supercentex
03-31-2007, 02:45 PM
Conine: 'Biggest game' has a money smell
http://www.wacotrib.com/prep/content/sports/highschools/stories/2007/03/29/03292007wachscolumn.html
Click-2-Listen
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Thankfully, someone has come along to breathe some life into high school football.
A Dallas-based sports marketing group has slated a game between reigning 5A superpower Southlake Carroll and its Floridian counterpart, Miami Northwestern. The game is scheduled for Sept. 15 and will likely be aired on one of ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPN Classic.
Actually, now that I think of it, high school football is doing pretty well without TV. Maybe someone is just trying to breathe some life into his own bank account.
“This could be the biggest game the state of Texas has ever seen,” Dave Stephenson of TITUS Sports Marketing told the Dallas Morning News.
Oh, really?
I’m going to go ahead and give Stephenson the benefit of the doubt and assume he was speaking specifically about high school football.
No. It will not be the biggest high school football game the state has ever seen. It will only be the biggest game Southlake Carroll has played since December, when the Dragons defeated Austin Westlake for the 5A Division I championship.
Up against college titans
Perhaps I’ll tune in to the Carroll-Northwestern game, but it will be going up against college games like USC at Nebraska and Notre Dame at Michigan that day. The high school battle for bragging rights will be little more than a blip on the screen of high school football in 2007.
Waco High coach Johnny Tusa, who has taken the Lions to Louisiana and all over the state of Texas, said he’d love to play a team from Florida on such a stage. Just one condition: they have to play in his stadium. Tusa figures the better that team on the other sideline, the harder they make your players compete. And that’s what you want in the early part of the season. Turn on all the television lights in the whole world, and it’s still just another game in September.
“Nobody ever asked me, ‘How many nondistrict games did you win?’ ’’ Tusa said. “We’ve got a way to determine a champion, we don’t have to have a computer with a power rating. It doesn’t cost us to lose a ball game, and it doesn’t do anything for us to win a ball game.”
Tusa said he ate breakfast with Carroll coach Hal Wasson at a recent coaching clinic and found Wasson to be neither overly excited nor concerned about the Sept. 15 game against the Florida squad.
I can’t speak for Miami Northwestern because I’ve never covered a high school game in Florida, but I can’t see what Carroll has to gain.
The Dragons will play on TV, which they’ve done before. And they’ll play a great opponent, which they’ve done before (see Westlake, Euless Trinity, etc.).
Peddling a product
So where does Stephenson get his “biggest game ever” claim?
Robinson coach Brian Lewis had a good answer.
“He’s trying to sell his product,” Lewis said.
Which leads us to the all-powerful dollar. Certainly, Carroll and Northwestern will be getting a cut of television revenue to play each other. And Southlake didn’t get to be Southlake by turning down fistfuls of money.
But do we want high school football to become a money game? When I’m out at the field on a Friday night, I know I can’t help but think “This sure could use more television time outs, sponsor logos, higher ticket prices and more concession stand talk about salary caps and signing bonuses.”
High school football has a devoted audience in this state and it can be found sitting on wooden bleachers with nachos in one hand and a bottle of pop in the other.
The greatness of Texas high school football owes nothing to ESPN, teen dramas or anything else that’s made for television.
cconine@wacotrib.com
http://www.wacotrib.com/prep/content/sports/highschools/stories/2007/03/29/03292007wachscolumn.html
Click-2-Listen
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Thankfully, someone has come along to breathe some life into high school football.
A Dallas-based sports marketing group has slated a game between reigning 5A superpower Southlake Carroll and its Floridian counterpart, Miami Northwestern. The game is scheduled for Sept. 15 and will likely be aired on one of ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPN Classic.
Actually, now that I think of it, high school football is doing pretty well without TV. Maybe someone is just trying to breathe some life into his own bank account.
“This could be the biggest game the state of Texas has ever seen,” Dave Stephenson of TITUS Sports Marketing told the Dallas Morning News.
Oh, really?
I’m going to go ahead and give Stephenson the benefit of the doubt and assume he was speaking specifically about high school football.
No. It will not be the biggest high school football game the state has ever seen. It will only be the biggest game Southlake Carroll has played since December, when the Dragons defeated Austin Westlake for the 5A Division I championship.
Up against college titans
Perhaps I’ll tune in to the Carroll-Northwestern game, but it will be going up against college games like USC at Nebraska and Notre Dame at Michigan that day. The high school battle for bragging rights will be little more than a blip on the screen of high school football in 2007.
Waco High coach Johnny Tusa, who has taken the Lions to Louisiana and all over the state of Texas, said he’d love to play a team from Florida on such a stage. Just one condition: they have to play in his stadium. Tusa figures the better that team on the other sideline, the harder they make your players compete. And that’s what you want in the early part of the season. Turn on all the television lights in the whole world, and it’s still just another game in September.
“Nobody ever asked me, ‘How many nondistrict games did you win?’ ’’ Tusa said. “We’ve got a way to determine a champion, we don’t have to have a computer with a power rating. It doesn’t cost us to lose a ball game, and it doesn’t do anything for us to win a ball game.”
Tusa said he ate breakfast with Carroll coach Hal Wasson at a recent coaching clinic and found Wasson to be neither overly excited nor concerned about the Sept. 15 game against the Florida squad.
I can’t speak for Miami Northwestern because I’ve never covered a high school game in Florida, but I can’t see what Carroll has to gain.
The Dragons will play on TV, which they’ve done before. And they’ll play a great opponent, which they’ve done before (see Westlake, Euless Trinity, etc.).
Peddling a product
So where does Stephenson get his “biggest game ever” claim?
Robinson coach Brian Lewis had a good answer.
“He’s trying to sell his product,” Lewis said.
Which leads us to the all-powerful dollar. Certainly, Carroll and Northwestern will be getting a cut of television revenue to play each other. And Southlake didn’t get to be Southlake by turning down fistfuls of money.
But do we want high school football to become a money game? When I’m out at the field on a Friday night, I know I can’t help but think “This sure could use more television time outs, sponsor logos, higher ticket prices and more concession stand talk about salary caps and signing bonuses.”
High school football has a devoted audience in this state and it can be found sitting on wooden bleachers with nachos in one hand and a bottle of pop in the other.
The greatness of Texas high school football owes nothing to ESPN, teen dramas or anything else that’s made for television.
cconine@wacotrib.com