Let's Talk About College Football West Coast Bias
PAC-12 Regional Bias, 24 pacific standard time zone job links and an album from the NorthWest
Folks, There’s a lot of sports talk on the West Coast this week. The Timbers won the MLS is Back. Dame Lillard hit a game-winner last night. The Lakers ended their skid. Trout is booming and the A’s are surprising. Vegas starts their Stanley Cup pursuit too. More of that coming in the Friday news edition.
On West Coast Wednesdays we’ll talk about Coast bias in sports, the project, music this week and job openings. My hope is this newsletter will be a utility for people trying to work in sports in the pacific time zone. However, the music and lead story will still give fans and casual readers something to read and skim. Take a read and let me know what you think by commenting or replying to this email and post.
Oh yeah, the PAC-12 and Mountain West Conferences canceled their fall seasons.
Although this newsletter focuses on pro sports, College sports are a regional affair. We must talk about that impact which will strike amateur sports from California all the way up to Washington.
Kent Doepel from Seattle hosts and runs the West Coast CFB podcast and website. He does great work covering the PAC-12, Mountain West and Big Sky conferences. We featured him in the podcast I cohost last Thursday due to rumors the Pac-12 might cancel their season.
At the time, Kent thought they would try and play to keep that TV revenue. The 10 public schooles (USC and Stanford are private) generated $942 million in revenue across all sports. That includes more than $124 million in football tickets alone, according to Sportico.
Public PAC-12 schools brought in $318 million in media money and $197 million from donations across all sports too. Most are attributed to football.
Now, these instituitions face eight or nine-figure deficits with football cancellations due to COVID-19.
Moreover, Kent Doepel brought up an interesting playoff issue with the PAC-12’s initial plans for playing only conference games.
“What happens if Oregon or USC goes 9-1 or 10-0 but there are undefeated teams around the nation? Do they get in the playoffs, who knows?” Doepel said. “I don’t know if they’ve earned that respect nationally.”
Imagine the impact with zero football from the West Coast?
More on Regional Bias in College Sports
The Washington-based writer talked about the gap between national coverage and local coverage of college football.
Since starting the site, Doepel found passionate PAC-12 fans firsthand. WestCoastCFB unintentionally created a community for fans from rival schools to interact.
Otherwise, college sports awards and coverage have long been regionally biased. Some contribute to the 22-year drought in March Madness due to poor seeding from regional bias. Many people say West Coast teams get an unfair shake in College football awards and voting too.
A 2019 study from the Journal of Sports Analytics showed regional bias in Heisman voting. In the 80+ years of the award. only five Far West players from schools other than the University of Southern California won the award. It cited instances of prominent players and voters admitting they didn’t watch games from the West Coast.
However, it didn’t find that athletes from the West Coast received fewer votes than others. The study actually showed the Northeast, South, and SouthWest are treated more adversely.
Still, it reaffirmed the notion that voters vote based on what they see because players receive more votes in their home regions. The study also found that regional bias was decreasing with an increase in nationally televised college games.
Could this trend get reversed if the two biggest conferences concentrated out west cancel their football seasons?
The Big Ten canceled their season the same day their Rose Bowl rivals did. The MAC, MEAC and Big Sky already canceled their seasons in weeks prior.
Nonetheless, the SEC, ACC and Big-12 fully intend on playing this season. Conference USA, and Sun Belt also plan on playing but none of those demands the same national attention as the Big-12, SEC or ACC.
As if we needed more access to Clemson, Alabama, LSU, Georgia, more Texas football or any of those Florida teams. Yet, that’s exactly what we’re going to get out west with none of our home teams playing football on Saturdays.
Don’t forget TV impacts recruiting. PAC-12 and MWC schools were already losing homegrown talent. That will only get amplified if all these seniors watch only SEC, Big-12 and ACC football in 2020.
Will we see a massive recruits exodus from California, Washington, Oregon and Nevada if the SEC, Big-12 and ACC play football while the PAC-12 and Mountain West sit at home?
How will many of these studens respond to missing a full season? How can you recruit players who may skip their 2020 season? What about transfers?
Will regional bias in college sports return if the schools outside the Pacific Time zone get an even bigger platform?
To Be Determined. These are questions to monitor as it looks like we might not have college football on the West Coast this year.
West Coast Sports Careers
For those chasing their sports career dreams in the Pacific Time zone.
California
Digital Content Editor, NFL Network
Nevada
Oregon
Washington
Remote
Multiple, The Pop Up (Several Markets)
NFL Producer, B/R
West Coast Vibes
A song or album that promotes a healthy West Coast State of Mind.
FINALLY, got some music from outside California this week. Amine dropped an album flexing his versatility and introspective. He talks about love and other quarter-life crisis topics.
The album provides some of the upbeat tunes and creative punchlines that made Amine pop. It blends in some trendy elements like trap beats along with more soulful samples. There are a few good futures, some decent singing and a few songs where the Oregon native goes hard lyrically.
My highlight is Woodlawn because I’m a sucker for a beat with a good flute. He also shouts out Kobe in the song.
Amine calls Kobe a parental figure and said a part of his childhood died with 2-4. The Rapper elaborated on Kobe’s death in the following interlude. Dude said Bryant’s death inspired him to figure out money and life.
That’s a real-life example of how Kobe inspired a generation, from L.A. all the way to Portland. We all stayed up watching Kobe even if we weren’t Lakers fans, while the East Coast slept. The Mamba is just another experience that unites West Coast sports fans across the pacific time zone.
Speaking of which, the Pressure in my Palms Vince Staples feature is also fire.
Thanks for reading this far. Hope you enjoyed the new weekly format. It bumped up my engagement across the board.
I’m also really proud of this week’s edition. From the lead story and interview to the final song, this week’s issue really illustrates what this newsletter should be. It’s a deep dive on West Coast sports culture along with the sports news and jobs you need to support your lifestyle in the pacific time zone.
Please share with a friend who enjoys pro sports in the pacific time zone by forwarding this email. Lord knows I need every share.
Sincerely,
Pete D. Camarillo
Aka a Dude who would be happy being the Jamal Crawford of anything.