Outback Bowl ESPN SEC Bias Coverage

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hungan1

hungan1

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As I am watching the Outback Bowl replay, I noticed that the announcers are giving more press to Auburn than Minnesota.

It feels like we are watching the ESPN SEC/Auburn home TV network. They are focused on the SEC audience. Never did they once focus the camera on the Gophers Marching Band.

It is like they expected the Gophers to put up a valiant effort and then lose to the Auburn home team.

It is interesting that Auburn fans are complaining that it feels like a Gophers home game to them because the whole stadium on TV is full of Maroon and Gold everywhere. I get that spoils their home network view. Can the Big Ten Conference complain to ESPN about getting parity in coverage?

It is so sickening to hear about the amazing Auburn Defense at every opportunity. IMHO, this is one of the worst sportscast team ever to announce a Gophers Bowl Game.
 
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Those announcers were diabolical. How about the quint muppet fuming for holding during the fake punt. Replay showed zero holding

If you had a drink every time they mention how much auburn cared, you’d have been drooling by the end
 


They all ate a humble pie in the end which wasn’t good them. And serves them right.
 


It was a crappy broadcast crew and lousy job they did. I wish I'd have turned off the volume and put the Gopher radio crew on for audio... I'm sure their level of excitement would have been fun to listen to.
 



I just noticed that they missed a very important Gophers play by going into a media timeout - the Seth Green to Bryce Witham 4th down TD pass.
 



I like the play by play guy. Thought he was good and have fond memories of him doing the win over Wisconsin last year and the Maryland game this season.

Color commentator guy was obnoxiously patronizing, repeatedly telling us Auburn cared and explaining how this game will shape Gopher reunions forever.

Sideline reporter guy’s only purpose seemed to be piping in to whine about how something was unfair to Auburn (regardless what video evidence suggested). The fake punt is a perfect example of that.
 

I actually didn’t mind it. All the “Auburn really cares” comments I interpreted as them complimenting MN. That Auburn WAS trying (ie, no “meaningless game” excuses) and MN was just better than them. I didn’t like some of the more incredulous comments (TD catch before half, fake punt “holding” that wasn’t, etc). At the same time, they made comments on St Juste’s PI that wasn’t (it was), so I just think they weren’t good, not that they had a bias. I think they expected an Auburn win, but were plenty complimentary to MN throughout.
 





I didn't really sense a bias at all.

I thought the gushing over Auburn was done to actually gush over how well the Gophers were playing. I liked that they kept bringing up how good Auburn's DL was because it was almost always in context of how dominant the Gophers OL was playing.

That was a really talented team we beat, I'm glad ESPN made it known just how much talent they had.
 

I guess I just have my killer bees radar on and have my MN bias on full throttle. ???????
 

Marooned said:
I actually didn’t mind it. All the “Auburn really cares” comments I interpreted as them complimenting MN. That Auburn WAS trying (ie, no “meaningless game” excuses) and MN was just better than them. I didn’t like some of the more incredulous comments (TD catch before half, fake punt “holding” that wasn’t, etc). At the same time, they made comments on St Juste’s PI that wasn’t (it was), so I just think they weren’t good, not that they had a bias. I think they expected an Auburn win, but were plenty complimentary to MN throughout.
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Agree on “Auburn Cares” comments. It was a story going into the game as Auburn made a point about how it was a “business trip” and that they wouldn’t put in a lackluster performance like they did against UCF. There was context on why they kept bringing it up.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I thought the gushing over Auburn was done to actually gush over how well the Gophers were playing. I liked that they kept bringing up how good Auburn's DL was because it was almost always in context of how dominant the Gophers OL was playing.

That was a really talented team we beat, I'm glad ESPN made it known just how much talent they had.
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Very good points. Whenever announcers hype up the opponent it only serves to make the Gophers look good in the end, win or lose. In this case they made a big deal about Auburn and then viewers with eyes could extend that to..."and Minnesota is whipping them"
 

I usually don’t notice this and my brother who is far from a homer noticed it and brought it up to me.

I didn’t think the game announcers were bad but the sideline guy at least to me seemed to be openly rooting for Auburn.
 

The only thing I noticed was the disparity of TV time between the bands. They cut to the Auburn band after almost every time Auburn did something good, but only showed the MN band like 2 times.
 

The broadcast crew were seemingly bickering about how motivated Auburn was all game. Benetti would out of the blue wonder about motivation level and his compatriot would shoot that down. Went on seemingly all game. I agree with you Hungan, just not a lot of redeeming value there of any sort. Droll delivery, tired stereotypes, baffling analysis. The crew doing the Indiana game OTOH was pretty fun. Of course, we all have our favorites for different reasons. I’d imagine even Joe Buck has a lot of fans out there.
 



My wife and I both noticed the cameras showing the Auburn band, cheerleaders, fans, etc. much more frequently. She thought it was a pro-Auburn bias. I chalked it up to the possibility of having some of the non-field cameras positioned in such a way that it was just more convenient for the camera crew.
 

Schnauzer said:
I like the play by play guy. Thought he was good and have fond memories of him doing the win over Wisconsin last year and the Maryland game this season.

Color commentator guy was obnoxiously patronizing, repeatedly telling us Auburn cared and explaining how this game will shape Gopher reunions forever.

Sideline reporter guy’s only purpose seemed to be piping in to whine about how something was unfair to Auburn (regardless what video evidence suggested). The fake punt is a perfect example of that.
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I agree about Jason bennetti? The play by play guy knew more about Minnesota and seemed positive. He even tried to bring that gas bag partnered with him back to reality.

Yes, they did a terrible job of showing the band, but they seemed to like the middle aged woman by the blonde haired little girl and several teen aged boys...she was shown about five times for some reason.

At least they liked up the band right, even though rarely seen.
 


I thought at the time that the crew was fine/good and the gushing was generally equally distributed.
 

I think the commentary was a bit biased but fair. The majority believed Auburn would put that game away and didn’t expect for them to be pushed around by MN. The expectations of Auburn’s defense was overshadowed by MNs offensive execution.
 

In bowl games it is best to be the team opposite the press box and main cameras to get best tv exposure. I like it when they split up the stadiums at the 50 yard lines with botg bands visible in the upper corners on tv, and both fanbases visible. This is rare with the Texas Oklahoma game in the cotton bowl being an example.
 

As long as Fleck is here rowing the boat, we'll have far more positive press in general than negative.

Fleck is excellent at getting people to talk about his team.
 

I thought they were very complementary towards MN.

At multiple points they outright say things like:

"This isn't Auburn not showing up, Minnesota is just playing better / outplaying them."

They complement the coaches on out scheming Auburn and eliminating Auburn's defensive strengths.
 

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