ESPN and Big East Commish Search

[Goose85]

I don't get ESPN. Man, the really want the Big East to fail. Either that, or they wanted to save money by screwing up the Big East's search for a new commish.

I don't recall this type of news when the Big 12 or Pac 12 were conducting their commish searches.


http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8299241/big-east-commissioner-mike-aresco-came-job-late-process

[pbiflyer]

Um, so? Buzz wasn't on many people's list. He turned out just fine!

[TheSultan]

Can't really blame ESPN. They are just doing their job. The Presidents of UCF and UC should have used private email addresses. Search firm should have known better.

And Aresco is better than any of those other guys.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Can't really blame ESPN. They are just doing their job. The Presidents of UCF and UC should have used private email addresses. Search firm should have known better.

And Aresco is better than any of those other guys.

I'm calling shenanigans on that. Because they use their status as an independent news outlet to further their private business goals. It's disingenuous and in all honesty, borders on criminal. What they are essentially doing is no different than insider trading. They use their power as a news source to drive down the price of of a product that, at least for 2 months, only they will be able to negotiate for and profit with. Honestly, for all the government inquiries there have been into sports, ESPN should certainly be investigated. They essentially use near-monopoly level power to leverage the sports landscape.

Unethical at best, criminal at worst. And definitely not the definition of a media outlet "just doing their job".

[Goose85]

Interesting that ESPN pushed this agenda knowing that candidates would likely pull out if their names would go public. Good job by the Big East keeping Aresco's name quiet, or at least not documented.

I think Aresco's hiring along with the hiring of the consulting group probably made execs at ESPN cringe - going to cost a lot more money for the Big East. Take that ESPN, the Big East got their house in order just in time, and without Syracuse and Pitt.

[TheSultan]

It isn't criminal. They are a news organization. And they are hardly a monopoly...or even a near monopoly.... Ever see how many stations there are on your television???

Just because you don't like them (and I don't), doesn't mean that you can define them in a way that isn't accurate.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

It isn't criminal. They are a news organization. And they are hardly a monopoly...or even a near monopoly.... Ever see how many stations there are on your television???

Just because you don't like them (and I don't), doesn't mean that you can define them in a way that isn't accurate.

But many of their stories are picked up elsewhere. I don't think anyone can deny they aren't using their power to attempt to disparage the Big East and Aresco. And when it comes to monopoly, I'm talking about sports. When you talk about college basketball, what percentage of games do you think are watched on ABC or the ESPN family of networks? I'd guess it's probably over 75%. They dictate which games, teams, and leagues are on our television sets. Sure, CBS has a little, Fox has a little, but it's not remotely comparable to the volume we see from Disney. And when they use their news arm to shape negotiations, that is at best unethical. At best.

There is documented evidence that ESPN has dictated to conferences which teams to add or not add. An Oklahoma newspaper had the article, yet it hardly saw the light of day. Think maybe that was because a certain four-letter network decided to push the discussion away from the discussion that exposed their illegal business practices? And yes, them advising these networks on which teams to poach and not poach is illegal. But because of how powerful a force they are in sports media, they can dictate which stories see the light of day and which don't. I wonder how many hits ESPN.com gets compared to every other sports website combined. I'd be surprised if it isn't tenfold.

And regardless, there is no way in hell you can say with a straight face that using their media arm to influence contract negotiations is ethical.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Looks like Yahoo Sports comes closest to ESPN, though I wonder how much of that is people actually looking up Yahoo Sports and how much simply comes from the Yahoo homepage links. Looking at the next six sports websites combined, ESPN brings in more unique visitors per month than all of them combined. Also, another (admittedly dated) site I saw indicated that ESPN users average nearly an hour (56.7 minutes) per use, compared to about a half hour for Yahoo.

They are far and away the most powerful network and website in all of sports. It isn't even markedly close. They may not monopolize the industry, but they have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more power than anyone else in it, to the point where that monopoly line starts to blur. For example, ESPN averages over 62,000,000 unique users per month on their website. NBC Sports averages 1,500,000. That's a pretty stark difference.

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/sports-websites

[TheSultan]

brew, you really don't have a good understanding of monopoly law. Just because you have a large market share, that doesn't mean you are a monopoly. They show a lot of college basketball because most of the other networks aren't willing to pay the price. The conferences are simply maximizing their profit by taking ESPN's offer.

Same with web traffic.

Stick with the ethical arguments....the monopoly arguments hold no water.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I said near-monopoly level power, and I don't think it's far off in terms of how they have used their influence to reshape the conference landscape. They are whispering in the ears of the ACC and Big 12, trying to mold the future of the conferences in their image. And I'm not saying that a government inquest is needed due to them being a monopoly, as I wouldn't say that, but I do feel that they are essentially using sports and their media influence to attempt to conduct insider trading, in a matter of speaking.

As I said at the start and you seem to agree with, definitely unethical. And the contact they had with both ACC schools (the admission of the Boston College official) and the Big 12 (the Oklahoma newspaper article) WAS illegal on both counts. So though it's not a monopoly, their actions are still criminal.