The first time we heard about the money was right before the draft. Back then, the story only involved Bush's parents getting a house for "free". This is the same house they mysteriously vacated soon after Bush graduated from USC and was about to be drafted #2 overall by the New Orleans Saints. The story involved a man who claimed that he and Bush's step-father had gotten together with the idea of starting a sports marketing firm around Bush. That deal fell through somewhere down the line, but meanwhile, Bush's step-father, mother, and brother, all lived in the San Diego home owned by the potential business partner.

And while all this was bandied about, no one really wanted to look deeper. USC disassociated themselves with the whole thing. The PAC-10 did say that they started an investigation back in April, but strangely, with the release of the new allegations on Thursday, the PAC-10 said that they did not have the documents that the Yahoo! writers have, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Pacific-10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen said that, to his knowledge, the conference did not have information regarding Yahoo's report on Reggie Bush.

How is that possible? If you were investigating someone since April, wouldn't you have worked to get any documentation you could to help you in that investigation? Wouldn't you go to the people who have broken the story to get any information that could help that investigation? Instead, it seems that the PAC-10 has dragged its feet on the matter. I understand that Reggie Bush no longer plays for USC, or in the PAC-10, or even in the NCAA, but 5 months seems like enough time to have gathered the same information as has been gathered by the two Yahoo! reporters.

Let's add to the strangeness of the report. Why was this broken by two sports reporters at Yahoo!? With something this big, wouldn't you expect the first word of these allegations to come from ESPN, the "World Wide Leader"? That would only make sense to me. Yahoo!'s sports department has far less reach and manpower than ESPN. So, what enabled these two NFL reporters to get the scoop on the story before the company with the largest team of sports coverage in the business?

And why did the story not grow after the first airing of it in April by the Yahoo! reporters? If I were in charge at ESPN, I would have assigned at least one reporter from my staff to conduct his own investigation, not just to report the story as it was revealed by a rival company. However, after the draft concluded and Reggie Bush was taken by the Saints, you barely heard of the story again. Until now, that is.

So why didn't ESPN look further into the matter? Why didn't this story grow and evolve day after day, with news of these new payments and special gifts coming to light day after day, much like the story about the Duke Lacrosse players did on ESPN?

I have a theory, and this is only my speculation, but it is an intriguing thought. What if ESPN knew of the allegations but did not report them because of how this would reflect badly on the network? I know that we all have heard of allegations of special gifts to many top athletes in all sports which don't go reported, but I think this might be a special case. I know this is far fetched, but let's look at ESPN's coverage before we dismiss it outright.

1. ESPN labeled Bush's USC team as the "Greatest Team Ever" during the season when Bush's family was allegedly taking these payments - How could this not be a factor? ESPN repeatedly hyped this team. They covered every one of the players on the team to an extreme, especially Bush, as he worked towards the Heisman. How could they not notice that maybe things weren't as they seemed with his family? And could it be that they didn't report it because all of a sudden, a huge piece that they had worked so hard to make the cornerstone of their NCAA football reporting last season, would fall away. I know from other comments by reporters at the station, that a lot of times, these pieces are put together long before they take air. A good example is all of the pieces on Barry Bonds when he finally caught Babe Ruth. So, what is to say that they didn't want to scrap this in favor of a story that might have been just as big? I don't know. But I think there are other factors that play in.

2. ESPN shows a great deal of USC's football games - Chances are that if this story came out, and some sanctions were handed down on USC, one of them would be that their football games can not be shown on television. Now, this is a huge hit to the school, because it makes it difficult to schedule high profile teams, who want to be on television, and it causes them to lose out on the revenue associated with that television money. Eventually, that also trickles down to recruiting, and harms the team, which just places the program into a downward spiral. Now, look at the flip side of that. USC is one of the schools with a great national reach on television. If all of sudden, ESPN is not able to show those games, they lose that audience and they are without one of the biggest draws to the station. Seems to me that this is a big loss for the network as no other PAC-10 football team has the draw of the Trojans and they would not be easily replaced.

And then there is the third reason:

3. Bush was a target of ESPN to help promote their network - Come on, we have all seen the commercials. Bush convinces one of the guys in his fantasy football league to draft him first. And then Bush turns right around and drafts Larry Johnson, which he knew to do because of? Oh yes, his ESPN Mobile phone. I think the fact that I can recall the commercial speaks to the marketing power, not only of the network, but of Reggie Bush. Who says that ESPN didn't want to tap into that marketing power, and therefore, withheld the information about the extra funding?

I know all of that is just speculation, but it speaks to some possibilities as to why ESPN would not report the story, or dig deeper after they were beaten to the scoop by Yahoo!

By far, the luckiest group in the whole matter is USC and its players and coaches. While you may think that this can't possibly be good for them, because they might lose their championship and be put on probation because of the allegations, I contend the opposite. Because the PAC-10 stated back in April that they are opening the apparently slow investigation, USC is forbidden from commenting on the matter. They are only able to talk to the NCAA and PAC-10 about the matter, saving them from distractions and helping them to focus on their current season.

Something doesn't seem right about how this has unfolded to the fans of college and NFL football. It came out at times designed to get the most coverage by the national media, and at other times, the story seemed to be swept under the rug by not only ESPN, but all of the media outlets around the country. No one seemed to still be pursuing this except for Yahoo!, and even they held off their further findings until 5 months had passed.

There is something wrong in that, something that turns my gut and makes me wonder. I guess, as a fan, and a writer, I will just have to wait and see.

Ben Miraski writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com