did.

You can surmise that Ron Franklin, a former advocate for the Southwest Conference, would love to do one more A&M-Texas game at night on Thanksgiving. He has even stated that he misses doing those football games from the heartland, where he does cover college basketball for ESPN.

ABC executives claim college football is a regional sport, and their ratings suggest it is. So you can't fault their regional coverage and their heavy money they put into the game. A&M coach R.C. Slocum has even said he doesn't care when his Aggies play the games because ABC does so much for the school's coffer with its high guarantees.

But so what if ESPN's money was a little less than that from Fox. Isn't the national exposure and ESPN analyses worth it to a conference as a nice complementing deal to ABC's big package?

You would think so. Unfortunately, the Big 12 and A&M are stuck with must-we TV until the contract comes up for bid in three years.

Hopefully, the conference executives can see through the haze of green when it is flashed on the meeting room table.

Money isn't everything, but quality is.

Just ask the thousands of LSU fans who can say their bonus coverage was that ESPN aired their game, while ABC fumbled and floundered with Texas-OU.

Join the Foundation
Return to the Main Page

Send questions or comments about the magazine to the editor, Homer Jacobs
Return to 12th Man Magazine Page