Tag archive for "BCS"
Great read on the current state of the BCS in forthcoming Sports Illustrated from Austin Murphy. (h/t to our friends at PlayoffPAC)
You can read Murphy’s column here and be sure to stay tuned for our playoff campaign — the biggest push for a college football playoff ever.
The Justice Department will formally meet with BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock on June 30 in Washington, D.C., according to Hancock (via USA Today). The Justice Department is concerned about whether the BCS is violating antitrust laws. While in DC, Hancock also will meet with the 11 conference commissioners who oversee the BCS.
Read more here.
As we’ve said, college football’s postseason problem isn’t limited to possible antitrust violations. There current system is still problematic in how it determines a national champion, continues to foster corruption among the bowl organizations, sometimes forces schools and taxpayers to incur great costs, and leaves a lot of potential money on the table that could be used to offset these costs.
Since the Justice Department sent a letter to the NCAA asking it to explain why it doesn’t have a postseason playoff and whether the current BCS system may be violating antitrust law, there has been overwhelming support for BCS reform and the DOJ’s involvement. What follows is a list of what journalists, political figures, educational leaders and others are saying, just in the last week, about the need for reform.
ESPN’s Michael Wilbon
Pardon the Interruption
Quote: “Kornheiser: Do you think 24 this could lead to change in the current BCS format? And do you honestly think the government should be involved in college football? Wilbon: I hope it will and apparently it will. Those are my two answers. I will read you something from a Sports Illustrated piece recently that talks about the Utah attorney general alleging serious antitrust violations …that are harming taxpayer funded institutions to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That sentence right there is why the government can and should get involved and BCS, it’s going bye-bye. They’re bogus. Every other sport in every other division has playoffs. Robbing taxpayer institutions to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, don’t tell me you can justify that.”
Author and YahooSports.com Columnist Dan Wetzel
Justice Letter Could Signal Big Trouble for BCS
Quote: “The BCS is a financially underperforming system that costs mostly public colleges and universities hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue while directing tens of millions in student fees and taxpayer funds to third-party bowl games. The money alone makes it a concern for any taxpayer. Then there are the current corruption charges against the bowl business – the Fiesta Bowl is under fire for out-of-control spending and potentially illegal campaign contributions.”
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch
Title: Sen. Orrin Hatch: Justice Department moving forward on BCS
Quote: “My understanding is they are going to go forward and this is the first step. Look, 87% of the BCS money goes to the privileged conferences. That amounts to billions of dollars. Only about 12% goes to the non-privileged conferences. It is very unfair and violative of the anti-trust laws. I think the Justice Department is totally responsible in going into this and looking at it, and I don’t see how they can’t conclude anything but that this is violative of the antitrust laws.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Paul Woody
Justice Department’s look at BCS system long overdue
Quote: “One duty of government is to level the playing field so the rich and powerful do not always trounce the rights of the less powerful. Goodness gracious, Mr. Hancock, that is why the Justice Department is involved. And that involvement is long overdue.”
Harrisburg Patriot-News’ David Jones
BCS not a legit realm for antitrust feds? Why not?
Quote: “The antitrust wing of the U.S. Department of Justice has many bigger fish to fry. It has bigger fish, same-size fish and many smaller fish frying right now. That’s why 737 people work there. I’m not talking about in the Justice Department; I just mean in its antitrust division alone …. (The) BCS is one giant shell game. It’s run by four bowls and six conferences, who have slanted the scam in their favor. Anyone who has ever paid money into season tickets or seat licenses or bowl trips for a major-conference football program has been handing cash over to these hoodwink artists whether he or she knows it or not. The racket these bowls are running is almost as shameless as a ponzi scheme. It is an entrenched system. It will go on this way unless it is stopped. Only the federal government has the wherewithal to do the job.”
ESPN.com’s Andrea Adelson
Should feds mess with BCS?
