Now that the charade that college football players are amateurs is over, more than ever college football is a business. It’s the entertainment business. ESPN paid 3 billion to for the rights to SEC football.

ESPN plans to make money on that investment. TV ratings drive their profits. The higher the tv ratings, the more ESPN can charge their advertisers.

To drive ratings you need stories, plot lines, controversy, stars, heroes and villains. No one in college football today moves the needle on tv ratings more than Lane Kiffin. That became more evident with the whole injury list episode.

The LSU Ole Miss game was already being hyped as the biggest must watch game this year. Then Tuesday night Kiffin drops the injury list bomb that Leavitt was doubtful. That became the lead in topic of virtually every college sports show, podcast or message board in the country. Was Kiffin thumbing his nose at the SEC and how unenforceable injury lists can be? Was he trolling Ole Miss? Lol, probably both.

Some have worried about the 25k fine that LSU could get if the SEC finds LSU was untruthful with their injury list. Leavitt missed practice, one can argue just about any injury can make a qb doubtful. More importantly, 25 k is peanuts compared to the value of having your program lead in topic all day. Thats free advertising worth millions, not to mention that controversy drives the ratings even more.

And I bet the ESPN guys on the business side of their business are loving Kiffin. The whole NFL player controversy, the threat to expel LSU, Kiffins snarky Clemson halftime remark, Kiffins messy exit from Ole Miss and now his injury list troll is making the game more must watch than ever.

Kiffin is probably a thousand times more valuable than Sankey is to ESPN and to the SEC. College football is a business now. On the player side, Arch Manning might be your biggest needle mover for ratings. I do not know that anyone is close the Kiffin in that regard. He just needs to win to back it up.