$2,000,000,000. That is
a rough number that college football grossed according to CNN Money by December
29th, 2010 by. Money plays a huge role in our lives as the economy
struggles, jobs are becoming more and more difficult to come by and everyone is
going back to school for higher education. College football is a cash cow that
makes billions of dollars every year. Money that affects us indirectly, yet
that money isn’t spread out equally among the many different school conferences.
In fact roughly 83% of the college bowl games revenue goes to less than half of
the teams in college football, to only six of the twelve different college
football conferences.
This lack of division of money causes an unfair advantage
to the other half of college football and their collegiate programs. Football
programs have a direct impact on the entire school system. Because of excess
amounts of money generated in the college football program, state of the art
facilities and equipment is purchased, more students want to attend, and
colleges become more desirable; thus they make more money. However it is
difficult for colleges to compete when they are not on a level playing ground.
That lack of even playing ground creates a nearly palpable division. Even the
Ohio State Buckeyes President, Gordon Gee claimed that those other schools
outside of these “elite” conferences are little sisters of the poor.
Money talks and it speaks clearly and loudly. Of just the
bowl payouts in 2009, roughly 83% of the 224.6 million went straight to these
six specific conferences leaving the other conferences to fend for themselves.
A playoff system could potentially change all this, creating a level playing
field for all schools, distributing money evenly among them, and even
generating more revenue than the current BCS system now in place.
College football has
been a sensation in the United States since the early 1900s. Initially, a type
of a bowl system was introduced in the 1902 with an east versus west game as the
University of Michigan Wolverines came to play the Stanford University Indians
in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day. This game was a blowout as Michigan
routed Stanford 49-0. The game was called before the fourth quarter ended.
Andrew Zimbalist, an ESPN analysis said that most of the current known bowl
games were put into place by the 1930s. Between 1935 and 1991 the top two ranked
football teams met only eight times declaring the undisputed national
championship football team. Over 56 years there were only eight teams crowned
as the undisputed national championship team.
In
1991 a bowl coalition was formed with the attempt to produce better football
bowl games; to match the first ranked team against the second ranked team and
so on. With this alliance, more thrilling and exciting games were provided to
the public. But with this alliance conferences weren’t tied up with specific
bowl games. Because of this, teams could not be predicted to play in specific
bowl games, thus making difficult the commercializing of games prior to bowl
season.
In
1994 a Bowl Alliance was formed in an attempt to facilitate commercializing of
games and to produce even better bowl games. This alliance was formed with four
different then college powerhouses. Conference championship teams were
guaranteed specific games in bigger bowl football games.
In
1998-1999 the Bowl Alliance turned into the BCS, or Bowl Championship Series. The
BCS was originally set up with the supposedly then six elite college football
conferences. Those conferences were the Atlantic Coast, The Big East, The Big
Twelve, The Big Ten, The Pacific Ten, and the Southern Eastern Conference. They
established four original big bowl games and a national championship game for
the conference championship teams from these conferences. These bowl games came
to be known as The Rose Bowl, The Fiesta Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, and
the BCS National Championship game.
Over
the years these different bowl systems and the current BCS system has been a
very exclusive club, where only the elite could participate. More than half of
college revenue is made in the BCS bowl games and is distributed to only teams
from these exclusive conferences. Should another system be put into place to
help distribute the money and power more evenly?
College football has
tried for over one hundred years to try to perfect their post season football
games and system. They have tried numerous different attempts and systems. Over
the years their system has morphed and changed into the system we have now. In
the 2008-2009 football season there was a total payout of bowl football games
of $224.6 million. That $224.6 million goes directly into building state of the
art facilities and equipment, and recruiting for all college sports.
College football programs have a direct impact
on college attendance and participation. Because of fame created and accredited
through football programs, publicity is generated and schools gain more
exposure to the public. This has a direct result and effect on the interest
future college students may have in specific schools. The Boise State football
team has had the most winningest record over the last decade. According to
Boise State University Communications and Marketing, their attendance rose in
1990 from around 13,529 students to a record high in 2010 of 19,993, a 48%
increase. Clearly college enrollment will grow over the years, but by an
increase of nearly 50%. Is there a correlation between the immense student
enrollment growth and success of the most winningest college football over the
last decade?