Quote: “If university presidents are going to sit on their hands and do nothing, then somebody else should do the digging and investigate why this is the only postseason the NCAA does not control, and why this is the only NCAA sport without a playoff. Perhaps government involvement is the only way to spur change.”
Independent Mail’s Scott Adamson
Title: Government should look into how BCS, NCAA conducts business
Quote: “Gee willikers, Bill, the government can multitask, can’t it? And considering the shenanigans with the Fiesta Bowl — financial and otherwise — it has every right (and an obligation) to investigate what’s going on. And it’s a business that gets sweet tax breaks and uses a bowl system that features events run by non-profit organizations. As those party animals at the Fiesta Bowl showed, even non-profits can let their hair down and make the money rain. Moreover, tax dollars help foot the bill for NCAA programs — and don’t forget that federal funding is involved.”
College Football News’ Pete Fiutak
Title: The Feds, The Lawsuit, & The End Of The BCS?
Quote: “Basically, the Department of Justice has the same questions that most fans have had for more than a decade. Why the heck is there a BCS and why isn’t there some sort of a playoff? While this might not seem like some sort of a major national injustice, the BCS and college football bowls are multi-million dollar businesses. And when the outcomes of big football games affects the bottom lines of taxpayer-funded universities, and when some schools are getting paid more than others, questions start to get asked.”
San Diego State President Stephen Weber
Title: ESPN.com: Readers want BCS investigated
Quote: “In a recent statement, BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said the government has more important things to do than to focus on whether or not the BCS is fair and equitable for all universities and student athletes across the country,” Weber said in a statement. “It was the type of self-serving statement we’ve come to expect from the BCS cartel … “Now, more than ever, with budgets for public higher education being threatened with drastic cuts, it is imperative that the monies being generated by Division I college football are distributed in an equitable way. Clearly the best thing for the ‘haves’ of college football is to keep the ‘have nots’ out of their pot of money. But for the student-athletes who compete on the field, the current system is an injustice. And for the hundreds of universities outside of those six conferences, it prevents them from serving their students at the highest levels … “I applaud the Department of Justice for looking into this unfair system and I look forward to the day when all Division 1 football programs can play on the same, level field.”
New Mexico President David Schmidly
Title: UNM President fires back at the BCS
Quote: “With state support declining, and all of us in higher education looking to alleviate the financial problems brought on by the current economy, to not investigate the legality of the BCS, and to not look at the potential revenue streams that can be afforded to all Division I FBS institutions through other postseason means is short sighted and irresponsible If there is a way to alleviate the burden on tax-payers, while potentially increasing revenues and finding a more equitable way to distribute those revenues throughout college football, then an investigation by the Department of Justice is well worth the time and energy, and I fully support it.”
Fresno State President John Welty
Title: Fresno State’s Welty joins challenge to BCS
Quote: “(Welty) said he is in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice investigating the BCS for possible antitrust violations. ‘Efforts of getting change in other ways haven’t worked,’ Welty said in an interview Friday. ‘It may be necessary to go that route in order to get change.’ ”
San Diego State AD Jim Sterk and attorney Len Simon
DOJ May Bust Up BCS, But Replacement Could Be Less Appealing
Quote: “I think something can be done to make it better than it is,” said Jim Sterk, San Diego State’s athletic director. … Attorney Len Simon, who teaches sports law at USD, was one of 21 signatories to a letter urging the Department of Justice to investigate the BCS on antitrust grounds. Simon says the current system is “terrible” and predicts that a playoff would fill the vacuum left by its demise. “The BCS is a cartel,” he said. “It’s an arrangement among six conferences to agree upon themselves to dominate the postseason college world and make it hard for anybody else to break in, no matter how good they are … “Most people who think about it understand it’s a flat-out, clear (antitrust) violation or it’s a difficult case for the BCS to defend. … The BCS rules are designed to inhibit competition and the worst thing is they’re not good for the fans.”
Antitrust Lawyer Dale Grimes
The Atlanic.com: Is the Bowl Championship Series a Cartel?
