http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4870657 I don't care what your political bent is, this is ridiculous. Forming a commission to examine the legality of the BCS? I was borderline ok with the commission investigating steroid use, but I saw some of the bigger aspects of what was going on. But examining the legality of the BCS? Whaaaat? Don't we have some more important things to focus on? And Hatch is an idiot for even suggesting this.
yes. . let's bog down the government with more frivolous crap. The is like E! Washington D.C. Congress! Rocket River
Well, this argument/news is really old, but... I fully support congress investigating this, and subsequently busting this crap wide open.
Payment is the education, food, housing, and books. I'm more interested in stopping the charade that is pretending that a lot of elite level college athletes actually belong in college/academia, when in reality, they don't and they should be allowed to go into a pro farm system (NBDL, AFL, etc) ASAP instead of pretending to learn something and basically being used to earn money for a university.
You do realize this doesn't take away from doing anything else, right? Government is always working on thousands of different things at once, most of which you've never heard of. The NCAA is a multi-billion dollar industry given anti-trust protections by the government. If they are doing things that are discriminatory, it costs non-AQ schools tens of millions of dollars, in addition to affecting their prestige levels and ability to grow as both athletic and academic institutions and things like that. This absolutely falls under the government's purview if the NCAA is potentially abusing their anti-trust exemption.. Why? The current set up has had very real financial and academic consequences to his state.
How much does Colt McCoy get at UT? How about Case Keenum at UH? How about the 3rd string safety at Rice? Do all Division 1 players get the same amount regardless of position and team status? Since they are now "professionals", how about commercial endorsements?
Actually they made out like bandits this year - the system is basically set up now so that it's virtually impossible for a "non" AQ team to not make it. Which renders it...automatic.
That's not true - the MWC and WAC only got bids because their teams were in the top 5 in the country while there was no real 2-loss teams in the country to choose from. If OkieLight would have had 2 losses instead of 3, or Nebraska had beaten Texas, or Clemson had beaten GaTech or any of the top Pac10 teams would have had 1 fewer loss, Boise State and the WAC - despite being #5 in the country - would probably have been left out. So yes, it worked out by fluke this year - that's not a good way to judge the system. In virtually every year, either the WAC or MWC will be left out no matter how good their best team is, while a 3 or 4 loss ACC or BigEast team will make it. And beyond that, there are other financial and academic benefits to the national championship game in addition to just being invited to a BCS game. Any school that wins the national title gets an immediate significant boost in applicants, which improves the quality of students you get. Utah in 2008, despite being the only undefeated team in the nation, wasn't even in the mix. At the end of the day, conferences are picking schools based on media markets, and your conference affiliation determines your status in the BCS. If the NCAA and their conferences are creating a permanent disadvantage to certain member institutions because of the money in football and the BCS, that's something that the government has every reason to look at given the NCAA's anti-trust exemptions. Now, you can make the argument that the system is fair and if Utah had a better schedule, etc, etc. But that's the point of investigating it - to see if it really is fair or if changes need to be made.
Yeah...I simply cannot fathom why we would consider investigating something on which tens of millions of dollars turns on every year with the majority of the institutions being state supported. Come on. We are talking about something that is a monopoly with rules that are designed to keep some state supported institutions out of the big money. That is why they are investigating this.
A non AQC team has made it every year since they last rule change. Basically they are arguing about one measly bid so that they should ALWAYS have 2 to share instead of settling for just 1 and have th chance at 2. Honestly is 18 million less costs parceled up among 10 schools really that big of a deal? There are already too many BCS games at is. Anybody watch, remember or care about the Orange Bowl this year? Would anybody have cared more if it was Fresno State or Air Force playing? Yeah I didn't think so.
Yes - one has, but there are multiple non AQC conferences. And, of course, a non-AQC team has had to go undefeated each year to do it. Ummm, yes? $2 million dollars per year added to the bottom line for an athletic department is huge. In 2005, Utah Athletics had $28MM in revenues, and $3MM in profits. That would represent a 6% increase in revenues and 66% increase in profits for the entire athletic program. And Utah's one of the bigger revenue schools in terms of athletics in those conferences. Other schools in the conference had athletic dept revenues under $15MM - so you're talking about a 10%+ increase for each school to their top line and who knows how much to their bottom line. That can fund all sorts of things like new sports, more scholarships, higher coaching salaries to keep their coaches, etc. And that ignores all the longer term benefits. If your conference champion is guaranteed into the BCS, that helps you recruit better players which results in a more competitive conference, which results in better TV ratings and contracts, etc. The entire system institutionalizes the MWC and WAC as being second-tier conferences, despite the fact the fact that the MWC has been arguably better than the BigEast and maybe ACC over the last few years. Again, irrelevant - it's not about the number of games. It's about the equitable distribution of money.
I'm all for it. The NCAA needs more scrutiny. NCAA leadership should operate with a reasonable amount of fear that they themselves will be investigated.
Good - that's the way it should be. Utah had 3mm in profits - what about the rest of the non"Automatic" schools? I'm going to guess that most are in the red. I'm going to guess further that that's due to football in large part. Maybe instead of arguing over an extra million they shoudl just give up football. Well, first off, they ARE second tier conferences in terms of $$$. And so what if they become first tier? Then what? That means the SUnbelt etc is now second tier. Then we have to hear the same degree of whining again. Then where do we go? 15 BCS games....which nobody cares about that probably have diluted payouts. THey can blame the big boys for shutting them out all they want, but the fact is, it's simply not just a grand conspiracy from the haves that keeps Toledo or Nevada or Tulsa from becoming a money-making college football machine. Why should it be equitably distributed? Is College Football really the type of thing where we have collective action problems like health care or something and all schools should be treated on equal footing out of some degree of social necessity? Quite frankly, if we're going to discuss antitrust efficiencies and fairness and justice, the whole freaking sport should be abandoned. I also think the antitrust arguments are inapt - there's a good degree of evidence to me to suggest that it's actually probably more of a natural monopoly than anything else.
