ESPN’s new partnership with historically black colleges is being praised, but the new broadcasts are dividing the sport of football by race.
Jackson State’s Peyton Pickett shoved his Florida A&M defender to the ground to pick up extra yards on Sunday while the crowd went wild — something Pickett and other members of Jackson State’s football team are probably used to. But what they aren’t used to is being nationally broadcasted, as the game was.
National coverage is not taken lightly in the football world. It is coveted by all teams, all divisions, and all conferences.
But in a new partnership with ESPN, members of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) — which are composed of historically black colleges and universities — will receive national coverage in more than 100 games this season.
This new partnership has been praised for highlighting black athletes, but the new broadcasts aren’t doing that at all. It is dividing the sport of football — a sport of tradition and unification.
Right now, in most American homes, you can find a college football game on some sort of broadcast on TV. In week three of play, nationally ranked teams like Alabama, Florida, and Clemson flashed on many TVs, but this year these popular teams have shared the limelight on nationally syndicated broadcasts.
While HBCUs are defined as “any historically Black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of black Americans,” top tier teams like Alabama, Florida, and Clemson are also schools with athletic teams historically composed of black players.
A country divided does not succeed. Its not a will not, its not a might not, its not a feelings getting hurt thing either.
Divided always fails.
Systemic racism – a wonderful example.
As a society, they are moving themselves back to segregation.
The turd made this all worse!
Let’s rank the schools by the SAT scores the stewdon’t athaleets earned.
Then we can rank what % of each nationality they are descended from.
Tie breaker is number of kids fathered in Middle School plus half of those fathered in HS.