Our friends over at Playoff PAC have released a new web ad breaking down how exactly the Bowl Championship Series is rigged to reward the big-name conferences at the expense of the others.

Playoff PAC co-founder Chad Pehrson said: “The past six seasons, the BCS doled-out $521 million more to six privileged conferences than to the five other Division I conferences. ‘It’s Fixed’ shows that this $521 million disparity isn’t based on team success, game attendance, or TV ratings. The BCS is little more than a vehicle for delivering legacy entitlements.”

When you consider that in 2009, the winless Washington Huskies took home more BCS money than the undefeated Utah Utes, it’s clear the system is not only broken, it’s fixed.

In addition to the dubious claim that college football has the “most compelling regular season,” another claim that Bowl Championship Series apologists often make is that “a playoff would put the great traditions of the bowls at risk.” Yet, if college football didn’t kill those traditions long ago in the interest of generating revenue, the BCS took care of them. Now the final weeks of the college season are spent discussing whether the BCS itself is fair or not. What a great tradition.

Before we go any further, it should be noted that postseason playoffs and bowls are not mutually exclusive. In fact, bowl games would still make a great showcase for those programs that don’t make the playoffs.  This season, 70 out of the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (worst moniker ever) will play in bowl games.  If 8 of those 70 teams played in a playoff, there would still be 62 teams that could play in 31 bowl games. Several playoff proposals include using the most prominent bowl games for the playoffs, including a rotating national championship, similar to how the BCS works now.

So this is not a call for eliminating bowl games, but an attempt to show that the BCS’ claim that playoffs would endanger the “great traditions of the bowls” rings hollow. College football and the BCS sold out the “great traditions” long ago in the name of corporate sponsorship and television contracts.

The bowl games are often lampooned – as they should be – for their shamelessness in affixing corporate brand names to their bowl names. Some of the all-time greats include the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsetta Bowl, the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl and the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl.  Some bowls don’t even bother with the pretense of maintaining the original name (if there was one). Consider the GMAC Bowl, the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl (who knows), and the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Even the “Grandaddy of them all” is referred to as the “Rose Bowl presented by Citi.”

Tradition could not save the Bluebonnet Bowl, which was played from 1959 to 1987 in Houston. Indeed, it was the lack of a title sponsor that ultimately did in the bowl. There were no NCAA bailouts for the Bluebonnet in the name of tradition. It wasn’t making money so it folded. That’s the real tradition.

The latest one is the Pinstripe Bowl, which takes place for the first time on December 30 in the lavish new Yankees Stadium. Nothing says tradition like celebrating the successful swindle of over a billion dollars of public money into private hands by hosting a game in a baseball stadium in frigid late December between the sixth-ranked Big 12 team and the third-ranked Big East team. Apparently, someone forgot what happened last time they tried to host a bowl game (1962’s Gotham Bowl) in Yankee Stadium – no one showed up. Or maybe they were inspired by the late Seattle Bowl, which played its inaugural game on the Mariners’ baseball field and folded after two seasons.

If the bowl games feel watered down now, it’s because they are. The NCAA’s decision to add an extra game starting in 2006 meant that teams could now play 12 games, opening the door for teams to be bowl eligible with a 6-6 record. Last season, 8 teams entered bowl games with .500 records overall. Further, 21 teams had .500 records or worse in their conferences. The pinnacle of mediocrity was surely the Insight Bowl which pitted Minnesota against Iowa State – both entered the game 6-6 and 3-5 in their respective conference.

The Insight Bowl itself is just over 20 years old. It originated in Tucson, moved to Phoenix and now is played in Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Meanwhile, the Fiesta Bowl started in Tempe but now is played in Phoenix. The actual location of the bowl game itself obviously isn’t fundamental to the “tradition” of these bowl games. In fact, only the Rose Bowl seems truly married to its location.

The “Grandaddy of Them All” has begrudgingly accepted the changes that come with accepting massive amounts of television revenues.  The BCS itself is responsible for ending the tradition of the Rose Bowl being played on January 1 (or the 2^nd if the 1^st is on a Monday). The BCS also hampers the Rose Bowl’s traditional Pac 10- Big 10 rivalry. And ultimately, the mystique of the Rose Bowl, the true granddaddy, died when it became just another cog in the BCS wheel.

So depending on the bowl, the location, name, date and conference ties to the bowl have been sacrificed for the sake of generating revenue and because of the BCS. In fact, the BCS now trumpets the same arguments that were once used against it. Prior to the BCS or its predecessors the Bowl Coalition and the Bowl Alliance, the argument was made that even having one national championship game would hurt the bowl games.

