The BCS is awful, but it's hardly a problem for Congress
By Steve Benen Monday Apr 21, 2008 8:30amI haven’t followed college football in quite a while, but I remember that when I was a fan, the sport’s post-season system — known as the “Bowl Championship Series” — was thoroughly annoying. Playoff systems are utilized in college baseball, basketball, hockey, and Divisions II and III football, but Division IA college football relies on a bizarre, byzantine system, intended to allow the first- and second-ranked teams to play for the national title.
A team can go undefeated, but not be eligible for the big game (this has happened). A team can finish second in the polls, but be left out if computer rankings override the judgment of humans (this has happened, too).
But it’s one thing for fans to find this frustrating. It’s another for Congress to intervene.
Forget government corruption or corporate fraud. Three members of Congress want the Justice Department to investigate whether college football’s Bowl Championship Series is an illegal enterprise.
Reps. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, are introducing a resolution rejecting the oft-criticized bowl system as an illegal restriction on trade because only the largest universities compete in most of the major bowl games. The resolution would require Justice’s antitrust division to investigate whether the system violates federal law.
The measure also would put Congress on record as supporting a college football playoff.
“Who elected these NCAA people? Who are they to decide who competes for the championship?” Abercrombie said at a press conference Thursday on Capitol Hill, gripping a souvenir University of Hawaii football.
I’m afraid these guys have let their enjoyment of the game get a little out of hand.
It’s hardly a mystery why these three lawmakers, in specific, would be upset. The University of Hawaii and Boise State University have both enjoyed undefeated seasons of late, and both were denied the chance to play for the championship. Last year, the University of Georgia was screwed, too.
But what on earth does this have to do with Congress? The BCS is stupid, but by what reasoning is it illegal?
James Joyner’s take is spot-on.
Now, granted, these are just three comparatively minor Members and this will likely go nowhere. Still, this is asinine. As Sean Hackbarth points out, Congress has more important matters on its plate.
Moreover, the answer to “Who elected these NCAA people?” is the presidents of its constituent universities. Who better to decide how college sports should be governed than the leaders of the colleges? Surely, not a group of people with demonstrably no business sense.
Personally, I’d prefer a playoff to the current system. But that’s a matter for the colleges to decide, with some pressure from the market. It’s certainly not within the legitimate purview of the legislature.
I’d just add that Congress’ interest in the subject is not without precedent. In December 2005, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection — which refused to hold substantive hearings on much of anything — scrutinized the BCS. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), then-chairman of the full committee, said at the time, “Man doesn’t live by policy alone. Sports is an important part of American society.”
Maybe so. But that doesn’t explain Congress calling for a Justice Department investigation of college football’s post-season system.
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Thanks Congress, now I can get to sleep at night knowing that my kids will have proper College Football Champions. Now if I can only do something about that mountain of debt you're leaving them...Oh never mind, I'd rather have a larger rink in Hockey, is Arlen Spector busy?
The people who voted for these three dumbasses must feel very proud.
I hope the Congress intervenes and does something about the ellimination of the center red line in ice hockey.
Or maybe they should expand the investigation of the Patriots taping other teams practices.
Hey, I got it, why don't they investigate steroid use in sports?
ahhhh.....priorities.
At last... an issue so unimportant, Congress is actually willing to deal with it! At least now we know where the boundary is between what they are (college football) and are not (war, the free-falling dollar, home foreclosures) willing to work on.
That speaks volumes
Yeah, since clearly they have nothing better to do. I say we slash their salaries. They must have so much free time on their hands they can get a second job.
Oh, yeah, but think of how their re-election campaign will sound: "Vote for me because I brought the Warriors to the BCS!!"
And he'll win by a landslide...
I guess the object is to get Liberty vs Messiah in the big game. and make sure Notre Dame is never heard from again.
Don't forget this classic: "We have a right to have honest football games"- SENATOR, Arlen Specter
lol these guys will dine with SATAN FOR AN ETERNITY!!!
If Congress is able to keep lowering expectations of what they can accomplish, sooner or later it is inevitable they will be able to meet expectations. That's what it's all about, right? Forget about setting lofty goals and reaching for them. That's why they earn the big bucks - they can reduce expectations better than anyone.
I'm not sure about Idaho, but weren't the Universities of Georgia and Hawaii 2 teams that were pissed off about not getting invited to the Championship game this year?
WTF? We were lied to and our country was taken into a war that never ends. Where does that problem appear on their schedule?
Can you say...
D O - N O T H I N G C O N G R E S S ??
How much do these DEADBEATS make a year???
1. distraction distraction distraction.
