Six takeaways from Awful Announcing’s college football media bias survey

We were blown away by the number of votes we received in our first annual college football media bias survey.

While a lot of what came out was probably predictable, here are some things that stuck out to us:

Fox and ESPN were viewed as the most biased broadcasters, but ESPN’s SEC bias was more flagged than FOX’s Big Ten Bias

Our ballot included 12 ESPN individuals (excluding Taylor Lewan and Will Compton, who appear on the network) and 10 Fox Sports individuals (excluding Brandon Walker and Dan Katz, who appear on the network). While Fox and ESPN dominated the top of our list, the data suggest that viewers perceive ESPN as having a more SEC tilt than Fox’s Big Ten slant.

Of the 12 ESPN talents, eight exhibited a SEC bias, one a Big Ten bias (Desmond Howard), and three showed no bias (Scott Van Pelt, Joey Galloway, and Pat McAfee).  The average SEC bias among the eight who registered an SEC bias was +48, a figure inflated by Paul Finebaum’s +97 SEC bias.

Of the 10 Fox individuals, two registered limited or no bias (Colin Cowherd and Petro Papadakis). Of the eight who registered, four showed bias against the perceived Big Ten lean of the network (Clay Travis, Mark Ingram, Brady Quinn, and Robert Griffin III). Of the four Fox individuals who showed the expected Big Ten lean, their average score was +39, nine points lower than the measured ESPN SEC lean.

At a high level, only 40% of Fox’s polled talent reported Big Ten bias, compared with 67% for ESPN’s SEC bias; the bias was +48 SEC for ESPN versus +39 Big Ten for Fox.

A relative apples-to-apples comparison showed Paul Finebaum scoring 23 points higher than Dave Portnoy (97 vs. 74), Nick Saban scoring 35 points higher than Urban Meyer (71 vs. 36), and Kirk Herbstreit scoring 13 points higher than Joel Klatt (44 vs. 31).

It is hard to shake perceived bias from where you played or coached

We were surprised to observe strong biases among a small group of individuals who appeared to largely avoid criticism on social media for biased commentary. The data suggest that voters are likely to remember coaches’ and players’ backgrounds and to factor them heavily into their voting (media members without a playing/coaching career did not see such a pronounced bump).

While a few former players and coaches were able to land on the minimal/no-bias list, the vast majority of those on our list exhibited bias in relation to the context in which they are most associated and remembered. In fact, the only three individuals whose registered bias did not align with their playing or coaching career were Kirk Herbstreit, Joel Klatt, and Gary Danielson.

Overall, Fox’s profile appeared to benefit from employing analysts with a more diverse conference background, as Clay Travis, Mark Ingram, Brady Quinn, and RG3 provided the network a more balanced profile. Whether that profile was based more on actual biased commentary or on how we associate them is difficult to disentangle, but it provides networks with a clear blueprint for hiring practices to push back against bias claims.

Awful Announcing’s 2025 college football media bias rankings

NBC and CBS ended up with very unbiased voting profiles

If we remove Danny Kanell’s CBS association (he is not involved in any game coverage), both NBC and CBS (which air one Big Ten game in most weeks) produced relatively clean results. Gary Danielson is the most biased individual, but his bias was noted in SEC versus Big Ten comparisons, and he will not return next season.

NBC’s Todd Blackledge, Joshua Perry, and Nicole Auerbach all registered with little to no bias, and CBS’s Rick Neuheisel and Adam Breneman also ended up on that list

TNT’s Adam Lefkoe didn’t register a bias. Our other TNT inclusion, Mike Golic Jr., did, but we believe that the timing of Notre Dame’s CFP exclusion and the subsequent grievance tour played a pivotal role there.

Bias for the Big 12 and the ACC was hard to find. Perhaps an opportunity?

RG3, with a Big 12 bias of +11, and Danny Kanell, who is not involved with television game coverage, ACC bias of +33, were the only two individuals who registered any bias for those conferences. This trailed the 15 individuals with an SEC bias, eight for the Big Ten, and even two individuals for Notre Dame.

Much of that reflects talent decisions, as on-air talent is disproportionately drawn from former players and coaches at Big Ten and SEC schools.

One wonders whether there is an opportunity down the road not just for talent but also for a network of streamers to secure rights to these conferences and provide more alternatives for voters who feel they are getting SEC and Big Ten home cooking on the networks they currently watch games on. There appears to be a prevailing sentiment that the Big 12 and ACC are being drowned out by the bias of the SEC and Big Ten.

Conference Realignment drastically alters results

Every conference has media members who formally played, coached, or are just noted fans of that team. The majority of our list follows along those lines. But what about media members from the former Pac-12, or recent additions to the SEC like Texas and Oklahoma?

If those people favor the conference in which their former school plays, it likely takes time for that behavior to develop in a new conference and for fans to notice that bias. Ultimately, this exercise would have been valuable, tracing decades to show how these perceived biases evolved alongside conference realignment. But it’s clear in this snapshot that if you’re attached to a school that has recently relocated, you’re getting a bit of a clean slate in terms of perceived bias.

The CFP Rankings Show might be good for ratings, but it stings those who appear on it

We were surprised to see Greg McElroy and Booger McFarland score so highly in our results (toward the top of our list, both with SEC bias scores of 50 or higher). Heather Dinich also clocked in with a +26 SEC bias as well.

From our write-up of Dinich, which could be applied to all on the show:

“Is this score earned because of her reporting or commentary, or is this more tied to fans being annoyed at the pro-SEC outcomes she is often delivering/reporting on the network that has a business relationship with the SEC?  Either way, the days of Brad Edwards and the BCS Computer are a distant memory.”

What has become increasingly clear is that the weekly CFP ratings show is increasingly riling up fans, and even coaches and administrators, as the logic of the rankings continues to evolve without sufficiently consistent explanations. While McFarland, McElroy, and Dinich play no role in the actual rankings, their involvement in the show does seem to be padding their perceived bias.

Could all involved decide the juice is not worth the squeeze? Kirk Herbstreit wants it abolished, a position we strongly support, but it is a suggestion that is not getting much traction yet.

And that’s that! We look forward to another year of football, conference tribalism, more voting, and returning with what else we’ve learned a year from now!