(10-24-2016 11:25 AM)TerryD Wrote: (10-24-2016 10:04 AM)ken d Wrote: (10-24-2016 09:28 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote: (10-24-2016 09:12 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote: (10-24-2016 08:26 AM)westwolf Wrote: http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-husk...olumn.html
Grow up, CT
Think about that. Gov. Malloy doesn't have to jump ugly in public, but a strong message of cooperation should be clear. You want tax breaks from the state? Give the state flagship university some breaks.
Wow. How banana-republic corrupt should we ask ESPN to be?
Well they are corrupt we already know that. The Gov and the legislature should have put that pressure on ESPN a long time ago when there actually were openings. Now the problem is leagues aren't really looking to expand. They should have pulled that card when the ACC was in full raid mode.
What is your definition of corrupt? That they don't do what you would like them to do? That they make business decisions designed to benefit their stakeholders? That they pay more to the conferences that they think will make them more profitable?
College football is a business. The entertainment business, to be more precise. In that business, the stars get paid more than the rest of the cast, because the public has made clear that's who they want to see perform.
In other businesses, some brands are perceived to be better than others in ways that consumers value. Mercedes can charge more for their cars because of their perceived superiority. Should governments step in and insist that consumers pay as much for a Chevy or a Kia because that's "fairer" to all the competitors in the auto industry?
UConn is a Johnny-come-lately to big time sports, especially football. ESPN has helped them get as far as they have. But it's not ESPN's job to subsidize them just so they can play on a bigger stage than they played in before the Big East was formed.
There is UConn's problem in one sentence. UConn should have invested in football decades ago, but didn't. Failure to do so haunts them today.
In fairness to UConn, when might they have made that investment? Growing up in the NYC area, I wasn't aware that UConn played football. Major college football in the region barely existed at the time. There was Syracuse, Army and Boston College and.....well, basically nobody else. After WWII, Army declined as a major player, and BC had little national reputation.
As it turns out, UConn had been playing football for many years, but just regionally. And by region, I mean New England. Occasionally they would venture as far as Philly, and even Richmond. But they were in a small bus league (the Yankee Conference) and filled out their schedule with local schools like Yale, Northeastern and Holy Cross. On Sunday morning, you could find the scores of their games in the local NY papers, but you had to look hard for them.
It wasn't until the Big East was formed, and Providence's Dave Gavitt invited UConn, that UConn had a chance to be noticed outside New England in any sport. But the Big East didn't play football, so the Huskies continued playing in obscurity in the Yankee conference. Who else would they play?
Once they became competitive in hoops, and got visibility through ESPN's highly popular broadcasts of Big East games, they might have had a chance. But would it really have made that much difference today if UConn had joined the Big East in football by 1990 instead of 2003? They would still be a newbie by P5 standards. And they would still be in New England, where college football isn't a high priority.
It sucks for UConn, but what can they do?
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Lot of whining in Connecticut
