NCAA - \"Do your Job\"

[Water Pony]

This SI article is right on target.

How can it happen given the stranglehold the BCS schools have

Do your job
NCAA governs college sports, so why isn't it running D I-A bowl games?
Posted: Tuesday June 15, 2004 5:33PM; Updated: Tuesday June 15, 2004 5:33PM


Here's a simple way to throttle down the annual rants over the Bowl Championship Series. Let's put control of Division I-A postseason football where it belongs -- under the long arm of the NCAA.

Say what you want about the NCAA, but the folks in Indianapolis know how to run a postseason, and they damn sure know how to stage championships. They pull it off in every other sport from basketball to water polo, right? So the idea that the NCAA brass should butt out when it comes to I-A football -- and only I-A football -- is a questionable, outdated practice that needs rethinking.

Most people don't understand that the BCS and NCAA are not one and the same. Mention another tweaking of the BCS -- such as its latest plan to add a fifth game to the annual rotation of major bowls -- and people assume these are NCAA shenanigans. Last week I heard a couple of sports-talk show hosts ranting at the top of their lungs about the BCS and the boneheads at the NCAA, and they weren't alone.

In actuality, the NCAA wiped its hands of I-A postseason football long ago. The 28 I-A bowls are owned and run by private organizations. The BCS oversees the Orange, Fiesta, Sugar and Rose bowls, which takes turns hosting the national title game. That's not to say the organization should be absolved of this mess. But since the bowl system took off in the 1950s, NCAA folks have rolled over and let the bowl representatives and sunny Chamber of Commerce-types run the postseason football show.

There are more bowls than we care to count. And this was all fine in the day when a bowl game was little more than a junket to the Sun Belt or points west. But the stakes have been juiced considerably since the formation of the BCS in 1998.

The idea was to finish the year with a national championship team while still preserving the bowl system. Great concept, except the BCS has undergone more facelifts than Joan Rivers, and it's run by a handful of elitists who are out to protect their turf. Six major conferences and Notre Dame control all of the BCS money, which last season topped $147 million.

So would these conference commissioners who run the BCS now willingly hand over keys to the bank and control of postseason football to the NCAA? Fat chance.

When the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a college sports reform group composed mostly of school presidents, recently advocated that the NCAA govern I-A postseason football, Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney and others hastily cast the suggestion as misguided. Delaney and even NCAA president Myles Brand represented the idea as the personal opinion of Knight Commission chair William Friday -- as if time had passed by the University of North Carolina president emeritus.

Well if it has, that's sad. Friday remains one of the most ethical and right-minded observers of college sports. It turns out, however, the spin was bogus; the Knight Commission's recommendation was OK'd internally by a consensus 9 to 2 margin. Friday did not even participate in the vote.

Trying to diminish the Knight Commission's recommendation suggests that the BCS power brokers aren't eager to relinquish control, and the NCAA doesn't have the stomach to fight them.

"Some of the most powerful players in the NCAA are unamused at the idea of losing that particular little gravy train,'' said Hodding Carter III, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, which is the funding arm of the college sports watchdog group. "And it is a very nice little club that they have formed. And it, of course, has a great virtue existing essentially under the control of the [conference] commissioners. You're talking about a fairly nice revenue stream for the have-nots in this case as well as the haves. That is to say it is not bad to be Iowa State if you're in the

[Water Pony]

. . .
That is to say it is not bad to be Iowa State if you're in the right conference. It is not quite the same distribution system as basketball [which spreads the wealth more widely], so that you actually can be poor and get richer just for being in a [BCS] conference.

"There are a good number of reasons for this, and all of them have to do with money. Virtually none of them have anything to do with any issue more elevated or academic than money. And once it is all about money, then keeping control tightly held in a very lucrative bowl system makes sense. If, of course, you're trying to make it be about something besides just the money then at least there is an opportunity through NCAA control to do a number of things.''

Problem is, there's a lot of status quo inertia when it comes to talk of the NCAA regaining control of postseason football. Observers contend college presidents don't have the nerve to take on the fight and that NCAA's Brand lacks the will.

Brand's position that he only wants to certify the bowls is no position at all. If you're going to be in the business of governing college sports, then do the whole job. Don't leave one of the most controversial and lucrative ventures in the hands of another cast of characters.

The bowl system is rife with nostalgia and nice folks doing nice things for college football. That's fine. Keep the bowls in place, if you want. But postseason D-I football should be run through the NCAA, just like every other sport. That way we know where to point the finger when these odd games are played.


Mike Fish is a senior writer for SI.com

[Southland]

Do your job
NCAA governs college sports, so why isn't it running D I-A bowl games?

because a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma and Alabama in the early 1980s (tv dispute) broke Division 1A college football away from the NCAA.

