Between The Eers: Why Regionality Matters
Between The Eers: Why Regionality Matters
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 You ever wonder if anybody in the NCAA is ever gonna get anything right?
00:14 That's my question today.
00:17 Because I've got a lot of concerns about college athletics.
00:25 We talked a little bit yesterday about the transfer portal.
00:30 Today, it's about conference realignment and
00:34 why regionality matters.
00:38 I'm Scott account.
00:39 This is another episode of Between the Ears.
00:42 Good Thursday morning, everybody.
00:43 And if you didn't watch the end of last night's game in Oklahoma,
00:50 one, I don't necessarily blame you.
00:53 But I think it plays a big part into the reason why I did this episode today.
01:01 If you caught there towards the end, the Oklahoma fans,
01:09 probably more so the student section was singing a little bit of Country Roads,
01:16 Take Me Home, kind of trolling West Virginia a little bit.
01:21 And I'm okay with it, I think it's 100% fair game.
01:25 After the game, the person in charge of the Oxcord and
01:34 Noble Center, they actually played Country Roads
01:41 as the game ended, putting it into another gear, if you will.
01:50 Again, I'm still cool with it.
01:51 I think it's fair game.
01:53 There's no malice to it or anything like that.
01:59 It is a tradition, obviously, that West Virginia has,
02:04 that they sing the song when they win, obviously.
02:07 It's not degrading, it's not anything like that.
02:14 It's just a little bit of mocking.
02:17 And look, I've seen some fans on social media get really pissed off about it.
02:23 And I understand you have every right to be, but look, it's part of college sports.
02:30 It's a part of sports period, right?
02:33 You hear, you go to a backyard brawl,
02:37 even a game that's not the backyard brawl, and West Virginia fans are chanting ESP,
02:42 right, Texas, when you play Texas, you do the horns down thing.
02:49 It's the same thing that Oklahoma was doing to West Virginia,
02:55 it's the exact equivalent.
02:56 So I don't have a problem with it, I really don't.
03:03 It's fair game, I think that's what makes the sport great, right?
03:09 That's what makes college sports fun, because you have those things happen.
03:15 There might be a little anger or frustration,
03:19 irritation that builds in because of it.
03:21 But guess what, in college basketball, at least in the Big 12,
03:28 most teams now, I guess not now because of the expanded league, but
03:33 you play teams twice.
03:36 So, and I could be wrong here, but I believe West Virginia plays Oklahoma again.
03:42 I'm looking at some, I should have done this before I hopped on.
03:46 They do not play Oklahoma again, but
03:53 there is a chance that they meet up in the Big 12 tournament.
03:57 And if that does happen, I'm sure they'll remember that.
04:01 So it's a fun little thing that there's a little back and forth and whatnot.
04:08 But here's why regionality matters,
04:11 because Oklahoma, they're going to the SEC next year.
04:15 It doesn't even matter.
04:19 And I don't think there's much irritation from West Virginia fans after this.
04:24 If they did see it, I think there might be a little frustration because
04:29 it's, they're in some ways mocking West Virginia and stuff.
04:34 But look, to me, that stuff is what makes the sport great.
04:40 That's what drives passion,
04:42 which is what this sport is absolutely 100,000% losing.
04:50 Believe it or not, maybe not so much in West Virginia.
04:56 But I still believe there's a sliver of this fan base that isn't nearly
05:01 as into it as they were, say, 10, 15 years ago in the Big East days.
05:07 You can still be passionate about the football team and basketball team and
05:13 baseball and all that stuff.
05:15 But when you're playing TCU and Texas Tech and Kansas and Iowa State,
05:21 and now you're adding to the mix BYU and Arizona, Colorado,
05:26 Arizona State, Utah, there's no history.
05:34 There's no history there.
05:36 So how can you expect anything to last
05:42 when there's no regionality or history?
05:48 If you have one or the other, you're okay.
05:51 West Virginia and UConn, they weren't huge rivals or anything like that,
05:57 but they were regional.
05:59 They were within a reasonable distance.
