Paul Finebaum reacts to Alabama, others not broadcasting spring football games

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum weighed in on the spring football debate as spring games start going by the wayside, including Alabama.

Teams are either not choosing to broadcast their games or eliminating the game entirely during this portion of the spring football season. As of last week, Alabama said it would not broadcast its A-Day Game.

It’s a stark change, but something that might’ve been brewing for a few years according to Finebaum.

“I understand it like you do, but I also think it’s somewhat disappointing for fans, because I don’t need to tell you how many times on a Monday after an Auburn or Alabama spring game, somebody called you because they saw the spring game and they saw this wide receiver do or running back do unbelievable things,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic.

“I mean, I always used to laugh because I think we read too much into it, but it was an inflection point of the spring. Now it’s not. I think the most important thing for spring games is for fans to participate. Now again, you can, you know a lot of these young guys who are walk ons and they have the biggest moment of their career in a spring game, and on national television too, by the way. But ultimately, I think we’re just in a different era now.” 

Spring games are ultimately for the fans and a chance for players to get some sort of live action. But still, they’re playing against each other and not other teams.

Alabama is one of the teams sticking to tradition, as Finebaum sees it, but the networks won’t pick it up. In fact, we might barely see any spring football, in the traditional sense, on network television.

“Coaches are far more paranoid than they’ve ever been, and the idea that someone was going to glean something from a spring game is pretty laughable,” Finebaum said. “But, I’ll also say this in terms of the networks … these games were not exactly being showcased anymore. I mean, I think last year there was, I think Alabama may have been one of the few SEC schools that was the only one that was actually on network television. 

“Most of them have been moved to digital. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But they’re not quite getting the showcase they were 15 or 20 years ago.”