Quote: “Here’s how an antitrust lawyer would look at it,” said Dale Grimes, an antitrust lawyer at Bass, Berry & Sims. “If each conference would be better off individually to have a playoff system, but they’ve agreed to hang together to protect their interests collectively, that’s a cartel.”
BoardSource VP Deborah Davidson
Fox Sports: DOJ may come down on BCS
Quote: “I think the jig is up,” says Deborah Davidson, a vice president of governance research at BoardSource, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit agency that promotes good governance and author of a blog entry entitled “From Fiesta to Fiasco”. “We no longer have a situation where it’s fair to all in college sports, if we ever did. But now with what has come to light with the Fiesta Bowl – boys and toys – it begs the whole question as to whether these bowls should have nonprofit status in the first place.”
Utah AG Mark Shurtleff
AP: AG Hopes to File BCS Suit by Summer
Quote: “We believe we can prove it’s an illegal monopoly, a restraint of trade,” the 53-year-old Republican told The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday. “It benefits the few at the expense of others.”
Hawaii AG David M. Louie
Hawaii could join Shurtleff BCS lawsuit
Quote: Shurtleff said he and Hawaii AG David M. Louie “talked at length” about the suit at a national attorney general’s meeting in March and “he (Louie) was very interested.” Subsequently, Shurtleff said, “we’ve heard from his staff and we’re working on an agreement to be able to share information with them confidentially.”
College Professors
Department of Justice asked to investigate BCS
Quote: “Twenty-one college professors have signed a letter asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the Bowl Championship Series under antitrust law, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The letter’s sentiments echo those of many BCS critics, who allege the organization is a cartel engineered by the leaders of the six conferences whose champions automatically qualify for the BCS’s big-money bowls. The arrangement harms the NCAA’s Football Bowl Series, or Division I-A, schools not in those conferences, and it harms fans who want to see a college football championship decided through a bracketed playoff, the letter states.”
SportsFans.org Executive Director Brian Frederick
It’s About Time the Justice Department Investigated the BCS
Quote: “It’s about time the Justice Department got involved. Why is college football the only sport with a postseason the NCAA does not immediately control? More importantly, why can’t the NCAA control college football? … We know that President Obama is in favor of a playoff. But there is now enough evidence that the current system is not only unfair and possibly illegal, it’s costing our states money. It’s time for the President to step in again to save college football from itself.”
Last week, the Justice Department sent a letter to the NCAA asking why it does not have a postseason playoff in college football. Specifically, Justice suggested that the current Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system may violate antitrust laws.
“Serious questions continue to arise suggesting that the current BCS system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in federal antitrust laws,” assistant attorney general Christine Varney wrote to NCAA president Mark Emmert.
It’s about time the Justice Department got involved. Why is college football the only sport with a postseason the NCAA does not immediately control? More importantly, why can’t the NCAA control college football?
The current system exists because those in power in college football now – the major conference commissioners and the athletic directors, coaches and presidents at the largest schools in those conferences – would rather have a bigger piece of a smaller pie than make wholesale changes that would dilute their own power.
The current BCS system is actually costing us all money. By leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table – money that could be generated with a college football playoff — the NCAA is doing a disservice to its member schools, to taxpayers and to fans.
The current BCS bowl system is unfair not only in the way it determines a national champion, but in the way it distributes revenue. Consider that 5 out of the 11 conferences — Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Western Athletic — don’t have automatic qualifier status with the BCS and get less revenue from the system. A group of 21 economists and legal professors who recently sent a letter to the Justice Department asking them to investigate the BCS estimates that over the last 7 years that disparity in revenue distribution amounts to $614 million.
Further, the current system fosters corruption within the bowl organizations. For example – and there are many — the Fiesta Bowl last month fired its CEO after it was revealed that he was basically running the non-profit “charity” as though it was a for-profit business (and in some cases, as though it was his own bank account), as well as illegally reimbursing employees for political contributions.