- We failed to get the kind of interest/outrage/press for our little attack on major league baseball. Where can we try this stupid shit again?
2. Play in the mud...
- After making it's completely ineffectual nature perfectly clear the congress critters are left to deal with whatever stupidity the public throws it's way. When you make your job a laughing stock don't be surprised if you're suddenly surrounded by clowns.
joerogansvnecktee @ 13:
Yeah. Boise State fnas think they got shafted, too. uga just didn't deserve it. They lost too many early games. And the score of the sugar bowl (41-10 uga) says all you need to know about Hawaii.
McCain the Liar @ 2:
As someone who live in Georgia, let me tell you: they are.
Um.. when's the last time a Congressional hearing accomplished anything? Steroids? not really. 9/11 (cough). i mean... i hate the championship series and would like it to change, but i dont think it will.
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)--THE ten commandments, pro-torture, college football candidate.
It just occurred to me...they're pissed off because they aren't getting a piece of the action. Skimming off the National Treasury, misappropriating Our tax dollars and bribes from the wealthy lobby groups just isn't the lucrative gig it used to be.
these guys are listening to their constituents, who are listening to sports talk radio. a lot of the rest of the country's constituents listen to right wing political talk radio, which is why the politicians do a lot of the other irrational and absurd things they do.
Meh...
I am from Idaho. We were undefeated a while back and won the fiesta bowl with a stunning overtime play. Real Norman Rockwell stuff you know. It was disappointing that we couldn't go on because of rules. I know that this kind of grandstanding is probably inappropriate, but shoot...it made me laugh...rarely do my Reps do anything that makes me do anything but cry....
I suppose it's no small coincidence that Boise State and the U of Hawaii, teams that were adversely affected by the BCS system, just happen to represented by two of the senators, but before you get all worked up over this "distraction," do a little checking on the business of Division 1 college football. Coaches salaries alone make this a multi-million dollar industry. Throw in TV, advertising, licensing, ticket sales, and wagering and you're looking at something that's not just somebody's idle hobby.
The question of "who better to decide than college presidents?" hinges on which college presidents are making the decision. If there's evidence that larger college are colluding to further their own interests at the expense of lesser institutions, that's exactly the type of investigation the anti-trust division should undertake, just as they should in any other type of business. Just because we're talking about universities with their supposedly clean reputation and sports with its recreational reputation doesn't mean that aren't some serious money and policy issues involved here.
"I’m not sure about Idaho, but weren’t the Universities of Georgia and Hawaii 2 teams that were pissed off about not getting invited to the Championship game this year?"
Yup.
Y'know, is this such a bad thing? I mean, colleges get a lot of endowments and prestige based on the strength of their athletic programs. A college that's being unfairly shut out of a championship bid could mean a college that is unfairly given a more difficult chance to attract new students and to seek out donations. I know there are "better" things that Congress could be doing, but I don't think the idea is totally without merit.
What the fuck??? Is this what these guys are getting paid to do? Investigate post season college sports?? Who gives a shit about that??? Unless, of course, these guys like to bet heavy on post season college teams - something I don't think they'd want their constituents finding out.
I watch sports to escape things like politics and now these clowns and Specter invade my space again. I'm just going to punt.
sorry mr benan
this is a non story ...
how about clinton threatening iran with attack if elected
Clinton Threatens Iran
I agree congress is unsuited to make a decision on this system. College football already has a playoff system. It is called the regrular season. Failure to win all your games usually will disqualify you for the "big game" as it should be. What I do not want to see is a team that has three losses and happens to win the last three games and is crowned national champions over a team that was undefeated. Not everthing has to be like the pros. In fact making college like the pros would be the opposite of improvement.
Leave it alone.
joerogansvnecktee @ 13:
Georgia and Hawaii were regulated to the Sugar Bowl (which was still a BCS bowl game), in which Hawaii was handed its collective ass on a platter as Georgia won 41-10.
What Congress should be looking into is how universities treats its athletes. Sure they're treated okay, but it's the athletes that are sweating, bleeding, sometimes broken on the field or court, whereas the universities reaps the rewards of the athletes work.
To me, it's akin to modern slavery.
joerogansvnecktee @ 13:
This past season, Georgia was ranked 4th in the polls going into the final week of the season, and after #2 and #3 lost, were leapfrogged by LSU, who went on to win the BCS Championship. Their argument loses steam, though, when you consider they didn't even qualify for the SEC Championship game, which was won by LSU. But they've been pretty consistent in their complaints about politics allowing LSU to jump them in the rankings.
