Network 'partnerships' not fair

Buried in the midst of Southern California's outrage over Brent Musburger's on-air comments last weekend is a clear example of what's wrong with big-time college football.

ABC/ESPN and other networks don't play fair. And, in the process, entities like the Mountain West Conference, the Western Athletic Conference and their members (including BYU, Utah and Utah State) get hurt.

As far as the folks at USC are concerned, the big story is that ABC sportscaster Brent Musburger gave away a secret in the fourth quarter of the Trojans' win over Nebraska — that Southern Cal quarterback John David Booty told him a day earlier he uses the "hang loose" hand signal "when he finds one-on-one and they're coming" on a play.

While USC coach Pete Carroll laughed it off, Musburger's comments prompted a formal complaint to ABC/ESPN from USC sports information director Tim Tessalone.

"We're supposed to be partners in this, but this is certainly going to make us think twice about trying to help them have as good a broadcast as possible," Tessalone said. "What he did was unconscionable."

Without discussing the merits of the complaint, here's the big issue — "We're supposed to be partners in this."

What?!? USC, the Pac-10 and ABC/ESPN are partners?!?

Yes, we all know that ABC/ESPN pays the Pac-10 tens of millions of dollars to broadcast its games. But the sportscasters have always tried to maintain that they're sports journalists, offering fair and unbiased coverage.

That's a lie.

Networks have a vested interest in the teams they pay to cover. Expecting ABC/ESPN to offer fair coverage is sort of like expecting The mtn. — the new channel devoted to the Mountain West Conference — to be entirely fair and unbiased about the MWC.

The problem comes when big networks like ESPN/ABC actively promote their own "partners" to the detriment of others. Don't forget that, until this season, ABC was the TV partner of the Bowl Championship Series, too. And that completely undercut the credibility of ABC/ESPN's analysis of who ought to be ranked No. 1, who ought to go to what bowl game, etc.

(ABC still has the Rose Bowl; the other BCS games have moved to Fox.)