[Stallion]

actually the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA's system controlling TV rights which were owned by the universities (which were separate individual business entities)constituted a per se restraint of trade. I've read that opinion several times and it clearly states the NCAA has the right to govern college football in other areas such as staging college dootball championship and creating reasonable rules of competition. The truth is that today the same control that formerly existed at the NCAA level is now exerted at the BCS conference level a questionable result of the Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court decision foresaw individual schools competing on the basis of their own particular interests. For example, extending that rationale to bowl games a school or for that matter a bowl game would make decisions based on its own particular interests. What we have today is a monopoly of schools in the BCS conferences and BCS bowls coercing the market for their mutual benefits a highly questionable result under anti-trust laws. That's why a non-competitive BCS program like Baylor is able to command in the neighborhood of $10 million per year from bowl and TV contracts while a national competitive non-BCS program like BYU commands less than 1 million a year. In a truly free market of the type envisioned by the Supreme Court a school like BYU could compete for TV rights and bowl games and vice-versa on its own merits against other BCS and non-BCS schools. It is a house of cards that is only allowed to exist because of the indifference of the non-BCS schools. Of course, the real travesty is that the Supreme Court did not or Congress did not grant the NCAA an anti-trust exemption since theoretically they are not business entities but rather educational institutions whose charitable and educational benefits should not be judged by such a business model. Of course, since 1977 that cat's pretty well out of the Bag.

[Water Pony]

Southland and Stallion, thanks for adding to the discussion. The question is will Tulane (Cowen) and the other Mid-Majors, revitalize the threat of a suit to force this issue to the table or roll over on the crumbs offered with this 5th Bowl game. The opportunity to participate will fall very short of the reality.

Is opposition a waste of time?

[Sam I Am]

The NCAA is afraid of regulating the big time football schools for fear they will bolt and form their own collegiate association. Hence, the NCAA created divisions of school memberships. The BCS will never voluntarily relinquish control of their bowl income. Only a class action law suit will change it. The Tulane initiative has been co-opted by a fifth BCS bowl game, but that is not the same as a true playoff. A 16 team playoff would make a fortune, more than the ultra-rich NCAA BB TV contract. But the big boys do not want to share. Trust busters where are you?

[NavyCrimson]

as long as everybody else has that 'fear' of a pullout (layman's terms: whimpout which colleges are know for) - nothing will ever get done & the bcs-bs will always be here - get used to it folks!

the time is now to call their bluff.

let the %^$%$ pull out but who will they play? watch it bleed over into the other sports where the nonbcs-bs schools are more powerful & you'll see the whole damn thing fall like a house of cards, which it is.

its time to %%^$# or get off the pot!

[BUS]

Amen
Start the paper work TODAY.

Or go back to Congress. Most of them did not come from BCS schools so they can rub the BCS nose in some [deleted].

[Greenwich Pony]

I think if the big BCS schools want to go and form their own league; let 'em go. And then bar NCAA schools from playing them. They'll probably take 60 or so teams, but many of those teams that regularly have winning records won't anymore. Also, while I know many of these schools have massive alumni associations, I doubt it would be enough to maintain ratings over the long term.

As to their not-for-proit status, I would certainly push hard to challenge that. If it were all about competition and marketing, then why would they leave. The only reason to leave is money, and it should be taxed and the athletes should be treated as employees. If the BCS people are then happy fielding a professional farm league, then fine. But don't call it education.

[Stallion]

Also where are they going to find their patsies to have their 7-8 game home schedules? Do the Math-80,000 x 2 Dates X $35 (minimum) per ticket + concessions and receipts.

[NavyCrimson]

you'd have a lot of 6-5 teams as #1 & #2 in the nation!!! LOL

[EastStang]

You want to bar them from all NCAA sports if they bolt. That way they'd have to set up swimming championships, track championships, golf championships and basketball championships. They aren't prepared to do that. That would also make for some interesting questions. Would for example Baylor, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest be invited to leave with the big boys?

[BUS]

Yes, the whole conference would have to leave. I like the idea on the BCS league having Bball, swimming, golf, volleyball tournaments and having to pay the extra money to hold each.

Kick them out.
File the papers.

I am sure SMU has some alumni lawyers that would help prepare the case!

[Water Pony]

It appears that this Board is ready to say, "here's your hat, and don't let the door hit you in the [deleted]".

If the NCAA doesn't tackle this threat to the college model, the future will only get worse. Olympic sports, mid-Major FB and to a lesser degree, BB will continue to be starved for lack of funds, if the vast majority of FB TV revenue only flows to the BCS schools.

They deserved the gate money, promotional items and the donations and support of much larger alumni, fans and student bases. What they don't deserve is all the TV revenue, while excluding the value provided by the mid-Major/non-BCS members PERIOD.

They enjoy many benefits, which I don't challenge them on, but to control and grab 90+% of the revenue at our expense is not a workable model, now or in the future. The fifth bowl model means little or nothing. The Status Quo (BCS) wins and that is the problem!

[OC Mustang]

Maybe McKinsey & Co. can come do a once over on the BCS and NCAA.
They deserve each other.