The
BCS has been sued by several different lawyers because of an antitrust act. These
law cases are still being taken care of in the courts and a decision has not
been agreed upon yet. According to Andrew Zimbalist, this is because the BCS
has created a monopoly that excludes six of the twelve college football
conferences from 83% or the bowl payout revenue. 83% of $224.6 million is
roughly $187.7 million. According to Zimbalist, this is sufficient evidence
that the BCS has created a monopoly and broken the antitrust act. Every other
intercollegiate sports program, including football in division II and division
III run a playoff system to decide who is to be crowned the national champion
of that division.
Austin
Murphey, a sports writer for sports illustrated states that there needs to be a
change from the BCS to a college football playoff system. Murphey said that “The
point is not just that a playoff system would match good teams--bowls can do that--but also that
it would make each game an edge-of-the-seater, an elimination game with the
season at stake.
Some
people make the statement that with bowl games, every game is already a playoff
type of game; that every game can put your team in or take your team out of the
national championship football game. Past events have proven that not to be
true though. In the 2011-2012 season, LSU played the University of Georgia in
the SEC conference championship game. LSU hadn’t lost a game all year and was viewed
as the best college football team in the country. The game was close through
the first three and a half quarters with LSU pulling away in the end to win the
game. But, the polls and ESPN and sports analysis all concluded that LSU didn’t
even need to show up to that game, they could have simply lost their conference
championship game and still played in the BCS National Championship game.
On
the flip side there are many college programs that go undefeated every year and
still get beat out of a the BCS National Championship game by a one or two loss
BCS conference team. Texas Christian University, University of Utah, Boise
State University, and the University of Houston are just some of the schools in
recent years to have played either perfect or near perfect seasons and been
snubbed by the BCS just because they are from as earlier stated, conferences of
“the little sister of the poor,” because they are lesser schools and don’t
deserve the right to play in a BCS title game, or even a BCS bowl game.
Representative Joe
Barton represents a district a few miles from the TCU campus. He is the
primary force in Congress pushing for a change in the current arrangement in
college football. Barton compares the BCS to a "cartel, much like
OPEC," and even adds, "To me it's like--and I don't mean this
directly--it's like communism. You can't fix it." He argues that an
"arbitrary computer system" determines which football teams will play
in the "mythical championship game."
Division
I college football according to many analysis needs to make the change from an
exclusive BCS bowl system to a traditional playoff system. Richard H. Thaler, a
college football analysis said that switching to a playoff system has been
discussed and rejected by relevant conference commissioners several times.
There are two arguments typically given as to why a playoff system will not
work. The first excuse is tradition associated with these bowl games and the
charities tied with them are said to be sacred. The second excuse is that the
education of student-athletes would be severely disrupted if they have to spend
two more weeks practicing and playing football. Thaler says these arguments are
specious and disingenuous because if the tradition was really that important
then they could still incorporate those games in the playoff system. And he
also said that if division II and III school students can play in playoffs that
last into the third week of December, then why can’t division I football do the
same?
Another
issue in making the transition from the BCS bowls to a playoff system is the
issue of revenue. Will a playoff system generate as much revenue as the BCS
system does? In Austin Murphey’s “Why there Needs to be a Playoff,” he quotes
the Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, an implacable playoff foe, estimated
before Congress in 2005 that a playoff could earn three or four times the money
of the system then in place. That added money could be distributed among
the FBS conferences.
Bowl
games could still be applied to a new playoff system as well. The final four games
or the quarterfinals of the playoff could each be named and designated a
specific traditional bowl game. That way the tradition of the bowl games would
still live on and they could implement a playoff system that gives each team a
chance to play for the championship game and money is would be more evenly
distributed.
Recently
teams have been leaving their conferences in which they have played for over 40
years and jumping into new conferences. They are doing this so they can put
themselves in a better position to play in these bigger, BCS bowl games and
generate more revenue. If they do so, they will directly benefit from the
deeper cash pockets. This makes complete sense when we learn that only 22 of
the 120 college football programs made money in 2011. Teams are trying to join
these conferences where they are guaranteed money.
This conference jumping is destroying old
rivalry games that have existed for nearly 50-100 years and it is leaving some
conferences desolated without enough teams to maintain a competitive conference.