You can bet that right now, on Capitol Hill, the BCS and its supporters are trying to lobby lawmakers to stay out of college football. They’re likely going to convince a few of them to criticize the Obama administration for focusing on how football determines its national champion when there are far more important things to worry about.
Their rhetoric will echo what BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock stated when asked about the letter from Justice: “Goodness gracious, with all that’s going on in the world right now and with national and state budgets being what they are, it seems like a waste of taxpayers’ money to have the government looking into how college football games are played.”
But that’s exactly why the government should look into the BCS.
A college football playoff could actually help alleviate some of those state budget crises. Experts believe that a college football playoff could generate as much as $750 million a year compared to the current bowl system’s $220 million per year. And the bowls could still make about half of that much even with a playoff. So that’s $860 million in total.
If that $500+ million was evenly distributed among NCAA Division 1-A schools, it could really help some of them out and thus, help keep budget-crunched states from having to fund university athletic programs. According to the NCAA, in 2009, almost 25% of revenue for athletic departments in Division 1-A “came from tax dollars and other revenues directly allocated to the university.” Only 7 Division 1-A schools have generated more revenue than expenses during the past six years.
The system is clearly broken.
Contrary to what the BCS likes to claim, a playoff won’t ruin the regular season of college football – it will likely make it even more compelling. Nor will a playoff interfere with academics or ruin the tradition of football. As MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur points out, “The real football tradition is constant change.” Indeed, the BCS system itself was a change. That change was an attempt to address the concern that the two best teams were not playing at the end of the year. That concern persists…
It’s simple. The NCAA needs to organize its own 16-game playoff, thus giving every one of the 11 conferences an automatic berth and leaving 5 spots open as at-large berths, which would make the regular season even more compelling. Games should be played on the home campus of the higher seeds, ensuring that the money goes back into the campus community and visiting teams aren’t stuck footing the bill for unsold tickets (since those tickets would immediately be scooped up by home fans). And fans would be happy – they’d be guaranteed 15 compelling playoff games. (Think of the bracket pools!) And there would finally be a true national champion.
At the turn of the last century, President Theodore Roosevelt convened leaders of the major academic institutions to the White House to fix college football. At that time, a lack of a uniform rule system was leading to numerous injuries and deaths. As a result of Roosevelt’s leadership, changes were made, the institution that became the NCAA was created and college football flourished.
We know that President Obama is in favor of a playoff. But there is now enough evidence that the current system is not only unfair and possibly illegal, it’s costing our states money.
It’s time for the President to step in again to save college football from itself.
Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. Email him at brian@sportsfans.org and follow him on Twitter here.
by Jeremiah Tittle
How many economists does it take to end a corrupt system’s reign over a publicly-funded institution like NCAA athletics? The answer: 21(hopefully)
Our friends at Playoff PAC have once again pushed the envelope. This time, the target is the Department of Justice antitrust division. 21 prominent economists have sent a letter to the DOJ to investigate the BCS’s violation of antitrust laws. It’s about time that the government serve the people and push for Division I football follow suit with every other sport in the NCAA.
Read the Playoff PAC press release here.
Read the Wall Street Journal article here.
by Brad Sullivan
It’s been an incredible NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this season, and the Final Four should be no exception. When you look at this year’s remaining teams, there are two teams that very few had advancing to this stage.
VCU and Butler have punched their ticket to Houston by taking down some of the highest-ranked, talent-flush teams in college basketball. The strong play of these underdogs proves once again that a playoff system is the best way to determine a champion. It is the most equitable method to determine who should take home the trophy.
In college football, the opportunity to win a national championship is only available to those who run in the same circles. A school must belong to a BCS conference to even be considered. Meanwhile, NCAA basketball shares the same equitable method to determine a champion as Division II Football, Division III Football, women’s field hockey, squash, and every other NCAA sport. You can get hot at the right time, make a run, and win a title. It’s the American way!
Unfortunately college football is more of a mafia cartel. The teams without the name will never have a chance to get hot and make a run due to the BCS. You’d think John Gotti himself set it up.
