Utah Bowl Payout

[50's PONY]

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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports

Dec. 20, 2004, 11:33PM



Piece of BCS pie sweet for Utah
Mountain West benefits to tune of $14.5 million
By JEROME SOLOMON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

The Bowl Championship Series has been trying to appease outsiders since it began in 1998.

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The leaders operating what has been in effect a totalitarian system have even paid a pittance over the years to non-member Division I-A and I-AA conferences to "support the game of college football."

Last year, the BCS paid $6 million (an amount one athletic director jokingly called "hush money") to the non-BCS conferences while pocketing more than $112 million for the six BCS leagues.

The year before, it was $5.5 million out of $114.7 million; the year before that, it was $4.2 million of $98 million.

Get the picture?

After the threat of a lawsuit and, worse yet, congressional involvement, the BCS had to make some real changes to its criteria for inclusion in a BCS bowl. Even then, the last thing it expected was for a team in a conference outside the BCS to meet the criteria.

Hello, Utah, which finished No. 6 in the BCS standings and became the first outsider to earn a spot. The Utes face Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1.

"It's exciting for us to be the first team from a non-qualifying conference to make a BCS game," said Utah athletic director Chris Hill. "Still, I feel there needs to be more access for non-BCS schools. Just this year, Louisville and Boise State had outstanding seasons.

"Obviously, something we'd like to see is more access."

Translation: more money. (And an outside chance to play for the national championship.)

Schools in the BCS conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern Conference — budget substantial money for BCS profit each year. The amounts change slightly, based on whether a conference gets two teams into BCS games (the Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls).

In the 2006 season, there will be a fifth BCS bowl, and BCS organizers say as much as 18 percent of BCS revenues will go to non-member conferences. In the first six years under the BCS, 23 of the 24 BCS bowl slots and 93 percent of the $592 million in payouts went to teams from the six BCS leagues. (Notre Dame, an independent, played in the Fiesta Bowl in the 2000 season as an at-large selection.)

The $14.5 million given by the Fiesta Bowl to Utah and the Mountain West Conference this season is more than three times what the conference had earned from the BCS ($4.4 million) since the league began in 1999. After expenses, Utah's inclusion should earn the Utes $4 million and provide $1 million for each of the other teams in the Mountain West.

Had the Utes not made the Fiesta Bowl, the BCS would have given the Mountain West $1,050,000, the same amount Conference USA and two other Division I-A leagues receive. Eight Division I-AA conferences, including the SWAC, of which Texas Southern is a member, get $200,000 each.

"It's like found money, money that's unbudgeted," Jim Andrus, associate commissioner for business and finance for the Mountain West Conference, said of the windfall generated by Utah. "This is a wonderful opportunity for the Mountain West Conference and our member institutions, but it's a nice one-time infusion of money. Unfortunately, it's not a yearly budget item."

On the other hand, BCS conferences can expect $17 million to $22 million a year as long as no outsider makes a Bowl Championship Series game.

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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2957215