Florida State’s Big 12 Media Blunder – Big Ten Network Cutting Out Academic Programming
Florida State’s Big 12 Media Blunder
Columnist Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Florida) says it all in his latest this morning about the “FSU to the Big 12” debacle:
Taking Big 12 talk to media a big blunder by Florida State, Times-Union
“Let’s also be real about another thing: None of this phony Big 12 move talk surfaces if FSU football was dominating the ACC like the Seminoles did in the 1990s. You didn’t have 20,000 empty seats then in Doak Campbell Stadium, which is a big reason why FSU is now worried about keeping up with college football’s more lucrative athletic departments.
If the Seminoles are struggling to regain supremacy in the ACC, what makes them think fans are going to fill up the Doak by going to the Big 12 and playing in a division likely opposite Texas and Oklahoma? That was one of Barron’s points in his email, but his most valid message was this: “No one negotiates their [athletic] future in the media.”
The next time FSU gets a wandering eye about bolting the ACC, just don’t rub the noses of fellow members in it.”
Amen to that Gene Frenette with these FSU “powers-that-be” coming off like the Keystone Cops only these are Keystone Cops that are very Damn envious of what Alabama, USC, Stanford, LSU, Auburn Boise State and even one of their ACC-partners….Virginia Tech have been doing in recent years!
Meanwhile the Great Bobby Bowden who is one of the few living sports legends walking around on this Earth said it all in his comments to SiriusXM’s Jack Arute:
Bobby Bowden, FSU should stay put, ESPN.com
“”My message would be stay in the ACC,” Bowden told Arute during the show that will air at 9 a.m. ET Sunday. “Do you want to win a national championship at Florida State? You’ve got a better chance in the ACC than you have in the Big 12, or even the SEC.”
SiriusXM provided the transcript to NBCSports.com.
Bowden said Florida State should wait until it’s good enough before “thinking about moving to a higher quality football conference.””
Double-Amen to that Bobby Bowden!
Just for the record as Gene Frenette so accurately points out if Florida State football was dominating like it did during Bobby Bowden’s heyday then NO ONE in Tallahassee would be talking about heading off to the Big 12 Land and just for the record Bowden’s record when he had the Seminoles on top of college football looked something like this….
Bobby Bowden at Florida State (1987 – 2003)
1987 – 11 – 1
1988 – 11 – 1
1989 – 10 – 2
1990 – 10 – 2
1991 – 11 – 2
1992 – 11 – 1 – ACC Conference Champs
1993 – 12 – 1 – ACC Conference and National Champs
1994 – 10 – 1 – 1 – ACC Conference Champs
1995 – 10 – 2 – ACC Conference Champs
1996 – 11 – 1 – ACC Conference Champs
1997 – 11 – 1 – ACC Conference Champs
1998 – 11 – 2 – ACC Conference Champs
1999 – 12 – 0 ACC Conference and National Champs
2000 – 11 – 2 – ACC Conference Champs
2001 – 8 – 4
2002 – 9 – 5 – ACC Conference Champs
2003 – 10 – 3 – ACC Conference Champs
2004 – 9 – 3
2005 – 8 – 5 – ACC Conference Champs
Wow!
19 Seasons
197 Wins
39 Loses
1 Tie
12 ACC Conference Championships
2 National Championships
Yes, the above kind of football would be filling up Doak-Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee just like in the old days when the place was rocking and the political bigwigs and celebrities were hanging out in the place where one saw and where one was to be scene in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.
Doak-Campbell Stadium in those days was what the LA Coliseum was like during Pete Carroll’s days at USC and if the “powers-that-be” at FSU from the Trustees, President, AD and all the way down to head coach Jimbo Fisher really want to shake-things up in Tallahassee the very first thing they should do is to look in the mirror….
….because the problem at FSU has nothing to do with the conference the Seminoles are playing in, but rather what isn’t getting done on the football field!
Jimbo Fisher is 19 – 8 in two seasons at FSU with ZERO ACC Conference Titles and checking the records for the last time FSU won the ACC Conference Championship in football we find that would be…..
2005!
Here is what the folks at FSU need to do:
Quit whining about the ACC and pining for the Big 12 Conference and start focusing on getting the FSU football program back into gear and back on the national stage and for Damn sure we don’t want to read any more stories about the FSU athletic department being “millions of dollars in deficit or debt” because that is just plain outrageous whether Doak-Campbell Stadium is getting filled-up or not especially with all of the wealthy FSU alumni and boosters that are living high-on-the-hog in the Sunshine State these days!
Here’s a thought: How about winning the ACC Conference before you start thinking about doing something stupid like trying to join the Big 12 Conference where the FSU fans would immediately be thousands of miles away from most of their conference foes and more than likely getting their ass beat on a more regular basis than they get beat in the ACC!
Big Ten Network cuts academic programming
The following AP story caught our eyes since the Big Ten Network is always on one of the 10 TVs we have going at Coaches Hot Seat Central:
Big Ten Network cuts academics, citing low ratings, David Mercer, AP
“The Big Ten cable network has been an unchallenged success promoting conference sports to a national audience and making money for its members. The academic programming its leaders had promised hasn’t panned out.
When the Big Ten Network launched in 2007, officials said it would promote the scholarly work done at its 11 schools. The network, Commissioner Jim Delany said, would broadcast up to 60 hours of non-sports programming from each school every year, providing “the ability to highlight academic achievement throughout the universities.”
Five years later, the network is running less academic coverage than ever as it generates tens of millions in revenue for the conference and boasts of 51 million subscribers. Citing low ratings and poor production quality, the network and university presidents agreed to slash academic programming and emphasize quality and ratings over quantity.”
We have seen a number of these academic shows on the Big Ten Network over the last couple of years and as the AP story reports some were interesting, some were boring and some were just downright terrible which is coming from people that have one of our CHS Central TVs tuned to C-Span during the college football offseason and thus we know what this type of programming should look like since Brian Lamb (Chairman and Founder of C-Span) and his folks at C-Span are some of the best around at making things that should be boring…..very Damn interesting.
Our suggestion to the Big Ten Network is that they need to come up with much shorter versions of programming that promotes the academic side of the Big Ten universities that are in the 30 second to 5 minute length that tell the story of a university, a school, a professor, a student, a club, etc., that are standard in format and tell short stories about people, places and things that are going on at the Big Ten conference’s schools.
Once the standard short-story/commercial format is created at the Big Ten conference office the Big Ten schools’ communication, marketing, advertising, public relations, etc. departments could be tasked to come up with several stories each month on what is going on at each campus and then those much shorter segments could be shown around what the Big Ten Network is really all about….
Televising Big Ten sports!
There are great stories on every college campus and the Big Ten schools should find a way to tell the great stories on their campuses in a short, interesting and compelling way that will make for good TV without interfering with our watching of Big Ten athletic contests and if the Big Ten Network cuts down on these academic programs to much shorter segments it can show more old Big Ten football games from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s which is what we really want to see!
