Getty Image / Mike Ehrmann
ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, the man who held the torch to keep FSU out of the 2023 College Football Playoffs while throwing support behind the SEC, took an unnecessary swipe at the Clemson Tigers while trying and failing to deny ESPN’s SEC bias. According to Kirk, ESPN would *LOVE IT* if the College Football Playoffs was the top Big 10 teams every year along with Notre Dame… He’s either misinformed or wrong.
Kirk goes off on a rant about how if ESPN really got their way they’d want some combination of Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Texas, and Notre Dame every year. The former Ohio State QB claims if it was all about ratings, these teams would be ESPN’s choice. And all of that would make sense if it wasn’t entirely wrong. First up, here’s Kirk’s rant during an appearance on On3’s Andy & Ari where he takes the swipe at Clemson:
.@KirkHerbstreit sets the record straight on ESPN SEC bias:
"We could not have paid for a better final four with Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, and Texas. The only one missing is Michigan… So this idea we want Alabama, Texas A&M, and Auburn. Are you kidding me?" pic.twitter.com/xbci8PfrrG
— On3 (@On3sports) January 7, 2025
My dude, why did you bring Clemson into this with “You don’t want these small little Clemsons and these small little southern schools when it comes to cheering for ratings”?! The Clemson Tigers have been a respectable program for decades.
And while we don’t have the most recent data right in front of us, if you go back to 2015-2019, Clemson was the 9th most watched team in College Football over that stretch. And let’s not act like the reason all of these schools are the ‘most watched’ is because they have the most fans. It’s because they’re competitive year after year. When teams drop out of the rankings so do their ratings. Kirk knows this. This is an absolutely unnecessary swipe at Clemson, but anyway….
Kirk Herbstreit’s argument against the existence of an ESPN x SEC bias is TV ratings are better when it’s Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, etc… He only named 1 SEC team out of 5 (including Penn State).
How does that stack up to the actual ratings? Well, according to 2024 regular season numbers 8 of the top 10 most watched college football programs were in the SEC:
Georgia was the most popular team in college football this season based on average viewership per game pic.twitter.com/3FEcWWc1Ug
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) December 11, 2024
I want to give Kirk Herbstreit the benefit of the doubt here and believe that what *he means to say* is ESPN would LOVE to add the Big 10’s numbers because they’ve already captured the SEC’s TV ratings. They locked those up.
It’s entirely possible that the office in Bristol gets buzzing when ESPN gets an Ohio State or Michigan came, and their juicy TV ratings (#2 and #6 overall) because the only time ESPN can get those schools is in the College Football Playoffs. Why wouldn’t they want to feature schools from conferences they don’t have rights to?
But to try and argue ESPN doesn’t have an SEC bias that’s permeated every level of their college football coverage is simply foolish. Every single CFB fan has been a witness to it for years. Also, leave Clemson alone.