
To be sure, some ex-coaches on the various studio teams said critical things; ESPN could not hope (even if it wanted to) to suppress some disagreement on this issue. But the critiques rarely if ever reached the level of the deep institutional forces driving Maryland's decision: the way competition for television dollars has driven conference realignment and presented institutions with clear incentives to abandon history and tradition. To make that point would, of course, to be call into question ESPN's own role in this process.
Instead, viewers have most often gotten this kind of account from ESPN commentators: 1) It's too bad that the traditional rivalries and histories are going out the window. 2) But this is an inevitable process; and 3) Change has already proceeded so far, why moan and groan about further changes (hence SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt's tweet on Nov. 19 that the ACC of his youth was already long gone even before Maryland’s move).
Typical was the statement of Jimmy Dykes during Maui Invitation coverage that change was difficult, but could be attributed to the “culture we live in.”
The implication of Dyke's comment, taken on its face, might be that the same cultural forces that have produced Twitter, Facebook, Barack Obama and the reality music TV show are also somehow responsible for conference realignment. But this is simply not true. It's not cultural forces, but economic forces, specifically the competition for maximal television revenues, that is driving the process. ESPN itself is not a neutral observer in the process, but a prime participant.
The inability of most sports journalists to engage in critical social theorizing is well known. In ESPN's case, that unwillingness to criticize the status quo is married to willful obfuscation of the network's own role in melting all that once was solid about college sports into air.