The Wiz of Odds

Touchdown LSU!

Did ESPN insert "Touchdown LSU!" into this promo for Saturday's Ohio State-Michigan State game? Listen closely at the nine-second mark. Perhaps it's MSU, but seldom if ever is Michigan State called that.

ESPN's 'GameDay' Problem: Too Much SEC

Time, it appears, is on the Southeastern Conference's side. In fact, it's not even close.

Scott Bryant of Awful Announcing took a detailed look at the airtime devoted to conferences during the past two broadcasts of ESPN's "GameDay." The results from the three-hour telecasts are stunning.

The above chart shows that during the Oct. 25 telecast from Baton Rouge — site of the Mississippi-Louisiana State game — ESPN devoted over 62 minutes of airtime to the SEC. That's more than the rest of the conferences combined. The SEC received nearly four times more airtime than the runnerup Big Ten.

The SEC and Worldwide (Cheer) Leader

Is the Southeastern Conference an all-powerful entity that has rightfully earned its place atop the college football foodchain, or is the SEC's position due in large part to a marketing machine that has a financial stake in the league?

Jordan Burchette authors a piece in Rolling Stone titled, "The Worldwide Cheerleader: ESPN and the College Football Playoff." Burchette lays out a compelling argument that the network uses its multimedia might to twist and turn narratives in favor of the SEC.

ESPN has invested heavily in the SEC by creating the SEC Network. By one account, ESPN could earn 12% of its annual profits from the network.

Burchette points out that South Carolina — a team that has already racked up four losses — was touted as a darkhouse national title contender in the preseason. Much of the praise came from ESPN's roster of talent. Then along came Texas A&M, which handed the Gamecocks a 52-28 loss in the season opener at Columbia.

Metroplex Is First Stop for 'College GameDay'

ESPN's "College GameDay" kicked off its season Saturday with a stop in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The event brought out the usual zaniness and Greg Laughlin was there to chronicle it all.

From the Department of Self-Promotion

The Wiz's 2011 study of bowl game expense reports is cited in the May 14 edition of ESPN Magazine, which is titled "The Money Issue" and features Floyd Mayweather on the cover.

ESPN examined the most undervalued and overvalued assets in sports. In citing our study, ESPN determined that going to a bowl game ranked No. 6 on the overvalued list. The item appears on page 84.

The Wiz determined that the 70 teams in the 2010 postseason spent an average of $1.31 million on a bowl trip, with nearly 25% going toward required ticket purchases the teams did not recover. Read our report at this link.

The Return of the Worldwide Follower

Editor's note: Post has been updated with comment from ESPN's Josh Krulewitz. His full response has been added at the bottom.

ESPN, the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports," is at it again, taking another media outlet's report and passing it off as its own.

On Wednesday at 1:56 p.m. (ET), ESPN posted a story on its website that said: "Former Arizona coach Mike Stoops will join the Oklahoma staff — and his brother — as co-defensive coordinator, a move that will be announced as soon as Wednesday, sources said." A screengrab of the original page is posted above (click to enlarge).

Again we ask, who are these "sources" and why don't they want their names published? Could it be that there was only one source on the story, and that source was Dean Blevins?

Blevins, a former Oklahoma quarterback, is sports director at KWTV News 9, the CBS affiliate in Oklahoma City. After ESPN posted its story, Blevins, who has been named the Oklahoma sportscaster of year eight times, sent out the following tweet: