BCS to add 5th Bowl
Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 9:07 pmLooks like another BCS bowl. Hooray!(note the sarcasm)
Associated Press
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- The Bowl Championship Series agreed to add a fifth game Sunday, increasing access for schools not part of college football's most lucrative postseason system.
The champions of the six BCS conferences -- the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-10 -- will maintain an automatic berth in one of the five games. The remaining four spots will be at-large berths to be decided by a complex formula using national rankings.
The fifth bowl is still subject to final approval based on market viability, but all indications point to it being in place when the new BCS contract takes effect before the 2007 season.
Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer, a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, said existing bowls probably will have the first shot at becoming the fifth BCS bowl.
"We are envisioning a bowl of equal stature in terms of its command of television audiences and its desirability from a standpoint of teams," Frohnmayer said. "Whether that would come from the volunteering of an existing bowl system and its own structure or the creation of a new bowl, that's something we simply can't determine at this point."
The current four BCS bowls are the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange. One of those bowls pits the top two teams in the BCS standings in a championship game, which will be the Orange Bowl next season. The Rose, Fiesta and Sugar host the other games.
Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting disadvantage.
The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.
Frohnmayer said those figures will increase under the new format. This decision came after a six-hour meeting, the third between the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee and the Coalition for Athletics Reform, which has been fighting to change the current system.
Negotiations with the bowls and TV networks begin soon, starting almost immediately with next year's Rose Bowl, putting some sense of urgency to the talks.
Associated Press
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- The Bowl Championship Series agreed to add a fifth game Sunday, increasing access for schools not part of college football's most lucrative postseason system.
The champions of the six BCS conferences -- the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-10 -- will maintain an automatic berth in one of the five games. The remaining four spots will be at-large berths to be decided by a complex formula using national rankings.
The fifth bowl is still subject to final approval based on market viability, but all indications point to it being in place when the new BCS contract takes effect before the 2007 season.
Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer, a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, said existing bowls probably will have the first shot at becoming the fifth BCS bowl.
"We are envisioning a bowl of equal stature in terms of its command of television audiences and its desirability from a standpoint of teams," Frohnmayer said. "Whether that would come from the volunteering of an existing bowl system and its own structure or the creation of a new bowl, that's something we simply can't determine at this point."
The current four BCS bowls are the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange. One of those bowls pits the top two teams in the BCS standings in a championship game, which will be the Orange Bowl next season. The Rose, Fiesta and Sugar host the other games.
Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting disadvantage.
The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.
Frohnmayer said those figures will increase under the new format. This decision came after a six-hour meeting, the third between the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee and the Coalition for Athletics Reform, which has been fighting to change the current system.
Negotiations with the bowls and TV networks begin soon, starting almost immediately with next year's Rose Bowl, putting some sense of urgency to the talks.
