BCS and CORRUPTION

BCS or Playoff system which is less corrputive. Keeping with my Saturday tradition of talking about sports…Today I would like to discuss the BCS of College Football.

In the recent weeks some of you may have heard that the Fiesta and Orange bowls are in hot water due to alleged illegal contributions to politicians, (a felony by the way) as well as unethical spending of money.

The way the story goes is that Fiesta bowl employees would write a contribution check to a politician, and be reimbursed shortly afterwards, usually as a bonus from the Fiesta bowl. (Ill talk about the Orange bowl in a bit.)

So you say ok I always knew the BCS was crooked but that really doesnt affect me. Wrong. Any of you ever paid a state income tax in a state where the university/universities play in a BCS bowl game? If your answer is yes then this affects you. You see only a handful of universities have truly self sufficient athletic programs. Public money must be used to subsidize those departments either through student fees, bond issues or transferring funds from the universities general funds. So chances are some of your state income tax has gone to the BCS. How you ask?

When a team goes to play in a BCS bowl game that school/university is REQUIRED to purchase a certain amount of tickets from the BCS. For whatever reason if the university is not able to sell the tickets they were REQUIRED to purchase, the university is responsible for eating the cost of the unsold tickets. For example in 2007 West Virginia earned a spot in the (what do you know) Fiesta bowl. They were required to purchase 17,500 tickets for the game. They had to pay travel and accommodation expenses for the football team, band, cheerleaders and other various groups. By the way the Fiesta bowl is played in Phoenix, Arizona. West Virginia only sold 7,981 tickets and had to eat the cost of the other unsold tickets. That money for the unsold tickets was paid to the Fiesta bowl directly. That year West Virginia went on to win the Fiesta bowl, but lost over 1 million dollars on the trip to Arizona.

Compare this to the college basketball tournament THE FINAL FOUR where the NCAA does not require the school participating in it to purchase a certain amount of tickets. Just as important to the schools/universities participating in the basketball tournament, the NCAA pays their accommodation expenses as well. The NCAA basketball tournament called the FINAL FOUR produces some of the the highest television revenue in the world.

In college football four bowls form a cartel called the BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES. They have negotiated a television contract worth $125 million dollars a year. Well at least that money is redistributed by conferences, right? Well right and wrong. The $125 million dollars is redistributed by conferences, with the six most powerful conferences getting a guaranteed share and the five least powerful conferences get significantly less. The BCS determines the National Champion every year in college football. And I thought OPEC was bad.

Some people claim that the BCS is breaking anti-trust laws in the way they are doing business. So why dont the presidents of the 120 FBS universities want a playoff system? It is estimated that if college football went to a playoff format the television revenue could be 3xs what the BCS currently has.

Now presidents of universities rely on Athletic Directors and Conference Commissioners to advise them of what they should be doing for their programs. So why would a Commissioner or A.D. that are enjoying a 4 day all expense paid cruise in the Bahamas courtesy of the  certain bowl organizations. The Orange bowl actually did this in 2010. Why would a A.D. or Commissioner advise a university president to do anything that might harm their cruises? They wont.

You dont like cruises you say? Well then you could be a Athletic Director or Conference Commissioner in Phoenix, Arizona on a three day escapade loaded with golf, suites and swag. The Fiesta bowl (yes them again) pays for this every year, including in 2010.

Then the Fiesta bowl had the nerve to turn around and ask the government for a $3000 dollar subsidy.

Other bowls are just as bad too. The Sugar bow received $5.3 billion dollars in government grants between 06-08. The at that time CEO of the Sugar bowl had a one year salary of $645,386 dollars, for putting on one game.

By the way not one of the BCS bowls pays any taxes. They are recognized as charities.

Now would be a good time to look at the playoff system (which reduces the possibility of corruption). You could make more money and still keep all of the bowl games because the make for great tv ratings no matter who is playing in them. One thing is for sure the BCS better do something before the Department of Justice decides to get involved for real.

What do you think?….Agree with me or disagree with me either way I get to know what the PEOPLE think. L2