What’s that coming from Mike Slive’s mouth? Why, it’s total bullshit.
Q: Should we be worried that with realignment, conferences might be losing their cultural identity or diluting their brand?
A: I’m not sure ‘worried’ is the word I would use. In the context of changing times, change is hard. And I don’t want to speak for any particular conference and its needs, but I do think we have a responsibility to think about the game as a whole. I’ve thought that during the discussions on the BCS, that each of us brought to the table in those discussions the need to advocate for what’s in the best interest of our respective conference, but never to lose sight of the fact that in some ways we were handed the stewardship of college football. We didn’t ask for it, but it became (ours). So to that extent we have a responsibility to the game.
So in answer to your question, I hope within the context of individual conferences and their respective needs, that we can all keep the question of what’s good for college football long-term at the forefront of our thinking and act in accordance with that, as well as in accordance with our own individual needs.
Q: But has some of that already happened?
A: I can’t speak to anybody else. We’ve expanded, too, and people can be critical of the fact that some great rivalries have been lost as a result of that. So I’m speaking from being maybe one of the folks that has been criticized for that. But I still think we all have an obligation to maintain our dual responsibility.
There isn’t a single thing in college football today that doesn’t have a price tag attached to it. For Slive to act otherwise, or to pretend that the SEC is somehow righteously above the fray, even if it’s just to a degree, is utter nonsense. The only way he’ll ever care about his conference losing its cultural identity is if that turns fans off from paying as much money for his product. And by then, it’ll be too late.
Get The Picture 
Hey, Senator, on another note…are you ever going to go over the 2-4th quarter of the SECCG? Still too raw?
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I’m working my way up to it. 😉
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I’m waiting with bated breath….. 🙂
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People like their nonsense these days, it’s the whole low information voter thing.
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Blutarsky, your mistake was giving him credit for saying something meaningful. I read that crap three times. I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed but what the heck is he trying to say?
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That he has a “responsibility to the game” that somehow transcends mere pecuniary interests. Gah.
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Kansas v. Missouri.
Texas v. Texas A&M.
Nebraska v. Colorado.
Baylor v. Texas A&M.
Nebraska v. Oklahoma.
Arkansas v. Texas.
Whole lotta dead rivalries out there these days, eh?
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Nebraska vs. Oklahoma reminds me that none of this is new. That game was the pinnacle of Big 8 football in most years. They turned around and chucked their yearly rivalry in the trash and the decision was all about TV money. The CFA was falling apart and 8 small-market teams just weren’t enough to get decent ESPN/ABC money. Texas was willing to help them out in exchange for letting the old SWC call all of the shots and getting the Big 8 to also bring in A&M and two retarded siblings. Wow, what a deal…
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The disappearance of the annual Nebraska-Oklahoma game, which some believe was the biggest rivalry game in college football, was the real reason, ultimately, that Nebraska left the Big 12 and still may lead to the total unraveling of the Big 12 down the road. The Doctrine of Unintended Consequences at work. Greed is a terrible thing.
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That game is the reason why Auburn/UGA, and Bama/UT must be on the schedule. The other cross division games do not have near the impact.
The dumbest thing the Big XII did was kill that game.
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The non-answer answer to the first question is priceless…and lengthy. It requires talent to use that many words to say nothing.
I see politics in Mike Slive’s future.
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Do you not see it now? Old Sligh didn’t get that silver tongue (now becoming the golden tongue in the SEC) from chewing tobacco and spittin’ off the porch.
He is like the game warden stating that he is the steward of the land and all the things upon it, but for a few shekels he will let you poach to your heart’s content. He will undertake a game count later to see if any damage occurs. But he is still the steward of the land and will oversee the screwing of the denizens until things get back to normal. Is that a viable analogy?
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Any animals wounded in this venture can go off to die and if the stench isn’t too high, it can be repeated in the future.
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So he represents the SEC, but has a higher responsibility to all of college football. can we shit can this guy and get someone whose only responsibility is the SEC?
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Oak Tree you’re in MY WAY !
Meh
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I’ll bet you guys would have been all a twitter when 10 schools bolted the Southern Conference to form the SEC.
….. But what about our rivalry with Sewanee? 🙂
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Sewanee followed us to the SEC, preserving the opportunity to keep the rivalry. -:)
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Doh!
You got me.
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Maaan, dude took a long time to say nothing in that first one, a? Senator, no musical palete cleanser – It’s the end of the world as we know it, right? 12/21/12 baybee!
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End of the world?!!! Yeah, I almost forgot!!! (Looking anxiously out of the window.)
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Maybe, but I feel fine,fine.
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I fell in love with college football in the mid 1960s. I enrolled at UGA in 1972. I adored the fame when it was regional and low budget. The top head coaches, such as Dooley, Vaught, Bryant and Jordan, earned the incomes that top college professors on their campuses earned.
Now it is a national game and big budget, with coaches who are the highest paid state employes in the states, and I do not enjoy them game nearly as much. Putting everything about college football for sale damn sure watered down the value.
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Amen, brother. This has become sort of a multi-party arms race not unlike what went on in the 60s, 70s and 80s between the US and the old Soviet Union. It bankrupts all sides and the one standing last wins, if winning means being damaged less than the opposition.
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Great reference, Senator. I just read “Turn it up!” by Ron Eckerman, the tour manager for Skynyrd. He survived the crash (obviously) and wrote an interesting look at the last 2 years of life on the road with the band. Recommended.
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Slive blew so much smoke up the ass of his audience that they all now have colon cancer!
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“I sincerely hope that as the game evolves towards an economic CFL, fans stay in their nostalgic happy place. We’re going to have a 64-team version of the NFL – minus those pesky player salaries, plus completely subsidized physical plants and infrastructure. We’ll be rolling in dough – but the fans have to stay in their nostalgic happy place. That’s what we’re counting on.”
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This is where it is headed. Will it take ten years to ruin CFB? I’ll take the under.
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