Utah AG May Sue BCS

[gostangs]

The only thing I know is that this is the only thing that has a chance to bust up the cartel. Once the BCS sees they have more pigs at the trough - and thus less dough per pig, the only option to get the $ back to the per member numbers they were getting before is to create a playoff.

[Dooby]

Someone said the NCAA is not at fault. It absolutely is. If you include each sport and its various divisions (I, II, III), there are something like 108 different sports. Each one, from Division III Rifle to Division I Women's Soccer to Division I College Basketball to Division I FCS Footbal has a national championship. There is only one exception: Division I FBS Subdivision College Football.

Not coincidentally, Division I FBS Subdivision College Football is the most lucrative sport. The BCS is the NCAA's way of abdicating the right to have a national champion because a slim majority of arbitrarily selected schools want to control the gross majority of funds that would be generated by the NCAA having such a national championship itself.

[White Helmet]

you need an upgrade HB

I drank up the "Blue Label" before Thad showed and wouldn't let him break into the "Gold Label".

He was restricted to "Black Label", Makers Mark, and Bushmill's 10 Year Old Single Malt all of which he dented quite well!

When do I get to come dent the Blue Label huh?

[EastStang]

Actually the BCS was the answer after the Supreme Court ruled that Oklahoma could control its own TV rights, it just ballooned. There are 119 FBS teams. There are 65 teams in the BCS. Thus when the FBS members of the NCAA meet to discuss a "championship" the motion to table carries 65-54 every time. Before the ACC raid and the BE raid, the numbers were closer. 62-57. But unless you have some Universities which believe in competition more than $$$$, that vote will never change. I could see a few schools that might be more ivory tower. But not enough to overcome that vote deficit. The only way this gets solved is in Court without a settlement. If the BCS teams say we're leaving the NCAA for football, the answer would be, fine, your teams are banned from participating in all other NCAA sports championships, now go start your own in those sports as well and good luck with meeting your Title IX requirements which will now be enforced to the letter starting on January 20, 2009.

[Stallion]

plus I feel the BCS schools will threaten their -what is it Section 501(c) IRS exemption for an educational institution. Without that exemption, a donation to a charitable, educational, scientifific or other exempted institution is not tax deductable. There are some strict requirements for meeting each IRS exemption. There goes the House of Cards again.

[ponyte]

I love the opinions thus far. Expectation is starting to look better and better. I am hoping I can cling to hope and not change to expectation. But then change is in the air now days.

But really, who would have ever thought a cartel that functions as a monopoly would upset an AG?

[Peruna2001]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3815656

"This is not how we normally do things in America," says Utah president Michael Young. "In America, quality usually wins, not conspiracy. And there's a reason people usually enter into a conspiracy. It's money. You make money doing it. And those that are in on the conspiracy want to stay in and keep everybody else out."

[huskerpony]

I imagine the Utah AG's tune will change if the BCS expands to add the Cotton Bowl and offers to add the MWC to the cartel.

[deepellumfrog]

I imagine the Utah AG's tune will change if the BCS expands to add the Cotton Bowl and offers to add the MWC to the cartel.

I would think it would, but honestly I doubt whether they could get away with just adding one conference at this point. It will probably be an all or nothing deal at this point. My 2 Cents anyway

[abezontar]

I hope you're right.

[Treadway21]

"This is not how we normally do things in America," says Utah president Michael Young. "In America, quality usually wins, not conspiracy. And there's a reason people usually enter into a conspiracy. It's money. You make money doing it. And those that are in on the conspiracy want to stay in and keep everybody else out."

Charge the BCS Presidents under the RICO Act. Throw 'em in the Pen.

[ponyte]

"This is not how we normally do things in America," says Utah president Michael Young. "In America, quality usually wins, not conspiracy. And there's a reason people usually enter into a conspiracy. It's money. You make money doing it. And those that are in on the conspiracy want to stay in and keep everybody else out."

Charge the BCS Presidents under the RICO Act. Throw 'em in the Pen.

And ADs.

[Stallion]

Interesting article on Utah's possible Sherman Anti-Trust case-I think its entirely correct about the alleged exclusion from the National Championship Game but I never really thought that would be the aim of such as suit anyway-I see a possible challenge to be aimed at the BCS system in a broader sense rather just the Title Game. Note that the writer agrees with my comment that this is a more difficult case than when the BCS system was created since the changes have been made in the BCS over the years as a results of legal threats in the past. The writer failed to mention that the "non-BCS" conferences actually are paid even if they don't appear as a result of agreements made with each Division 1A conference. ie the non-BCS schools are in fact co-conspirators who were signatories to the alleged monopolistic agreements which is a legal impossibility.


http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plan ... ument.aspx

[huskerpony]

I have a question about that for the legal folk.....Does it matter that the other conferences are supposedly "co-conspirators"? If they were forced to join a monopolistic system in order to have even a miniscule chance at being able to compete, how does that make them co-conspirators?

One would assume that all of the university presidents of every school in every mid-major conference did not agree with the decision that was made between the BCS and they're conference comissioners anyway (only a majority of schools at a majority of confrences would have had to vote yes to agree to the deal.)

If say, SD St. did not feel that this was the appropriate course, they would have had no recourse other than to leave their conference, or D1-A football altogether, which would have hurt their academic institution as a result. So, hypothetically, they were forced to join a system against their will, in order to sustain some minimal sense of standing in the system and were basically thrown a bribe to do so and keep them on the outskirts of the system--yet relatively happy and quiet.

This, to me, seems similar to being forced to join a union in order to work somewhere. Whether you agree with it or not, you have to join the union, pay union dues, and accept union benefits in order to keep your job and support your family. Just because you accept any benefits a union may provide for you, does not, in my mind, make you a co-conspirator with the union. You may just be someone doing what is right for your family. That doesn't mean you approve of being forced to join a union against your will and give up part of your paycheck to pay for things for which you do not agree with. Nor should it mean that you could not sue said union if you were wronged by it in some fashion.

Second, if the BCS is in fact a monopoly, what does it matter if the smallest pieces of that monopoly agreed to be part of it or not. Does that take away your standing to go to court and say "hey, this is a monopoly?" Can't the government declare an industry a monopoly on its own anyway? I thought it usually required the justice department to actually go after a monopoly anyway. If say, a hundred years ago, you owned an oil company, but were forced to shut down and sell your company because you couldn't compete with Standard Oil--or merge with them in some fashion, does that mean you couldn't have been a defendant against Rockefeller because you had taken his money?

AND, one would assume that all companies that are taken over in order to form a monopoly are, in fact, co-conspirators under this theory because they agreed to/took money/whatever to join/sell to/merge with the monopoly. That doesn't mean it isn't a monopoly just because all of the players willingly participated.

I will leave it there before I go too far into mixing football, law, and politics with my vodka. But, seriously, if anyone can give me a quick explanation of why it would matter that they were co-conspirators, it would be greatly appreciated. Because, it would seem to me, that even if I was a leading member of a conspiracy (say maybe Pete Carroll), that I should be able to at some point step back and say, "hey wait a minute, this is f-ed up," and have my case heard in a court of law.

[Stallion]

yeah that would be the legal argument-I was just articulating the legal defense that would be raised by the BCS schools and which is often successful. Believe it or not the statutes which form the basis of the antitrust laws in the US and the states are very short and general-each word has spawned a thousand cases so you would have to do some serious research on that particular issue to have a feeling for it.