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It’s not like any big sportswriters will come out and say that Notre Dame somehow doesn’t deserve a BCS bowl: we imagine that the angry fan email quotient is just way way off the charts. Instead, what we’ve gotten is a resounding chorus of “Suck it, Oregon” – mostly by Bristolbots and radio Bristolbots, convinced that the BCS is just about money and ratings and that Notre Dame is always the best draw. You’ve heard as much from Jim Rome, Cowherd, and, truly unfortunately, Dick Vitale, and even Ratto condescends to the argument in his Sportsline column.

It’s not like the numbers don’t bear this out. Darren Rovell, onetime lynchpin of the now-defunct “Sports Business” section of ESPN.com, and current nominee for the Buster Olney Memorial “Bristol Ate My Soul” Award, reported that NBC’s Notre Dame contract this year earned a 3.6 season average rating – a 44% increase over last season. Not to mention that the Irish just signed a $60 million contract extension with Adidas, whose value is obviously highly contingent on the continuing success of those TV ratings numbers (and it ain’t for the volleyball team, folks).

So yes, Notre Dame is big money, and yes, no one is denying that bowl commissioners, who like ratings, and television networks, who also like ratings, will like Notre Dame. But remember, folks: this is not written in stone. Cowherd’s logic – that “they make movies about Notre Dame football. They don’t make movies about Oregon football” – only goes so far. Note how the structure of the NCAA tournament in college hoops continually provides new stories and is constantly shifting the media power and Q-rating of different programs (Gonzaga, anyone?). No reason this couldn’t happen in college football, but as long as the ratings get to choose the teams, we will be locked in the same argument for eternity. Yeah, pretty much like Highlander, but not the movie. The TV show.

All of which, somehow, leads to SMW’s quote of the day, from John Walters at CNN/SI: “Now, name somebody who plays for Auburn. If you instantly - without a moment's hesitation - answered "Kenny Irons" or "Brandon Cox," my guess is that you live within 10 miles of a Waffle House.”

Send your angry emails to him, please. I just work here.

All Your Questions Answered

So yesterday we – and we were far from alone on this one – wondered exactly when and how ESPN had learned of Irvin’s arrest Friday evening. This morning, we got answers: Michael Hiestand of USA Today reported that ESPN brass learned the news Sunday afternoon from a reporter investigating the story, not from Irvin himself. We might be safe in presuming that reporter to be the AP reporter who first broke the story. Good luck finding out how or to what degree ESPN reacted – Hiestand’s interview with Bristol brass yields nothing - but the decision to give him a free pass obviously happened fairly quickly and with little turnaround.

We’ve also been wondering all day whether or not a mobile sex van was worthy of national attention. It’s not like the bar is set that high, right? Somebody’s gonna pick this up, we thought, somewhere outside the blogosphere. And we were right: this morning, AP went with the story. For those of you playing along at home, that one went from the St. Petersburg Times to the Tribune news services, into the blogosphere, Deadspin, and SMW, and then out to the world. Go figure.

Reversals of Fortune

It’s no surprise that Senator Specter has backed off of his T.O. rights crusade hinted at Monday. He didn’t get a huge amount of ESPN play, it’s not like Wilbon went up against a Senator (though we would go pay-per-view for that one). Instead, Specter got beat the old-fashioned way. Read the original Inquirer piece that broke the story. Or take the cliff notes version: Specter says that T.O.’s suspension might constitute a violation of antitrust laws, and then the Inquirer talks to every legal consultant they can find who say otherwise. First four paragraphs: Specter. The rest: not so much. It’s subtle, it’s nasty, it’s informed, it’s journalistic bias the way it was meant to be done.

Does anybody else smell something strange in the story that the NFL admitted to bad officiating in Sunday’s Giants/Seahawks game, and then rescinded their admission? In the later story, ESPN’s wire report is quick to place the blame upon Holmgren, who presumably was the source for much of the original story, but the original piece hardly puts it that way, outright stating that “the NFL said touchdown catches made by Jeremy Shockey and Amani Toomer shouldn't have been ruled completions.” Perhaps the first one needed a few “allegedly”s and “according to Holmgren”s; it’s hard to know whether Holmgren should actually be taken to task for outright fabrication (which we find hard to believe) or whether there’s some other strange slipup about which we will probably never know more.

Last Call

Newsday reports this morning about a twin stabbing in the bathroom at Sunday’s Jets/Saints game at the Meadowlands. Apparently the stabbing stemmed from taunting related to the Jets jersey worn by one of the victims. Now, anytime 80,000 people get together and drink copiously, any number of stupid things are going to happen. But if we have here an act of serious fan-related violence – the sort of thing for which we usually mock and/or pity European soccer fans – then the story deserves far greater attention. Drunk fan stupidity is one thing, but human life is obviously far too great a cost.

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that Fox is mulling reducing its MLB Division Series coverage for the next extension of its current MLB contract, which expires after next season. The network might show only weekend games, clearing its midweek schedule to join into the fray of new fall television shows. It’s too early to have any sense of whether Fox would keep the other first-round games on Fox-owned channels like Fx, or whether another network would come into the picture.

Finally, watch out for this morning’s Washington Post article on steroids available in commonly-accessible “dietary supplements.” I’m no industrial chemist, but they’ve clearly done their homework, and if the findings bear out, we’re going to need to completely rethink the provisional boundary between “steroids” and “supplements” that has shephered us through this whole thing. Just you watch.