Justice Dept. opens anti-trust inquiry into BCS

[gwallaia]

In a letter to the NCAA on Wednesday, the Justice Department said it has opened an antitrust inquiry into the current Bowl Championship Series system, which excludes some athletic conferences from the formula for choosing schools to play in major bowl games

http://www.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/05/04/ncaa.bcs/index.html?hpt=T2

Please, please, please let this be the beginning of the end for the crooked BCS.

 

[bah007]

For all the faults of the BCS, and there are plenty, I think it gets a lot of undeserved heat for excluding the smaller conferences. Without the BCS, we would never have seen TCU in the Rose Bowl or Boise St in the Fiesta Bowl.

Now, maybe that just speaks to how crooked college football was even before the BCS. But in my opinion, the BCS has been good for the sport. I consider it a step forward from the previous system. I do think that further steps are needed, but I think college football is better off now than it was before, at least in terms of competitive advantage between the small and large programs.

The argument that the BCS is out to keep the smaller programs down is false. They have always been held down. Only one team from one of these smaller conferences, BYU in 1984, has ever won a national championship. In the entire history of college football. And in all those decades before, the BCS wasn't around to hold the little guys down.

I would argue that the BCS has actually given the smaller programs an opportunity.

The real reason that people hate the BCS is because of the way it decides its champion. People want a playoff, and the BCS stands in their way of that happening.

I would back a proposition for a playoff if the fans would just admit that is the only reason they want the BCS out, instead of pretending like they actually care about the smaller schools' welfare.

 

[gwallaia]

I don't have the exact figures handy, I will have to look them up and provide a link later. But the schools in BCS conferences get something like 90% of the millions of dollars generated by the bowl games every year while all the non-bcs conference spilt up the remaining 10%.

Therefore, the schools in the BCS conferences receive larger pay-out and are able to build nicer facilities and draw in more recruits which in turn financially helps the universities creating an unfair playing field. This is where I think the anti-trust inquiry is going.

 

[bah007]

I think I'm right in saying that the BCS only controls who gets into the BCS games, not all the bowl games. So while that statistic may be true, it would be because the teams from BCS conferences draw more money in their bowl games, thus gaining more for their conference.

If it means that 90% of the revenue from BCS games only goes to the BCS conferences then that would make more sense. But it is also logical. There are 5 BCS bowl games. So that is 10 teams. Each of their cuts of the revenue goes to their respective conference. If only one school from a non BCS conference plays in one of these games, then naturally only 1/10 of the revenue would be going outside of the BCS conferences.

Now that may be your point. But the only way to keep that from happening would be to let more non BCS teams into the BCS games. Which is fine with me, but if only one team has shown that it "deserves" to play in one of those games then only one team should be let in.

 

[bah007]

I have issue with the fact that Boise St was not selected to play in a BCS game this year while a pathetic Connecticut team got in merely because of its conference affiliation.

That is one of the issues I have with the BCS.

But on the whole, if more of the smaller schools played better football, they would be playing in these games.

 

[Dutchrudder]

Just institute an EPL version of relegation into the NCAA football system and dole out the bowl games for the Top two tiers, and then some small ones for the teams fighting to move up/down a tier. That way a small school can work itself up the ladder, and large schools can fall down. It would be totally awesome!

 

[Pantherstang84]

I for one am certainly glad our government is really tackling the important issues facing our country.

 

[eriadoc]

For all the faults of the BCS, and there are plenty, I think it gets a lot of undeserved heat for excluding the smaller conferences. Without the BCS, we would never have seen TCU in the Rose Bowl or Boise St in the Fiesta Bowl.

Or BYU in the title game. Wait .... what?

 

[gwallaia]

It all boils down to the vast majority of money pay-outs the schools in the so called BCS conferences get year in and year out compared to the other schools. That is what is unfair and that is what the anti-trust lawsuit is targeting.

 

[b0ng]

How are smaller schools supposed to get in to the title game exactly? Win out? That doesn't garuntee you a spot in a title game. Schedule tougher OOC games? Good luck trying to get one of them to come to your place if you are BYU/TCU/Boise St. The fact is that big schools like UT don't want to schedule people who could come close to beating them as their out of conference games they want cupcakes.

And I see why it is like this. If you are UT, or Florida or another big dog school in an AQ conference why would you schedule up and comers like the schools listed above? If you lose to a school like that you've almost completely wiped out your road to the title game (But at least you got a shot!).

The problem that I have with this inquiry is that it's going to be really really hard for them to prove that there is harm being done to smaller schools.

 

[BigBull17]

How are smaller schools supposed to get in to the title game exactly? Win out? That doesn't garuntee you a spot in a title game. Schedule tougher OOC games? Good luck trying to get one of them to come to your place if you are BYU/TCU/Boise St. The fact is that big schools like UT don't want to schedule people who could come close to beating them as their out of conference games they want cupcakes.

And I see why it is like this. If you are UT, or Florida or another big dog school in an AQ conference why would you schedule up and comers like the schools listed above? If you lose to a school like that you've almost completely wiped out your road to the title game (But at least you got a shot!).

The problem that I have with this inquiry is that it's going to be really really hard for them to prove that there is harm being done to smaller schools.

Yep. Non AQ teams have to be perfect, and that wont even guarantee you a shot. Then, those teams get WAY more money than you. Which helps them have better facilities. Which helps recruiting. Which helps you win. Players will mostly choose a lower end BCS AQ team over a solid non AQ team. It creates an environment that prevents the non AQ teams from completing. I think the NCAA may have problems beating this one.