By creating a NCAA tournament, these traditional conferences would guarantee
protection from that type of destruction. Conferences and traditional rival
football games would no longer be in danger. College football is made on rival
games and rival conferences playing each other. The BCS is destroying these
conferences by indirectly starving some conferences and teams of money and
players thus causing havoc in the college football world. A playoff system
would greatly help preserve these old rival college football games and
traditions.
Even
the President of the United States, President Obama has weighed in with his
opinion stating that college football that "any sensible person"
would favor a playoff system to determine who is number one.
There are many
different opinions on the BCS bowl games and how they should be run. College
football doesn’t really need a playoff system to determine who the best team is
over the course of the football season. Playoffs do not necessarily determine
who has been the best team over the season, but who was playing hottest at the
end of the year. A simple look at the NFL in 2007-2008 year demonstrates this
clearly. The New York Giants barely made it into the playoffs with a record of
10-6. They were able to get hot when it mattered, won every game in the playoffs
and then upset the second undefeated team in NFL history. Where the Giants the
best team that year? No. They simply played better at the end of the year. In
college football, there is a very complex system in which strength of schedule
is taken into account; winning margin is taken into account, as well as wins
and losses. Calculating all this into account determines who played the better
games and beat the better teams over the year, thus determining who the best
team was over the entire course of the year.
Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated said, “For that
matter, are 16 teams really enough to bring happiness to the playoff
hounds? There are more than 100 football programs in Division I.
"Everybody talks about the NFL," Bill says (one of the BCS committee
memebers). "You know, 37.5% of NFL teams make the playoffs. To reach
that level, we'd need a six-week, 45-team playoff. Is that what people
really want?" We can’t make everyone happy.
"College football has the best season in all of
sports," Bill says. "Every Saturday in Tuscaloosa or Austin or
Norman or Columbus or Gainesville is like a playoff. It's what makes our
sport so great. I don't know why anybody would want to mess with
that."
College football has been a sensation over the years that
generates massive amounts of revenue and generates great amounts of publicity.
Why would or do we want to change what already works?
College football has
its pros and its cons as does anything else. Over the years, past experiences
has proven that post college football to be very controversial. Many people
push for a playoff system while arguing several different reasons as to why it
should be fixed. Others claim that the process already works as good as any
other. Why fix what isn’t broken? Time will only tell what will happen with
college football and the BCS bowl system.
REFERENCES
Sheril, R.D. (1956). The terrifying future: Contemplating color
television. San Diego: Halstead
A
Brief History Of: The Bowl Championship Series. By: Altman,
Alex, Time, 0040781X, 12/15/2008, Vol. 172, Issue 24
10 interesting facts about the Bowl
Championship Series. By: Atkin, Ross, Christian
Science Monitor, 08827729, 1/10/2011
“ BCS Scenarios: One-Loss LSU Still
Virtual Lock For BCS Title Game,” bigleadsports, By:
Duffy, Ty, http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2011/11/17/bcs-scenarios-one-loss-lsu-still-virtual-lock-for-bcs-title-game/
Revenues & Expenses 2004-2010,
NCAA Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report:
Compiled by: Fulks, Daniel L., The National Collegiate Athletic Association,
8/2011
Should College Football Abandon the
BCS? NO. By: Hancock, Bill, U.S. News
Digital Weekly, 12/31/2009, Vol. 1, Issue 50
Why There Needs to be a Playoff. By: MURPHY,
AUSTIN, Sports Illustrated, 0038822X, 8/11/2011 SEC Preview
Total Control BCS Championship Game. By: MURPHY,
AUSTIN, Sports Illustrated, 0038822X, 1/19/2012 BCS Commemorative Issue
Objection! Overruled? By: Posnanski,
Joe, Sports Illustrated, 0038822X, 1/11/2010, Vol. 112, Issue 1
All-Time Record Enrollment Set for
Fall 2010 Through Increased Recruitment, Retention,
Posted By: Tuck, Kathleet | Sep 13th, 2010 - 1:31 pm | Posted In: Boise State
News, Featured
Obama to push for college football
playoff. By: Ward, John. Washington Times (2008, November
17) The Washington Times
ESPN.com
news services, Retrieved: November 25, 2010, 2:05 AM ET. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5845736
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