Last season, the University of Oregon spent $250,000 for an 80 by 100-foot Times Square billboard of Heisman hopeful Joey Harrington.
The Ducks went at it again this year, spending $300,000 for a billboard of receiver Keenan Howry. The 53 by 172- foot sign also signaled the start of an alliance with New York cable station YES to replay all Ducks' football games.
Oregon has had to spend more than half of a million dollars to offset the East Coast media bias, and they still have a ways to go.
What is this alleged East Coast media bias? It is most prevalent in college football and baseball, and simply means that West Coast teams don't get equal respect -- because their game times are later -- and they get less media exposure.
Last season, Harrington was the best player in the country, but eastern voters saw him in only one game -- the Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State. Harrington finished fourth in Heisman voting in every region other than the Far West, where he finished first. In fact, since 1981, only two players west of the Rockies have won the Heisman -- Rashaan Salaam of Colorado and Ty Detmer of Brigham Young -- and none in the Pac-10 conference.
It's not like the Pac-10 hasn't put up the athletes. Guys like Harrington, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Rodney Peete, Cade McNown, Jake Plummer and Ryan Leaf all put up huge numbers in college.
The media bias is not just true for individual accomplishments -- it carries through to team rankings as well.
One loss took Oregon out of national championship contention last year, even though the Ducks finished second. Florida and Tennessee were given two losses before getting knocked out of the national title contention.
No Pac-10 team has been a preseason No. 1 since 1979. Last season, Oregon started the year ranked 7th. In 2000, Pac-10 teams finished third, fourth and seventh in the final AP Rankings. Yet only two teams were ranked, neither in the top 10, in ESPN's preseason poll that year.
The bottom line is that these teams have to earn their respect rather than starting the year with it. The only way a West Coast team can start the season high in the rankings is if they use a top recruiting class for additional hype.
In a sport where one loss dooms you, this lower preseason ranking means perfection is necessary for a national championship.
As a native of California, I know that this carries through to other sports. Things are different on the West Coast, where Monday Night Football starts at 6 p.m. and day baseball is televised as early as 10 a.m. You never go to bed before sports are over, but you lose that on the East Coast.
How much of the Giants have you seen other than every Barry Bonds at-bat televised on Baseball Tonight? Yet they are in the midst of a great race with the Dodgers for the N.L. wild card.
Or the Mariners, who tied a major league record for the most wins in a season last year with 116? Yet the Yankees inked more national press simply because they are on the East Coast.
Even this season, baseball has the best pennant races in recent history with the A's and the Angels vying for the AL West crown. Good luck finding that in the Washington Post!
Our generation is somewhat shielded from this bias because of our heavy reliance on the Internet and SportsCenter. This means that our morning sports report has all of the scores.
Nevertheless, teams like the Red Sox or the Mets get much more national attention than the Angels, who lost 87 games last season and are in a pennant race. Or the A's, who are second in wins in the American League over the last three years despite being 12th in payroll.
The overall problem is simple -- games are on later, so media members cannot watch them because they are put on regional coverage. The answer is not as simple.
We cannot force Western media coverage, but we are stuck in a vicious cycle, especially for college sports.
The eastern programs get the most press and thus better recruits. Lorenzo Booker, arguably the country's best high school running back last year, chose to leave his home in Southern California and head to Florida State, picking the Seminoles over USC and Notre Dame. Player after player leaves the West Coast, but no one goes West for college.
But the competition still is better out there. The Pac-10 is arguably the best football-basketball combination in the land (along with the Big 10). Six Pac-10 teams went to the Big Dance last year. Six Pac-10 teams are currently ranked in the AP poll.
Even professionally, the West Coast gets it done. The AL and NL West have unreal pennant races and will field the wild cards, answering the supposed Eastern dominance of the New York Yankees. The Lakers have won three straight NBA titles. The Western Conference has claimed five of the last six Stanley Cups.
Even in the league of parity, the San Francisco 49ers have been the NFL's top franchise, winning 10 or more games in 17 of the last 20 seasons. Fourteen NFL head coaches have ties to the San Francisco organization.
This multi-sport dominance would not be evident from simply reading the country's top newspapers based in the eastern regions of the country.
So next time you pick up that sports page, remember the games that finished too late to be included. They were probably better.
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