With the NFL in a lockout, College Football has a great opportunity to make some headway increasing their fan base, and what better way to grab more fans then by creating a playoff system?
We all know this won’t happen without pressure from the fans, but it would be epic. You would see some smaller programs get hot at the right time and run the table.
The fans will continue to be forced to watch lopsided routes and terrible teams play each other in terrible tradition-less bowl games rather than experience all the excitement and fairness of a single elimination playoffs system.
Michael Bradley Sullivan serves as an SFC Sportswriter Fellow. He is a senior broadcast journalism major at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. He was born and Raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is a fan of the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Dallas Cowboys, and the San Antonio Spurs. Follow him on twitter here.
by Jeremiah Tittle
Fiesta Bowl CEO and President John Junker – one of the many villains who often float behind the scenes in the white collar crime spree we call the BCS system – was fired today. Credit goes to Playoff PAC, who have spent months filing IRS complaints and working to show how the Fiesta Bowl — which is supposed to be a nonprofit — was lavishly spending, overcompensating its executives and illegally reimbursing politicians. An investigative report commissioned by the Fiesta Bowl’s Board of Directors was released today, showing these improprieties and validating Playoff PAC’s efforts. Hat tip to them.
This scandal has BCS mess written all over it, and while we’d like to celebrate in times like these, it’s in our best interest as sports fans to take everything with a grain of salt. Do we really trust the other BCS Bowls to clean up their act because one got caught?
The answer is simple. No.
As long as University presidents bank seven figure salaries and BCS conference schools rake in millions each year, there will be no change to the current system. That is unless and until we college football fans unite into one voice and strike fear into the powers that be. We need to hold their feet to the fire to correct these improprieties that continue to plague our inequitable, publicly-funded NCAA college football post-season debacle.
Read the press release here.
Join SportsFans.org today and let’s use our power wisely to fight for a playoff in NCAA Division I Football.
Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFans.org. He graduated from the University of Maryland. He is a fan of the Terps, the football team in the Washington, D.C. area, the Wizards, Manchester United, and Napoli.
Follow him at www.twitter.com/WWWJT.
Email him at Jeremiah@SportsFans.org.
[Note: An earlier version of this reported that "it was Playoff PAC and SportsFans.org’s own efforts putting pressure on this entity" that led to the revelations of the Fiesta Bowl improprieties. In fact, Playoff PAC deserves all the credit. SportsFans.org has merely reported on Playoff PAC's efforts to force today's revelations.]
If you have any specific comments about the BCS, our executive director would like to hear from you. He’s speaking at Harvard Law School on Friday about the BCS and would like to include some comments from fans. Now’s your chance to be heard by some of the most powerful people considering the issue!
Comment below or write to Brian directly at brian@sportsfans.org.
And if you’re in the Boston area, come on out!
Attention Boston-area sports fans:
On Friday, Harvard Law School will be hosting a sports law symposium on college athletics and the BCS. The symposium lasts all day and is free to the public. You can read more about it here.
If you’d like to let your feelings about the BCS be known, write brian@sportsfans.org and tell him or comment on here. He may read your comments!
Here are the details on the BCS panel:
PANEL #5 – BCS PANEL - 3:50-5:00pm
The Bowl Championship Series has been attacked by legal scholars, state attorney generals, and other interested parties as violating federal antitrust law. In 2010-11, however, non automatic-qualifying schools took home a record $24.7 million. Additionally, Playoff PAC recently submitted a report to the Internal Revenue Service challenging the tax-exempt status of the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls and arguing that the three BCS bowls should not be considered Section 501(c)(3) charities. This panel explores the antitrust and tax issues associated with the BCS.
PANELISTS:
by Jonathan Maldonado
Current and former employees of the BCS’s Fiesta Bowl are being investigated in response to allegations of possible improper campaign donations. Reports on the matter indicate employees made contributions to friendly politicians towards political campaigns. Such contributions violate state and federal law.
Read the full story here.
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