Mass Media History

Tonight big-time college football crowns its national champion when the Oregon Ducks meet the Ohio State Buckeyes in Dallas, Texas. The game features two high-powered offenses, and ushers in a new era in college football. Oregon and Ohio State advanced to the game after winning semifinal match ups against the Florida State Seminoles and the Alabama Crimson Tide, respectively. The playoffs have finally arrived for major college football, but what took them so long?

College football has a storied past littered with complications and controversies. Crowning its national champion has always been one of them. In over a century of competition, college football’s leaders have held a variety of different views on postseason play and employed several methods in selecting its national champion. These approaches have been influenced by multiple forces deeply embedded in the history of college athletics and its uneasy alliance with mass media. The media was instrumental in creating college football’s popularity and transforming it into big business. In this brief historiographic post, I want to explore the push and pull relationship between college football and mass media, highlighting important changes that led to the creation of the college football playoff.