Again, I will respectfully dissent. I have been in conversations with counsel for two SEC teams who specifically told me that there was an informal, ongoing discussion among certain SEC school representatives from around 2007-2012 about extending an invitation to FSU. That's not a shocker. But what is illuminating is that they both told me that some ADs thought that it would benefit their schools by rendering Miami obsolete. The schools that draw the bucks (ND and the SEC) control the networks (ESPN is heavily invested in the SEC and obviously NBC in ND) and the NCAA just like donors control politicians. The arms race -- from stadiums to facilities to coaches -- favors the big state schools over the smaller private schools with the exception of sacred ND. And we sit smack dab in the recruiting capital of the world. A thriving Miami threatens access to those valuable commodities.
Herby and Desmond just happen to love the Canes. But the entire ESPN hype machine is tuned to market the dominance of the SEC. You need to scrutinize the programming and compare how the talking heads treated analogous situations over the years. Almost universally, Miami is treated differently. ESPN continued to paint us as a renegade program (prior to Shapiro) during a span where we had two arrests in 8 years, while anointing Meyer as the king of the land despite his cadre of criminals and malcontents.
Just like ESPN, the NCAA is not going to mess with its cash cow. It's no coincidence that the NCAA made sure (by its inaction) that Cam Newton and Johnny Football remained eligible. It's no coincidence that there is an entire website in the public domain devoted to the improper benefits Bama players have received (with the same type, if not stronger, documentary evidence of violations upon which the NCAA has solely relied in our case), yet the NCAA does nothing. It is not a coincidence that the two outlier programs that threaten the big state school dominance of college football have been the subject of prolonged and devastating NCAA investigations. Sure, a dominant Miami team is good for ratings. But ESPN makes way more money by promoting the SEC and the big state schools.
College football is a huge industry. All industry at that level is inherently corrupt. Money drives the train. And that's why in my original post I alluded to how special this program is and why we should appreciate how much we've accomplished this year despite the uneven playing field.
Even if ESPN has a pro SEC bias, which is debateable, that is not the same thing as an anti UM bias. ESPN cares about one thing, money. And it gets money with increased viewership.
We used to be a huge national draw, bc we kicked the **** out of other teams. That dominance created two things: lots of fans, and lots of viewers that hated us. Both groups watched us, just as baseball fans watch the Yankees. Because of that high viewership and exciting brand of football, ESPN fawned all over us; there were plenty of positive human interest stories about us.
But we became irrelevant with our progressive decline. ESPN no longer cared, because we stopped bringing the viewers like we used to. ESPN now fawns over the SEC, because the SEC brings in viewers, and it has had an unbelievable run of national titles over the last several years. The idea that ESPN sits around and conspires against UM is absurd.
I'm not defending anything the corrupt NCAA does, so please don't lump that mess into this discussion.