Georgia went on to the Sugar Bowl, instead, where they played undefeated, you guessed it, Hawaii, and blew them out, 41-10. So I'm not sure anyone from Hawaii can legitimately argue that they deserved to be in the title game.
Boise State, on the other hand, completed an undefeated season in 2006 by beating Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl in what was arguably one of the greatest college games ever. They can make the argument that they deserved a shot at the title, but they had very few quality wins that year.
I agree that this is a waste of Congress's time, but I would like to see something done to change the current system. In 2006, my Rutgers team would have been denied a BCS berth as an undefeated team in a BCS conference based on the current system because it rewards those ranked highest in preseason polls. Big-name teams like Michigan, USC, Florida, etc. always get high rankings, and can stay ranked and in contention despite early season losses. Conversely, teams like Boise and Hawaii have to string together 7 or 8 wins just to get ranked, and then have to rely on the other teams to lose above them just to move up.
If nothing else, maybe congressional attention will force the NCAA to withhold the rankings until Week 4 or 5, as has been suggested. Or at least shed light on the silly payola system that keeps the bowl system in place.
It's ALL about TV and ticket sales and subsequent monies back to the school. A 7-5 Notre Dame or Nebraska in a bowl game is a better financial prospect than a 12-0 Idaho or Hawaii. College sports, especially football, has really been professional for a long time. There was an old joke back in the 70s when Barry Switzer and Oklahoma ruled the Big 8 and won several national championships. "What is the major difference between playing football at Oklahoma and then going to the NFL?" The pay cut.
Too busy doing other business to worry about impeachment...
ThunderMonkey @ 30:
Sometimes the athletes die; like that poor kid down here at the University of Central Florida.
LockeNessMonster @ 32:
Actually the bowl-game money goes back to the conference (hence, it's why Norte Dame stays independent). More schools within a conference in bowl games mean more money for the conference, the bigger bowl games of course pay out more, thus a school's cut may be a little bigger. (This is why the SEC tries to get so many teams into the bowl games as possible.)
Bowl games have a little impact on recruiting overall, but it does give teams more exposure. More exposure, may lead to more TV time during the regular season, and that's where the money goes back to the school.
Another sports investigation by Congress?
What's next, the adult entertainment business?
They'll regulate size and proportionment
So if you don't have a top to pop, don't bother.
Frankly I've never understood the appeal of College sports to anyone who never went to that college. Why do ND, Duke, or Ohio State have so many fans? Certainly not all of them attended the school and yet they have an appeal that goes beyond the college alumna, students, and townies. And why football or basketball? You seldom hear much about college baseball, hockey, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse or tennis?
marko @ 28:
Read that again, it has four big ifs. If she's elected, if Iran develops nuclear weapons, if Iran destroys Israel, if Israel doesn't or can't respond (most people are sure they have their own nuclear weapons, although they've never admitted it).
It could quickly sprial when you have other nations in the area already armed with nuclear weapons, so both Iran and America knows it.
Obama fan boy sounds desperate.
...and both Iran and America knows this.
I never played college ball, just sound like it.
emphasa @ 37:
Simply put: Tradition.
Either they grew up watching and hearing about those teams and continue to do so.
Why football and basketball? No clue. Football may have the strongest appeal because of the short seasons (usuall 10-11 for HS, 13-15 for College, and 16 for pros), thus it makes each game "special". Football is one of the few sports that it's just as entertaining to watch on TV as it is to be at the game live.
I've heard stories of guys (of a different generation) that could never relate to their fathers, except when it came to sports.
Oddly enough (and I know many won't believe it), it also has to do with hype. The media goes crazy in this country about football and basketball. Local sportscasts and newspapers place special emphasis on football and not the same attention to the other sports. It's still spring, but there are stories every day about the college football in the local paper.
It's kinda of like Obama is to football as John Edwards is to tennis in regards to media exposure.
the only time the BCS ever worked was it's first year when the tennessee volunteers won it all. since then, it has been a complete failure. unfortunately, the volunteer states contribution to college football has been overshadowed by the fact that the lowest form of life on the planet: redneck republicans, have infested this state since 1980. this infestation has made life here in the hills very frustrating. these fucking morons gave the lowlife w a chance to steal the 2000 election by "voting" for w over gore. i sincerely apologize to all americans for that.
mitch mcconnell was against the bcs. in fact, he intended to introduce legislation against it. then the republicans won a majority in the senate. then louisville went to the big east and won one of them bcs games.
mitch hasn't said a word about it since.
Abercrombie knows better. It isn't the NCAA's fault; it's just another triumph of money over athletic endeavor.
