East Coast bias
East Coast bias is the perceived tendency for
Overview
East Coast bias is used to explain perceived slights of teams and players on the West Coast relative to their comparable counterparts on the East.[1][2][3][4] It is attributed to East Coast sports stories being more repetitive, comprehensive, and exaggerated.[3][5] "In America news still travels from east to west," wrote author George Will in Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball.[4] The bias is also used to rationalize the broadcasting of an East Coast team in favor of another compelling team based to the west.[6]
National coverage of live games is also perceived as favoring certain teams located on the Eastern side of the continent. For example, critics of what Hockey Night in Canada chooses to program allege that the show particularly favors the Toronto Maple Leafs.[7] Likewise, ESPN's baseball coverage has been the target of criticism because of its perceived bias towards the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.[8]
Causes
The North American continent is divided into seven time zones, spanning 6+1⁄2 hours from
In the United States, the major media hub is the East Coast city of
The NFL Network and Fox Sports including its cable channel Fox Sports 1 maintain their major broadcast hub in Los Angeles, along with the Pac-12 Networks in San Francisco, though FS1 and the Pac-12 Network's sports rights are limited to the point where they are thought of as an aberration (and Fox Sports itself is the major broadcast partner for college basketball's East Coast-centric Big East Conference). Buccigross wrote that an imbalance is understandable from Eastern writers, considering they are influenced by their close proximity and easier access to the happenings in the East.[5] The East is home to nearly half of the U.S.'s population and is both more densely populated and was settled and developed much earlier than the West.[9]
Then-
See also
- Criticism of ESPN
- Criticism of NASCAR
- Criticism of the Walt Disney Company
- Effects of time zones on North American broadcasting
References
- ^ SI.com. Archived from the originalon March 2, 2011.
- ^ "East Coast Bias Grows Ever More Apparent". The Hoya. September 12, 2003. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011.
- ^ a b Schoenfield, David (August 25, 2003). "The List: 10 cases of East Coast bias". ESPN.com. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 0-02-628470-7.
- ^ a b c Buccigross, John (February 2, 2010). "Time to give the West its due". ESPN.com. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012.
- ^ a b Schreiber, Le Anne (August 15, 2008). "Geography lesson: Breaking down the bias in ESPN's coverage". ESPN.com. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011.
- ^ Zelkovich, Chris (October 16, 2006). "Campbell adapts to HNIC hot seat". The Star. Toronto. Archived from the original on December 3, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-10.
- ^ Krasovic, Tom (April 13, 2009). "Black tinkers with pitching rotation". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Archived from the original on April 15, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
- ^ Verducci, Tom (May 13, 2002). "Case Closed". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved March 3, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Cesar, Dan (November 5, 2010). "Did "East Coast bias" sink Series ratings?". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived from the original on December 8, 2010.