06:03 You can say the same thing about Cincinnati.
06:06 They're a quick few hour drive over the border, over the Ohio River.
06:12 But it wasn't the backyard brawl.
06:15 It wasn't the Black Diamond Trophy.
06:17 But there's a regionality to it.
06:22 You don't wanna lose to those guys.
06:24 And that's not to say that you don't wanna lose to anybody else, but
06:28 you get the point.
06:29 Money has absolutely killed the passion in college sports.
06:39 And I've said this before, and I think I went on my huge rant about it back in
06:45 the summer last year, that this isn't gonna last.
06:50 I'm telling you now, it's not going to last.
06:52 This Big Four where you've got a Big Ten that goes coast to coast.
06:57 You got an ACC now that has Cal and Stanford in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
07:06 When they're much, much, much closer to the Pacific Ocean or
07:12 the Pacific Coast, and you have the Big 12 that goes coast to coast.
07:18 The SEC, which doesn't necessarily go coast to coast,
07:22 but it stretches further than the boundaries of the Southeast.
07:27 This isn't going to hold up.
07:30 It's not going to work.
07:32 Money can only get you so far.
07:35 And I'm telling you, within the next,
07:40 I don't really wanna put a hard number on it, but I'll just say this.
07:44 Within the next 10 to 12 years, you're going to see a dramatic difference.
07:49 In, I think, the interest level of college sports.
07:55 You're gonna see the passion, which is much different than interest.
07:59 And you're also, which is gonna lead to a drop in ratings.
08:05 You mix all that in, okay, with the streaming direction of everything.
08:13 Look, I understand that the future of TV and
08:19 the future of sports is going to be streaming.
08:23 That's the direction everyone's pointing us in.
08:27 That's why you see all these West Virginia games on ESPN Plus.
08:29 It's not because they hate you.
08:31 It's not because they hate you.
08:32 It's because that's the direction everything is headed in.
08:35 At some point in time, everything is going to be streamed.
08:39 But you can't have all streaming, and you can't have all
08:47 coast to coast conferences and think it's going to work out.
08:51 If you tell someone, hey, you gotta pay five bucks a month to watch your team play.
09:01 Well, if your team's playing somebody that's three time zones away or
09:06 two time zones away, that might be a tough sell, even if it's five bucks.
09:11 And look, I get it.
09:14 It could be a burger from McDonald's, or it could be a bag of chips in a Mountain Dew
09:19 or something at the gas station.
09:21 But for a lot of people, that's a hard thing to grasp that, I gotta pay $5 just
09:27 to watch my team when it's been free all these years, and I'm right there with them.
09:36 They shouldn't have to, but it's only five bucks.
09:41 But if you're putting that $5 in a conference where you're playing Cincinnati,
09:53 okay, you have that, but you don't have Pitt.
09:56 You don't have Syracuse.
09:58 You don't have Louisville.
10:00 You don't have Virginia Tech.
10:02 Penn State's even fairly close.
10:07 Think it would make sense to put them in a similar, in your conference.
10:10 When you don't have that, it's going to absolutely kill your ratings.
10:20 I'm predicting this now.
10:25 This is not going to last.
10:27 It may hang around for a decade or so, but this is not a long-term thing that,
10:34 look, West Virginia's going to be playing Utah in 2055 in the Big 12 Conference
10:39 Championship, and there's going to be 30-some-odd years of history built up
10:45 between these two teams, and it's just going to be a bloodbath,
10:51 and the fan bases hate each other.
10:54 It's not going to happen.
10:57 Just simply put, not going to happen.
11:01 At some point, you're going to see this be reverted back to, "Let's get down
11:09 into the regions of this thing."
11:11 Look, even if you go to the professional level, which is what college football and
11:15 college basketball are trying to do, they're trying to take that NFL model or
11:20 that professional model.
11:21 Look what the NFL does.
11:24 The NFL still does regionality.
11:27 They have divisions, and in those divisions, they have teams within hours'
11:31 distance of each other, for the most part, with the exception of the Dallas Cowboys,
11:35 for whatever damn reason.
