St. Louis P-D Article on Valley

[Nyghtewynd]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/ncaatournament/story/A942E364B589CFAA86257125001F8D00?OpenDocument

[BlueDude]

If I may use the editorial "we", can get 3,4,5 (take your pick) teams in the tournament with 5% - 10% of the big boys budgets' then I don't think the Valley can be "overhyped" in any way, shape, or form.

[Aargh]

Welcome to the world of ESPN, where maybe 1/4 of the programming is talking heads basically promoting the rest of the programming.

When the MVC had a lot of upcoming games on ESPN, the Valley was the darling of ESPN and all the talking heads there went on and on about the Valley's greatness.

The Valley's ESPN games basically ended with Bracket Busters and the ESPN talking heads have switched to promoting ESPN games and downplaying other network's games.

This weekend ESPN is going head-to-head for ratings with FSN and CBS, who are broadcasting the first significant league championship. That championship includes 6 top-50 teams.

ESPN uses programming time and "analysts" to promote ESPN games and downgrade non-ESPN games.