The Fairness Bowl
House Bill: Institute College Football Playoff System
ARLINGTON, Texas — Sports writer Dave Zirin probably said it best about the Bowl Championship Series.
“Nothing brings the nation together like hatred of the BCS,” he wrote in his recent column “Bench the BCS.”
Indeed, look at the co-sponsors of the House bill — the College Football Playoff Act of 2009 — that would foster a playoff system to determine the supreme college football team in America.
It’s a Texas conservative Republican and a former Black Panther turned Chicago Democrat.
But both Reps. Joe Barton and Bobby Rush have vastly different takes on the BCS.
Rush equates the BCS to, well, let’s put it this way: during a House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee hearing last year, Rush called the “Atlantic Coast Conference” the “Athletic Coast Conference.”
In his defense, this is the same congressman who brushed off critics that would prefer Congress tackle other important issues like the Afghan war instead by saying, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
While it’s not clear how Rush himself can make political hay out of this issue, it is clear that the BCS is an ATM machine for the jet set.
Barton, the highest ranking member of the subcommittee, refers to the BCS as a “cartel.”
And this is the same congressman whose district includes the new billion-dollar Dallas Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
According to PlayOff PAC, $492.5 million in bowl money was given to the six conferences that have automatic bowl bids — the Southeastern, the Pac 10, the Big 10, the Big 12, the Atlantic Coast, and the Big East.
Moreover, the pie is not evenly distributed either. Zirin noted, “A small-conference team such as unbeaten Boise State will see less money this bowl season than the 1-11 Pac-10 doormat Washington State.”
The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reported last October that the 25 top football schools averaged surpluses of $3.9 million in 2008. The other 94 schools in the top division averaged $9.9 million deficits each.
The pay for BCS coaches and non-BCS coaches is also unequal, the commission found. In fact, head football coaches at state schools are most likely the highest-paid public employees.
Zirin noted, “Mack Brown of Texas, who just received a $2-million-a-year raise, for an annual salary of $5 million, until the end of his contract in 2016.”
And if the football team tanks, chances are the university’s financial sovereignty will too.
Of course, the members of these conferences are throwing money at Congress to see that this rigged, lopsided system stay intact.
The Center for Responsive Politics noted that the BCS has given $70,000 to K Street lobbyists this year. It’s head Washington lobbyist is J.C. Watts, a former congressman and former University of Oklahoma football star. It’s public relations operative is former President George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer.
According to Politico.com, other notable BCS system backers on Capital Hill include The University of Michigan ($415,000), Purdue University ($515,000), the National Collegiate Athletic Association ($120,000), the Football Bowl Association ($10,000), and the Atlantic Coast Conference ($250,000).
Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch has also spent $3,885,000 this past year in lobbying against the Barton/Rush bill on the tip that his FoxSports Network broadcasts BCS games. The current BCS television contracts expire in 2014 at which time the bowl system will be up for review.
Aside from automatic bid for the big, rich universities in the system, the rankings of those football programs is also suspect because the selection is based on formulas processed by computer systems. While coaches have the ability to rank teams in weekly BSC polls, the jobs of coaches with winning records are still on the line.
“Most coaches who lose half their games would also lose their jobs. Yet that’s what we settle for in determining a champion today.” explained Rep. Barton in a press statement last month.
Barton said he filed this bill, though, after hoping that by exposing BCS’s flaws in 2005, the powers-that-be would fix the way the system determines a clear champion, which is what he favors in the end because otherwise the public is being sold a lie.
“Consumers, whether the millions who watch the game on TV or the lucky few who pay for a ticket to the computer-designated ‘championship’ game, are being deceived,” he said. “The BCS championship game is not a championship game under any sensible interpretation of the manner in which sports champions are determined.”
However, the Playoff Act itself doesn’t call for such a radical change as scraping automatic bids for fhe big, rich state schools nor does it mandate a prefabricated playoff system.
The legislation … rather only [states that] all Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision, teams should be initially eligible at the start of every season. The existing bowl structure could easily be incorporated into or as the basis for such a playoff system.”
Radicals like Zirin, on the other hand, would prefer Congress make higher education more financially sound relative to a state university’s football program.
For example, student fees have tripled and academic programs slashed in the ‘00s at UC Berkeley whose campus has invested $430 million into renovating its football stadium.
At least, “[the Barton/Rush bill] holds the potential to expose the way that the Bowl Championship Series facilitates a system willing to sacrifice education at the altar of athletics,” Zirin concluded.
The legislation has found support in both President Barack Obama and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), both opponents of the BCS system.
However, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman indicated the bill wouldn’t go before a full committee vote last December due to priority constraints.
“Oftentimes we don’t need legislation to accomplish our goals,” Waxman told the Hll.
According to Fox 12 Idaho, this spirit rings true for Barton, too.
“All they have to do is drop the word ‘Championship’ and call it the ‘Big-Time College Football Series,’ or the ‘Dollar Maximization Series,’” Fox 12 said. “It’s a little tongue in cheek, but you get the idea.”
