It’s Week 9 of the college football season, and for me, it’s the first time this season I’ve had a full Saturday morning to just sit and watch College GameDay. With three daughters, life gets in the way on Saturday mornings, most notably with 1st and 2nd grade soccer. So while College GameDay has been on the background, I haven’t really had time to sit down and see how the show has been delivered this season. But on Saturday morning, I did. And solely viewing this through the prism of a Big 12 fan, it’s impossible to not come away disappointed.
College GameDay Big 12 Coverage
Going through the broadcast, it took until the 1 hour and 18 minute mark of the show to get any substantial Big 12 talk. And we got about five minutes worth of discussion. That part wasn’t bad.
But in the first 78 minutes, there were very brief mentions of BYU at Iowa State, a Sunflower Showdown mention as part of the Home Depot “Saturday Slate” and a 30-second report on Pete Thamel regarding Iowa State DT Domonique Orange being available vs. BYU. That was it. Heck, even North Dakota State vs. South Dakota State got a nice breakdown 30 minutes into the broadcast. Yes, it’s No. 1 vs. No. 2 at the FCS level, but really? Oh, and the game is airing on ESPNU, incase you were wondering why ESPN might throw some extra love to that game.
Recent Big 12-College GameDay History
Combine this with the fact that College GameDay since Oklahoma vs. Texas in 2023, when both teams were still in the Big 12. But excluding those teams, the show has not been to a Big 12 campus since Kansas hosted TCU on October 8th, 2022 (It was at the Big 12 Championship Game in 2022 as well).
And this season, there has only been one host site that is not SEC or Big Ten, and that’s Miami, but even in that game, the ACC program was hosting … an SEC team, Florida.
And while there is another option with Big Noon Kickoff, which has been much kinder to Big 12 venues, including visits to Iowa State and BYU this season, the reality is that College GameDay is still the higher-rated program.
Big 12’s TV Future
Now ESPN has every right to decide it doesn’t want to be go to Big 12 universities. But that means it’s time for the Big 12 to re-evaluate what their relationship is going to be with the network in the next TV deal, which is likely to begin negotiations later this decade. A few years ago, the Big 12 was able to wisely jump the line in TV negotiations when they beat the Pac-12 to market, got their deal with ESPN and FOX, which was great strategy by Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, which ultimately led to the demise of the Pac-12. The ESPN-Big 12 relationship served its purpose at the time and allowed the Big 12 to survive, which the Pac-12 did not.
But going forward, all options should be on the table. The Big 12-TNT relationship has been beneficial to both sides so far, although TNT is still getting comfortable in the college football landscape. The one-hour studio show on Saturday, “Big 12 Football Pregame”, which aired prior to KU-KSU on the network, is definitely a step in the right direction and a sign of what this relationship is capable of becoming. And as the media landscape continues to be transformed, ESPN is still the biggest player in college football, but it loses a little bit of juice every season. The Big 12 must know that going forward. It doesn’t need to be held hostage by the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader.
But for College GameDay and ESPN, the relationship with the Big 12 is dead. Saturday was my final nail in the coffin. And while I understand it, it still saddens me that the days of seeing the premier College Football pregame show in places like Stillwater, Fort Worth, Ames and elsewhere are likely done.
