And so it happened. At 8:54PM EDT, June 18th, 2011, top of the fifth inning, game two of the College World Series, there it was, the point of the whole exercise. My TV screen filled the a bullet-point rundown of the new, exciting features of the upcoming ESPN-sponsored Longhorn Network. ESPN announcer Dave O'Brien's lilting voice-over extolling the virtues of 24/7/365 Longhorn sports full body immersion. Sure, every four minutes, between MLB score updates, we'd seen the crawl across the bottom of the screen urging us to "Request it! Go to GetLonghornNetwork.com". But 8:54 was undoubtedly the most critical moment in an otherwise forgettable college baseball game.
It was the reason the University of Texas Longhorns, the team with the Boyd's World #12 RPI ranking and a near-triple digit Strength of Schedule rating was granted a Super Regional home series, theoretically reserved for the eight most worthy teams in the field of 64.
It was the reason the there were so many inexplicably poor umpiring judgment calls favoring Texas in the Super Regional series against Arizona State; when interviewed umpires were unable to come up with plausible rationales for their on-field decisions. Nomar Garciapara, providing color commentary for the series, seemed genuinely flummoxed by the one-sided poor umpiring in all three games of the series.
So was it all worth it? Was it a success? Were the gyrations required to promote a mediocre Longhorns team the to final field of eight Omaha-bound CWS teams worth the trouble? I suppose our answer will come with the final numbers for Longhorn Network penetration of the major cable and satellite providers.
The more interesting question: How does something like the Longhorn Network impact on-field competition in college sports moving forward? With ESPN's $300 Million commitment to the University of Texas athletic department and the construction of on-campus production facilities, does this mean the the Longhorns are effectively guaranteed home field advantage for early rounds of all campus-hosted tournament games? Will they always be allowed to host early rounds of Women's basketball? Will they always be a top eight seed in softball and baseball regardless of their RPI? Or will there be a ranking threshold that will be "good enough", like it apparently was this season.
Or do concerns extend beyond the teams with their own ESPN-partnered networks? Look at the on-the-surface baffling inclusion of St. John's in the baseball field of 64. Some skeptics believed this was a nod to St. John's AD Chris Monasch, a member of the selection committee. The more obvious explanation: it was an attempt to expand the audience for the CWS into the NYC tri-state region, building on UConn's surprisingly strong season. Selection Committee Chairman Tim Weiser explained the new selection and seeding criteria thusly: "I think our committee perhaps did a better job of putting the RPI where I think it should be in terms of a single tool to evaluate." So, as more TV money pours into college sports, one wonders, how much weight will still be placed on objective standards of sports teams' worth, and how much will be influenced by current and projected TV revenue streams?
