Well, it's been over six months this blog has been active. It started as a way of reporting on the have-nots of college football, the non-automatic qualifier BCS schools, the barbarians so to speak. From that it morphed into a platform exposing the lies of the New Jersey media and their attempt to bring down the Rutgers' football program. And finally, we got involved in the great Big Ten expansion debate.
The circle has turned and it's time to get back to the roots. The support of a national collegiate football championship that doesn't exclude Division I teams merely because of the conference they're in, still seems a worthy cause. Two things have brought this to the fore again: the book Death to the BCS, and Mark Cuban. If you haven't read the book, buy it. If you think you understand how and why the BCS works (it doesn't by the way) you don't. The book explains it all.
What it comes down to, as many have always suspected, is nothing more than an attempt by traditional football powers in the Big Ten, the Pac Whatever, and the rest to control college football in this country. Nothing more, nothing less. Jim Delany, one of the biggest supporters of the BCS admits that a playoff system would make more money for the colleges. So why would he and the rest of the Big Ten, and the other big boys be against it? Because as crazy as it sounds, they would rather make less money and be in control than make more money and be merely a participant in a national championship. If this doesn't make sense to you, you need to go work in a law firm. I remember how shocked I was to learn that a senior partner who would make more money by bringing in a younger partner would rather make less money and not share control.
In a privately run organization, these decisions are made routinely. The problem is that this privately-run organization, the BCS, along with its bosom buddies, the bowls, have managed to parlay this desire into holding a national championship in college football hostage. If you play football for UCF, Boise State, Northern Illinois, or any other team that not part of the "in" crowd with the BCS, you will never play for a national championship. Never. Doesn't matter how good you are. You're simply not in the right conference. Well, we'll join the right conference, you say. Nope, sorry, membership is closed.
How can this be tolerated today? Well the BCS makes a lot of money and the bowls pay this money to the schools. Even schools that don't make it to bowls sometimes get a piece of it depending on the conference their in. So if not for the BCS, the schools would get less money.
Wrong. Death to the BCS shows how the system is rigged to cheat schools out of bowl money. Florida won the National Championship. How much money did they make for being in the BCS "Championship?" Well, according to the book $47,000. How can this be? Well all those great bowl payouts you hear about? They get offset but something called ticket allotments. When a school is invited to a bowl they're given a block of tickets to sell. If they don't sell them, they have to pay for the empty seats. This year UConn is going to the Fiesta Bowl. A great achievement for the Huskies right? Athletically, no doubt. Financially, it's a nightmare. UConn is required to purchase 17,500 tickets for the Fiesta Bowl. That's a cool 3.5 million. UConn's expected bowl payout?$2.5 million.
So why does a school have to become a ticket agent for a bowl game? Why can't these multimillion dollar making bowls sell their own tickets? Let the schools pay for the tickets they need, and tell the bowls to sell their own tickets. Just one, of many baffling questions for the BCS. To be continued.
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