What does this mean for sports fans?  Time will tell, but the obvious complications this could create is an increase in travel, and in turn, an increase in expenses for the Cornhusker faithful to attend road games.

Read more about University of Nebraska Athletic Director and former US Representative Tom Osborne’s decision – also known as ‘the first domino to fall’ – here.

One of the many unknown pieces to the puzzle which has received little attention is government intervention addresses here by Texas.Rivals.com:

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION?

It has been expressed to Orangebloods.com by a top collegiate executive that any movement toward four, 16-team super conferences will be met with resistance by Congress.

The executive said that could be bad news for college athletics because Congress has already taken some cursory looks at the fact athletic departments enjoy a tax-exempt status as part of their universities.

The executive said if it appears the rich are getting richer in college athletics, there will be a hard look at whether to take away the tax exempt status of athletic departments.

“And it won’t just be Orin Hatch (a member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee from Utah and longtime BCS critic) looking into this,” the source said.

Stay tuned.

Just Do It. Ducks Bow to Nike Power.

by Sarah Moon

On Friday, the Oregon State Board of Education on Friday approved Nike and University of Oregon’s proposal to build a huge 80,000-square foot complex for the football team. Because the project will be built under the auspices of a private corporation, the Nike subsidiary of the UO foundation, Phit LLC, the project will not be subject to the state’s “Sunshine Laws” regulating public disclosure of costs and contracts nor will it be put out to competitive bidding, as is normally required for facilities built on public lands. However, tax payers remain responsible for maintenance and staffing of the new football facility, the costs of which could be enormous.

Approval was rushed through the State Board, with only six of the 12-member board voting on the project. UO president Richard Lariviere warned the board that unless the project received approval including all of Knight’s terms and conditions requiring no-bid contracts and zero public disclosure on Friday (after only discussing it for the first time that day), the project would be off the table and future donations to the college were at risk, “If we don’t accept this gift, what will be the negative consequences for the university’s education and research mission? Probably not much — immediately, in the short-term. But they could be really, really profound over the longer term. Really profound.”

This is not the first project at the University of Oregon that Phil Knight and Nike have insisted be built with no public oversight or disclosure. At least two other project at the school have been financed and built in this way, under the direction and funding of Phit with UO and the State of Oregon being responsible for maintenance and staffing of the new facilities. The relationship between Knight and the University of Oregon is unprecedented for public colleges and universities—even projects funded with T. Boone Pickens’ $300 million in contributions to Oklahoma State University were conducted under that state’s guidelines for contracting and open records laws. In Oregon, however, we simply have no idea what the long-term costs of Knight’s generosity are to the state, because of the Nike founder’s insistence on secrecy.

While Knight has certainly ensured his legacy to University of Oregon, we Oregonians must ask what Knight’s legacy will cost us.

Sarah Moon is SFC-Portland’s Local Chapter Chair

Visit the SFC Portland page here.

Become a fan of SFC-Portland on Facebook.

Follow the Local Chapter on Twitter.

Boise State and the BCS

By Scott Kornberg

As usual, Bowl Championship Series critics are condemning how the BCS process always seems to find a way to leave out the Cinderella’s of the sports. In this article by Tim Brando, Brando harps on the fact that the college football “National” Championship, is in fact, not “National” because teams like Boise State and TCU consistently get left out.

The one thing missing for college football is the Cinderella. The Cinderella is what makes college basketball great, and it could do the same for college football in the fall. Think back to 2006 when the #11 seed George Mason somehow danced to the Final Four. Or in 2008 when the #8 seed Davidson barely lost to the #1 seed Kansas in the Elite Eight. A more recent example is the #5 seed Butler Bulldogs coming within a missed half-court prayer of being the National Champion this past season. Those teams made miraculous runs, and made each of those tournaments memorable to fans.

There is no miraculous run to be had in college football without a playoff system. Last year, Boise State was not given a chance to be the “National” Champion despite finishing undefeated. The Broncos were not given that chance either when they were undefeated in 2006, or in 2008, when Boise State had one loss. That one loss was the same amount of losses that the LSU Tigers and Ohio State Buckeyes had coming into their battle for the “National” Championship.

With no playoff system in place this year, the likelihood of a Cinderella crashing the BCS “National” Championship scene is slim. Boise State seems to be the most probable candidate, as they will likely enter the season ranked in the Top 5. The Broncos, however, will face only one team that finished with more than 8 wins last year (Virginia Tech). They played a slightly more difficult regular season schedule last year, with two teams on their slate that finished with 8 wins or more from the 2008 season (Oregon and Tulsa). The Broncos, or any other “Cinderella” team, are going to need to finish undefeated and hope that every other team in the country loses at least once in order to have a chance to play for the “National” Championship because the BCS computers will deem their schedule too weak to vault the major-conference teams with similar records. A playoff system is the only way to give these small-conference teams a fair chance at the BCS “National” Championship.

Scott Kornberg is a sportscaster for WMUC Sports (www.wmucsports.com). He hosts his own sports talk show, and announces baseball and softball games for the University of Maryland. He covers Maryland’s football and basketball writing for www.turtlesportsreport.com part of the scout.com network.