The Ryder Cup, ESPN and Money

Does anyone really care about the Ryder Cup? I mean, it's just golf, and does anyone care about golf?

There are so many other things going on this weekend that I'd like for ESPN to not shove it down my throat. Please, no Tiger, no watch (like I'd watch even if Tigers Woods was playing).

You've got the SEC's stalwarts going at it in college football this weekend;MLB pennant races; the NFL and even European fans won't be able to pay attention when their ADD problems with a rematch of last year's European Cup final--Manchester United going to London to play Chelsea.

So why is it that ESPN has give the Ryder Cup, usually an afterthought to many, all this hype? The answer is simple. It's the same reason why CBS promotes CSI up the ass, NBC marks out to The Office, ABC keeps telling you to watch Grey's Anatomy and FOX overexposes American Idol.

Each of those networks owns the rights for those shows. And those networks want to make money. To make money, they need to charge advertisers big bucks. To charge advertisers big bucks, people need to watch (or the possibility of a lot of people watching) in order for broadcaster to justify charging ridiculous rates for 30-second spots during breaks.

It's the same reason why my friend Steven Dunst felt as if the NFL Draft, for years, was so overhyped and got so much more attention than the NBA Draft.

This is a generation of sports fan that gets most of its sports news and information from ESPN, the world-wide leader of sport. They dominate the competition. They try to make sure that their media brand is the only brand that people care about.

And when blogs started to take away from ESPN's readership online, bam, ESPN created blogs.

This is a network that knows how to invade and take over the lives of sports fans across the country and the world.

So, if ESPN is the sole presentation for sports information in the United States, as it is for many, then things such as the Ryder Cup, or the NBA and NFL Drafts and Arena Football will permeate throughout the country's collective sports consciousness because ESPN has a stake in all of these things getting watched on its network.

Sure, ESPN will have a somewhat objective view when it covers the sports and the leagues that it partners with. It kind of has to.

But that doesn't stop it from promoting those leagues and sports and teams and sporting events, no matter what their coverage is. That doesn't stop SportsCenter anchors from devoting extra coverage to those events.

Because I really don't think ESPN cares about whether or not Team USA can finally beat the Europeans for the Ryder Cup or if the San Jose Sabrecats win another Arena Bowl or if a guy like Aaron Rodgers spends an entire day in the green room waiting to get drafted. What they care about is whether or not people watch all of those things happen.

Hype equals money and with the sports nations' undivided attention given to ESPN, they can hype anything it wants, exploiting the viewer to gain some cash.