The BCS is about television ratings, first and foremost. That's why you never see small schools playing, or Ivy League schools that specialize in education, not even if they're undefeated. You never see those same schools playing on TV during the regular season, either.
TV ratings in turn are a function of sports gambling. That's something you never ever read about in the newspaper, and almost never on the Internet. It's a multi-billion dollar business. Will Penn State defeat Indiana by more than the 10-point spread, as determined thousands of miles away by some professional gambler in Las Vegas? People who bet on these games want to watch them, obviously...but who bets with a bookie on Harvard-Yale? Arguing about whether the #3 team deserves to be #2 and thus deserves to play against the #1 team for the national championship is an issue for the media and bloggers to argue about...the people who run the show know it's really all about $$$$$$.
biketowork @ 24:
Yep. This may not be the most important issue before Congress, but it ain't nothing either.
It makes you wonder what congress has up their sleeves.
Hey everyone! Look over there! Nothing behind this curtain.
You guys need to stop falling for stories you read on The Onion!
Liberal AND Proud @ 3:
"I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter." - Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) in Bull Durham (1988)
College football is a billion dollar enterprise and the BCS keeps the smaller conference's and schools out of the chance to win the national title or at the very least share in the lucrative BCS dollars!
It's high time congress does look into this anti trust violation that will hopefully bring about a national tournament and champion like division 2 football or at the very least like the ncaa basketball tourney.
What's with the "doom & gloom"?
emphasa @ 37:
Related question: Why do people pay good money for ball caps, jerseys, etc. for pro franchises like the Yankees, Raiders, Suns, etc. when what they are doing is providing free advertising for a business?
The answer in both cases is, wearing a ball cap for a team (college or pro) is a way of saying which tribe you belong to. It's a human characteristic that goes back a very long way.
To play the Devils Advocate for a minute:
How much money do colleges get from the government and states and who is paying for it? If the taxpayers are shelling out bucks for colleges, then shouldn't there be a fair way to make sure that Notre Dame at 5 and 6 doesn't get more money than Eastkabumf*ck State at 11 and 0 just because some schmucks decided more p[eople want to watch Notre Dame? If so, share the cash! Right!
IF we were paying our tax money for military equipment for our boys and some crooked company got that tax money and made even more money by special services rather than a legit company, we'd all be bitchin' about it.
Wait a minute? So this is different from Halliburton, how?
Notre Dame gets big bucks because tax money goes to that school, then Notre Dame gets selected over a school with a better record then gets money that should have gone to the better school that didn't get the exposure? Sounds anti trust fair to me or at least Bushian!
I could be wrong.
Father Tyme is right. On its surface the BCS seems like a waste of time for our legislative body, but consider that College Bowls are a multi billion dollar industry annually and it seems like something that should come under some sort of verifiable regulation. Especially since, at some level, tax payer money is tied up in state run university programs that compete for berths in the BCS. If there is fraud going on in the BCS selection process, that affects which schools get in and receive the million dollar contributions to their scholarship funds, and the public exposure. I think it certainly deserve regulatory attention.
Robert Broughton @ 51:
Sadly, so is this.
The real issue is why we allow a money making enterprise that exploits faux student athletes continue to have tax exempt status.
its not like there are't more important things to talk about, but, well, they are right. . . it isn't fair that hundreds of millions of dollars in funding go to only select universities. . .
maybe we should talk about socialized higher education in America.
Nice article about how schools rake it in from the BCS and college football in general.
They think they're multi-tasking.
fastfeat @ 33:
That's what I think every time I see Congress worried about steroids or crap like this. Unbelievable.
On the subject of choosing a college football champion, the immediate thing that should be done is to start scheduling games against championship caliber teams. Most schools in BCS conferences play non-conference schedules against teams that are not competition, just exhibitions. For example, Kansas State just paid Fresno State $250,000 to cancel a scheduled game because KSU wanted to play a patsy instead. Big schools schedule weak teams, but still charge full price.
Teams that want to compete for the national championship should play schedules that would determine the champion.
But Congress should stay out of it.
It's unabashedly about the money. Here's the press release on Abercrombie's website:
Matthew G. Saroff @ 55:
Yep. The BCS is just the cherry on top of the whole delicious sundae. How can a college coach make 5 million dollars a year when the player doesn't make a nickel? There are programs that intentionally keep players from taking challenging courses if they would distract from the sport. That is bullshit.
This is what happens when the US congress becomes as superfluous as the roman senate. Welcome to the new rome.
Forcing college football to abolish the BCS and go to a real playoff would be the greatest Congessional accomplishment of the decade.
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