BCS Poker on ESPN - A Rigged Game

ESPN, the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” is playing college football like a game of Texas Hold ‘Em.

Huh? College football media coverage is like poker? Have I lost my mind and gone to drinking on deadline? Again?

A good player knows the winning hand is not always the best hand at the table... you drag a pot because everybody thinks you have the best hand. Sometimes you have to make the guy with the best cards throw his hand away. 

Other times you get dealt unbeatable cards, the “Nuts” as they’re called. Anybody can win with the Nuts, but a good player doesn't just win the hand. A good one lures you in, making you think you’ve got the best cards right up to the moment the trap is sprung and your chips are gone.

Because there’s no playoff system, ESPN can play poker with college football, and they are playing it very well. They say when you look around the table and can’t spot the sucker – you’re it. Well, college football fans, ESPN has made us the suckers. If the BCS can’t get the two best teams into the championship game, then ESPN will make you think the two best teams are there.

Case in point, FOX Sports chose to play a mindless game of roulette by spending untold millions for broadcast rights to the World Series, without any idea who would be playing or if anybody would tune in to watch. Because there is a playoff system, the wheel was spun and it came up Giants vs. Rangers -- horror of horrors if you're FOX. Saturday night’s Game 3 had the second-lowest TV ratings in history. Sunday night’s Game 4 was beaten by a regular season NFL game. And there wasn’t a damn thing FOX could do about it. FOX gambled and lost, just like brainless saps who play roulette (or electronic bingo).

No way ESPN lets this happen in college football. Their talking heads remain in lockstep, telling pollsters how to vote, telling us which teams are good and which are overrated, who to watch, hyping this team and poo-pooing the other, all to maximize ratings for their games, including the big one January 10 in Glendale, Arizona, live on ESPN. 

Everybody hopes for the Clash of the Titans. But what if it turns out to be a dud? What if the SEC teams beat each other up? What if Michigan and Penn State stink? What if USC is on probation? Well, ESPN already figured out a strategy for playing this crappy hand. They call this strategy “BCS Busters.”

Boise is good because Herbstreit says they are.

The more Kirk Herbstreit told us how really good Boise State was, the more people believed him. Boise and the other BCS Busters were played as ESPN’s hedge against the possibility that the big boys might all have a loss or two. The network has created its own fallback position, a guaranteed unbeaten team worthy of respect and high ratings. Why? Because Herbstreit told us so – certainly not because of anything these lightweights have done on a ridiculous blue field. 

ESPN expertly built Boise and the Busters, running the Respect Machine wide open in case any of the big boys stumbled. When Alabama fell, followed by Ohio State and then Oklahoma, it didn’t matter because ESPN had the Busters as hole cards, just in case.

But as the season moved on, more cards were revealed. ESPN is now eyeing the Nuts – a matchup unbeatable in the ratings – the mother of all shootouts pitting the explosive Oregon Ducks vs. the equally explosive Auburn Tigers, led by Heisman winner Cameron Newton and his Wheaties-box smile. 

There is this one tiny problem for ESPN, though. The BCS Busters won’t lose. What is to be done with the faux monsters they’ve created? Kenny Rogers says you’ve got to know when to fold ‘em. So ESPN is dumping the Busters like a medium-high pair against a flop full of suited overcards.

Sorry about the gratuitous use of poker jargon.

The first move occurred last Tuesday night when Boise played fellow WAC powerhouse Louisiana Tech on the aforementioned ridiculous blue field. Here is the #2 or #3 team in the polls, hyped for years by ESPN as deserving of “respect,” playing the only football game in the country during prime time. Where does ESPN air the game? Surely on ESPN! 

Nope, Boise played on ESPN2 (known to most as The Deuce but known to my readers as the Skateboarding and Texas Hold ‘Em Channel). What was aired on ESPN, the Mothership? Why, a poker tournament, of course. Check it yourself. For once I didn’t make this up. Respect, my ass.

Alabama vs. Auburn... ESPN is all in.

Having folded the BCS Busters, ESPN is now playing its final hole card – the Alabama Crimson Tide. Faced with the prospect of an Oregon - Boise BCS Championship (the horror) ESPN is now making the case that the road to Glendale, Arizona goes straight through Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 

Listen to them. “If Oregon and Auburn win out, they’re definitely playing for the championship, but if Alabama beats Auburn, the Tide is in.” What they are really saying is, “You need to stop voting for Boise and the Busters! We can’t let Boise in because nobody will watch the game, much less the month of hype preceding it.” 

Of course, ESPN isn’t holding the Nuts just yet and there are still cards in the deck. What if Oregon St. beats Oregon, Georgia beats Auburn, Auburn beats Alabama, then South Carolina gets revenge on Auburn?

Boise vs. TCU for the Crystal Football? I'd rather watch poker.