Bow Before the Worldwide Leader . . . in Sports!

ESPN is, as it likes to tell you over and over, the Worldwide Leader in Sports (TM). And they don't mind leaning on you a little to establish it.

I was listening to Colin Cowherd, who I can't stand but is the only thing going at 10-12 noon in Athens, GA, talk to Kirk Herbstreit about tonight's national title game.

They bemoaned the fact the game was spaced out so far beyond the other bowls. I agree. They said the game had lost momentum. Again, I agree.

But here's the kicker. Herbstreit suggested that people weren't as interested as they might be in the title game between Florida and Ohio State because it was a Fox property rather than an ABC/ESPN production. He and Cowherd then went on to discuss how maybe in successive years BCS bowls would consider that ESPN/ABC might not give as much coverage to events that aren't owned by the Worldwide Leader and that therefore the games not under that rubric might suffer a disability in publicity.

I'm not sure they realized how much they sounded like the kind of Evil Monopolists that made Teddy Roosevelt wanna bust trusts like a soft-spoken bad boy with a big stick.