ESPN’s Chris Fowler on SEC Bias, the Big Ten’s Problem and Jameis Winston
Chris Fowler has long been one of ESPN‘s most venerated on-air personalities, largely because he serves as the avuncular host of College GameDay, the Saturday morning college-football bacchanal that originates from a different big-game location each week and has managed, for the past quarter-century, to reflect both the passion and inherent absurdity of a sport steeped in Americana.
But lately, Fowler has bared his teeth: A few weeks ago, he responded to criticism of ESPN’s perceived favoritism toward the Southeastern Conference – largely due to ESPN’s affiliation with the SEC Network, which corresponded with three SEC teams potentially being ranked in the top four of the inaugural College Football Playoff at that point in the season – by unleashing a brief and sharply worded on-air editorial. “I’m a little defensive,” he told viewers, “but I get defensive when stupid, uninformed stuff gets repeated again and again, and somehow people all over the world think we have a stake in having three teams from this league [the SEC] get in.”
In the wake of a widely circulated Rolling Stone piece that made the case for ESPN’s SEC favoritism, I spoke to Fowler about that issue and several others impacting both GameDay and college football at-large as it moves into a new era. (Full disclosure: I’ve been a contributor to ESPN affiliated sites for several years, and I’ve expressed my own skepticism about SEC-related conspiracy theories here.)
What are your general thoughts on the claims that ESPN – and specifically GameDay – might be advocating for the strength of SEC teams?
In 28 years, no one’s ever directed me to say something about a team or a league because it’s in the best interest of the company. They think that we operate like the military, and we go up the ladder to get our directives, but it just doesn’t happen that way. But once it’s out there, the idea that we’re just mouthpieces is very hard to shake.
Over the years, there’s been plenty of claims that this team is given preference over that one. And we have been biased on GameDay for the past 25 years for whatever teams are at the top of the rankings. I think sometimes we’re a little too tilted toward the top teams, and maybe we should be a little bit broader. The fact that one league had four of the top five teams at one point – that freak-of-nature snapshot is being grabbed and recycled again and again, and it’s so impossible to counter. But it isn’t in our interest to tilt toward a particular conference. We couldn’t do it.
Nebraska coach Bo Pelini recently said that the relationship between ESPN and the SEC Network isn’t “good for college football.” Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher attributed the focus on his team’s off-field transgressions, as well as the lack of respect for this year’s team, in part, to ESPN’s relationship with the SEC Network. What was your reaction to those statements?
I’m disappointed when coaches make an accusation that has no foundation. They have jobs to do, and understanding the business of television isn’t one of them. But a lot of these coaches are speaking to their constituencies. Same with Florida State fans. I’m not sure how a team that’s won 25 in a row and is ranked second in the country can say they don’t get any respect. But I don’t think that it really matters much.
What about the accusations that ESPN is pumping up the SEC at the expense of the Big Ten?
The Big Ten has a very broad and deep relationship with ESPN, and one of the best things for ESPN would be if the Big Ten were a dominant conference.
So does the Big Ten have a perception problem, or a competitive problem?
They have a competitive problem at the bottom of the league. The second half of the league doesn’t hold up its weight. It’s easy to point the finger at the messenger. It’s not as easy to point at the field and say, “We have some serious issues here.” I’m not an authority on this, but I sense the same commitment from the first team to the 14th team isn’t being made. The programs there do face some challenges. It isn’t as easy to find players in Iowa and Indiana and Wisconsin and Minnesota as it is in Texas, Georgia and Florida. That’s just a fact. You have to recruit smartly, and you have to recruit nationally. Every Big Ten administrator and Jim Delany, they have to look and see where they are. You have to determine if it’s a cycle or a steady trend that needs to be reversed.
J.T. Barrett, Ohio State’s quarterback, is from Texas. One of their running backs is from Brooklyn and one is from St. Louis. They’re a national recruiting power. That’s the blueprint that’s going to work. You don’t have to do that at Ole Miss or Florida or Texas, and that’s the problem you have at any school that doesn’t come from a traditional recruiting area.