“This is for all the Tostitos.”
Those were the words uttered by ESPN play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger in the moments leading up to the game-winning field goal that split the uprights and gave the Auburn Tigers college football’s crown Monday night.
Granted, not every call can live up to “I don’t believe what I just saw!” or “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” In fact, I quite like ESPN’s tandem of Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit, but Musburger’s call took root with me for all the wrong reasons.
As the clock hit zero and the postgame celebration ensued, the game was never referred to by the broadcast team as simply the BCS National Championship game. “Tostitos” always came first.
Before presenting the championship trophy ““ which, by the way, had a Dr. Pepper logo on the front of it that was larger than the imperial crystal football itself ““ ESPN’s John Saunders stopped to thank “the longest running title sponsor in the BCS, Tostitos-Frito Lay.” Did I mention the larger-than-necessary ESPN logo that filled close to half of each endzone?
Money is taking over one of America’s purest sports. We always hear about how people love the cleanliness of the college game and that the athletes do it for the love of the game. Wait, wasn’t this year’s Heisman Trophy winner involved in a scandal involving bribes to play for Auburn?
Whether or not Musburger had planned to drop the Tostitos bomb in anticipation of a big play doesn’t much matter. In fact, it’s worse if Tostitos slipped into his subconscious.
As I was wading through a pool of my own tears after realizing that the college football season had come to a close, I realized that football’s national runner-up and UCLA meet Saturday on the hardwood.
As the Bruins prepare to head to Oregon this weekend to play Oregon State and Oregon, I was browsing through my favorite procrastinating tool, Twitter, and fell upon a column by Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg about the big, green money-making machine that is the University of Oregon’s athletic department.
The column profiles Nike chairman Phil Knight, who pours millions into Oregon’s athletic department year after year. Knight is included on the Oregon football coaches’ radio headset network and knows the plays they’re going to run before they run them.
Someone is appointed to notify him each time the Ducks land a new recruit.
Matthew Knight Arena, which opens Thursday for Oregon’s game against USC is named after Knight’s late son. He also put up $41.7 million to support the school’s new academic support facility. The Bruins will be playing at the newly nicknamed “Matt Court,” a pun on the old “Mac Court,” on Saturday.
Knight doesn’t just give to the athletic department, it’s hard to walk around Oregon’s campus without running into some type of building that has “Knight” in the title. It’s great that he’s decided to give so much to an institution of higher learning. But when I think of Oregon, the word “Nike” comes to mind before “Ducks” and that’s a problem. Oregon’s logo may as well be the Nike swoosh rather than their trademark “O.”
UCLA isn’t immune to corporations and donors playing a role on campus. Edwin W. Pauley, for which Pauley Pavilion is named, had his own island that he bought with money made in the oil business. But UCLA isn’t a standard bearer for adidas and university officials do a pretty good job of keeping donors and sponsors understated.
Who knows? If universities don’t nip this habit of letting the highest bidder run their athletic department in the bud, we may end up with Under Armor University or adidas College in the near future, something that should make college sports fans everywhere shudder.
Strong co-hosts the Daily Bruin Sports Show, which airs every Monday at 6:30 p.m. on uclaradio.com. E-mail him at sstrong@media.ucla.edu.