Bo Pelini doesn’t think the SEC’s relationship with ESPN is good for college football
Bo Pelini is not a fan of the SEC’s arrangement with ESPN.
ESPN runs the SEC Network and with four of the top five teams in the AP poll from the SEC, the conference has been getting a lot of attention. And given that ESPN is the biggest television rights-holder in college football, it’s natural that the relationship and conference excellence has led to amplification.
“I don’t think that kind of relationship is good for college football,” Pelini said. “That’s just my opinion. Anytime you have a relationship with somebody, you have a partnership, you are supposed to be neutral. It’s pretty hard to stay neutral in that situation.”
However, those comments must mean Pelini isn’t a fan of the Big Ten Network either. Or if he is, he has a double standard.
The SEC Network is owned by ESPN and the profits are split evenly with the conference. The Big Ten Network is owned jointly by Fox and the Big Ten. The television network, which has a contract to broadcast the Big Ten Championship, owns 51 percent of the Big Ten Network. It’s unreasonable to expect Fox to stay neutral in a situation like that if you feel ESPN can’t.
We understand the preception among other conferences that the SEC has gotten more than a “fair” share of attention in 2014. However, given that the arrangement with the SEC Network is based off what the Big Ten Network established when it was launched in 2007, any gripes about it without a direct acknowledgement of the standard set seven years ago seem less like legitimate complaints and more like whining.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
