Get Up Dallas Cowboys Deion Sanders Jerry Jones Screengrab via ESPN

If there is one thing ESPN could will into existence, it would be Deion Sanders coaching the Dallas Cowboys. And they just might be getting their wish.

After weeks and months of almost daily speculation, we had our first concrete news that Colorado head coach Deion Sanders talked with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones about the franchise’s open job after the official departure of Mike McCarthy.

Of course, you knew this news would be like manna from the gods for ESPN’s daytime talk shows, specifically Get Up and First Take… who in case you haven’t realized, cover the Dallas Cowboys more than pretty much every sports team in the known universe combined. If only Skip Bayless were still alive to see this. (I’ve been informed that Bayless currently hosts a YouTube podcast with his wife and the less said about that whole situation, the better.)

Deion Sanders coaching the Cowboys would be the event horizon of sports media. And if it does happen, there would probably be entire shows dedicated to the daily happenings in Dallas. ESPN would probably dedicate its entire channel to the Cowboys and Coach Prime and everything else would be put on ESPN2 or ESPN: The Ocho. The Cowboys would never play a 1 p.m. ET game again. And contractually speaking, not 72 seconds of airtime could pass before a giant cowbell rings as a reminder that it’s time to talk about Coach Prime and the Cowboys.

So on Tuesday morning, with the Wild Card round of the NFL Playoffs wrapping up with a Monday night game between the Vikings and Rams, we wondered just how much air time Get Up and First Take would commit to the Deion news. Keep in mind we’re talking about a phone call here between Deion Sanders and Jerry Jones – not an interview, a contract, or anything like that.

To each show’s credit, both Get Up and First Take led their shows with the Vikings-Rams games. But after that, it was time to cede the stage to a team that hasn’t made an NFC Championship Game since 1995.

In total airtime not counting commercials, ads, and getting in and out of break, Get Up talked about the Cowboys for approximately 32 of 62 minutes – a whopping 51.6% of the show. By comparison, the Vikings-Rams game received 16 minutes of coverage and Mike McCarthy (former Cowboys coach) potentially coaching the Chicago Bears got 7 minutes.

As for First Take, the Cowboys got more total airtime even if it was a smaller percentage. The Coach Prime news garnered 37 out of 80 minutes, or 46% of the show. The Vikings-Rams game got 19 minutes of conversation, other NFL Divisional Round previews received 12 minutes, and the NBA had a 10-minute segment with Brian Windhorst.

If you follow the sports media, you know this is nothing new. Even in the NFL offseason, the Cowboys dominate the daily sports conversation to a nauseating degree. And it’s obvious why — they command the most attention, draw the biggest ratings, and have the biggest brand in American sports.

But at what point does this become a self-fulfilling prophecy? At what point do the Cowboys just exist for the sake of media attention? Well, that’s where this Mike Greenberg comment definitely raised some eyebrows.

In one of the many Get Up segments talking about the Cowboys, Greeny opened up that Jerry Jones loves the fact that the show spends so much time talking about his team. And that if he were to hire Deion Sanders, that would exponentially increase.

This seems farcical, but would you put it past Jerry Jones to hire Deion Sanders solely so he can take up more oxygen in the national media and distract from his team’s actual lack of success? Would you put it past him to let this process play out over days and weeks just to take attention away from teams that actually made the playoffs? Of course not!

It would be a wild thought for any of the other teams in the major American sports to make decisions on their franchise based on what may get the most daily ESPN coverage, but that’s Jerry Jones for you. And if it is indeed the case, ESPN will be more than happy to prove him right every step of the way.