11:36 But the AFC North, you've got the Steelers, Ravens, Bengals, Browns.
11:43 You've got, in the AFC North, the Vikings, Bears, Packers, Lions.
11:51 There are some exceptions.
11:53 Like I said, the Cowboys being one.
11:54 There's others.
11:55 I get that.
11:57 But for the most part, regionality matters, and it matters in every other sport.
12:04 So why would it not matter in college?
12:11 Maybe I'm just tired of it.
12:12 Maybe I'm tired of watching these games where there's no bad blood,
12:17 there's no friction.
12:20 Because look, last night with that Oklahoma thing, that's going to get
12:25 passed over, and probably no one's going to care again, because obviously,
12:28 like I just said, they don't play again unless they meet the Big 12 tournament.
12:31 But even if they did play, there might be a little bit of agitation brought up
12:38 and stuff like that, but no one's going to care.
12:40 It's not really going to mean anything.
12:42 It's just going to be something to get back at them.
12:44 It's not going to be something that really burns in your soul when you hear
12:49 Oklahoma do that, right?
12:53 When Pitt does it, when Virginia Tech does it, that means a little something
13:01 different.
13:03 That's what makes this thing so great, and we've lost it.
13:09 When you have so much change in a short period of time, you're going to lose a
13:15 lot of your audience.
13:18 You have so many folks that are so used to kids sticking around four or five
13:22 years, and now you've got the portal.
13:25 You've got kids going to four or five different schools.
13:29 When you have NIL, I'm for players getting paid, but when you have players
13:38 getting poached away when they're not even in the portal, that's a problem.
13:45 Fans aren't going to be fond of that.
13:49 When you have conferences that feature teams, again, two time zones away from
13:54 you, just wait for that one, all right?
13:57 Wait for the 10 o'clock kickoff in Arizona.
14:01 Then you'll really get pissed.
14:04 Then you'll know what I'm talking about.
14:05 Or if Arizona plays in Morgantown at noon.
14:10 Bet their fans will love that one.
14:13 But you add all these things together, you're just stirring up a big pot of
14:21 mess.
14:22 It's not going to work.
14:24 Money will only get you so far.
14:27 The reason I say that is because the ratings play a massive part in this
14:33 thing.
14:34 If you're not able to drive your ratings, you're not able to keep these things
14:40 together.
14:41 I'm just saying, West Virginia fans are not going to be caring about playing
14:47 Arizona, Utah, Colorado, all this stuff.
14:49 They don't even really like the idea of playing Texas Tech or Texas or Oklahoma
14:55 or Baylor.
14:56 You think this is going to make it better?
15:00 It's not going to work.
15:03 Bring regionality back into this thing.
15:06 I'm telling you now, the power of the TV deals will be much greater than what
15:15 it will be now or in the next few years with this coast-to-coast crap.
15:21 Maybe I'm dead wrong about this.
15:24 Maybe I am.
15:26 Maybe this is the way to go.
15:28 But every other model says not the case.
15:32 Not the case.
15:36 Let me know what you think in the comment section here on YouTube.
15:40 Do we need to get back to regionality?
15:43 The answer is yes.
15:44 If you say no, you're wrong.
15:46 But seriously, let me know your comments or your thoughts in the comment
15:51 section on YouTube.
15:52 This has got me fired up.
15:54 I've been fired up this week.
15:56 You guys got me on a roll here with the portal, this Oklahoma thing.
15:59 We'll see what happens.
16:01 Tomorrow we're going to talk a little bit about the Big 12 title in terms of
16:06 West Virginia and their chances of getting there.
16:09 And we'll see what happens with my thoughts on that.
16:13 So come back tomorrow.
16:14 We'll round out the week with that.
16:17 Here on Between the Ears, I'm Scott Cal.
16:18 Make sure you hit that subscribe button on YouTube.
16:20 I'm out in ears now.
16:21 Give us a like and hit that follow button on X at the same handle.
16:26 Thank you guys for watching.
16:27 We'll see you back tomorrow.
16:29 [Music]