Regardless of whether the BCS has harmed the specific traditions of the bowl games, the BCS does mark a fundamental transformation of the college football postseason landscape. For the first time the system features one game above all the other bowl games. There really is one winner now; not just a group of teams that won their final game. The decision to play one national championship game ended what was once unique about the college football bowl system – that there was no one winner.

The BCS and the NCAA have decided that television revenues trump bowl traditions and that the largest bowls are now just vehicles for showcasing one game above them all. So we might as well fix the system so that these bowl games are used to feature an equitable system of determining a national champion. There’s no sense in pretending that the bowl games have great traditions. The bowl games long ago sold out their images to the highest corporate bidder and the BCS killed the spirit of the whole thing.

–

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

On Wednesday, Kansas City Star columnist Sam Mellinger wondered what the Royals would be like if Mark Cuban owned the team instead of David Glass. Mellinger rightly criticized Glass’ handling of the club over the last 10 years, but argued that Glass had made strides in recent years to improve the club. Even if that is true, there’s a more important question that should be asked.

Forget about Mark Cuban or any other wealthy owner. What if the people of Kansas City owned the Royals?

Initial reactions to this question probably range from “Hell, yeah, let’s run David Glass out of town on a rail” to “That sounds like socialism to me.” To be clear, we are a long way from the day when cities can actually buy the teams they love. And if you’re concerned about socialism, it’s already occurring in baseball – it’s just benefiting David Glass and the other owners. These owners get massive tax dollars to build and renovate stadiums that only end up making them richer.

As Dave Zirin, author of Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love, explains it, the current ownership system “socializes the debt of sports while privatizing the profits.”

Just look at baseball’s antitrust exemption, which allows only the current baseball owners to monopolize the baseball market.

And if a city ever did try to buy a team, the owners would prevent it, even if the city offered the most money. How’s that for the triumph of capitalism?

But let’s consider for a minute, however, that it was possible for the people of Kansas City to buy the Royals.

Glass purchased the Royals for $96 million in 2000. The franchise is now estimated by Forbes to be worth $341 million, making it the 24^th most valuable franchise out of 30.

Now, it’s clear that the franchise is not worth three times as much 10 years later because of anything that’s happened on the field.

As Forbes put it, and everybody else knows, “Few franchises have squandered the fortune they have gotten from baseball’s revenue sharing system as much as the Royals.”

The team is worth a lot more now, in part, because of the $250 million in renovations to Kauffman Stadium. Those renovations were not paid for by all of Kansas City, but by the people of Jackson County.

But here’s the thing – at the time Jackson County voters approved a sales tax increase to pay for the renovations, the franchise was only estimated to be worth $239 million.

Jackson County citizens could have just bought the Royals from Glass and saved money!

And if all of Kansas City had gotten behind such a purchase, they could have met any asking price from Glass.

Sure, Kauffman Stadium wouldn’t look as nice as it does now, but was it really vital to renovate the old stadium? Couldn’t Royals fans live without the new amenities if it meant getting rid of David Glass?

Of course, there is the matter of operating costs, but those could have been offset by money spent on the Sprint Center, which will likely never see a franchise.

And before you argue that new stadiums and new stadium renovations are good for the Kansas City economy, consider what Roger Noll, coauthor of Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums, wrote: “There’s never been a publicly subsidized stadium anywhere in the United States that had the effect of increasing employment and economic growth in the city in which it was built.”

Even if the Sprint Center did have a team, it wouldn’t necessarily be a net plus. Take a study published by the conservative Heartland Institute which found that “professional sports teams generally have no significant impact on a metropolitan economy.”

So if new stadiums and stadium renovations aren’t benefiting the Kansas City economy, what good are they? They’re simply good for further enriching Glass and keeping the team in Kansas City. It’s the same situation faced by sports fans from San Francisco to New York. Build a new stadium (or massively renovate the old one) or lose your team.

It’s time for sports fans to fight back.

Imagine a Kansas City-owned Royals team. The revenues from the club would go back into the community. The team would never be in danger of being hijacked by an owner looking only at his bottom line. And the city could spend as much as it wanted to build a winning team.

A team of the people and for the people.

It’s not that hard to imagine – this is exactly what happens with the Green Bay Packers.  There are more than 100,000 people who own shares of the Packers. And they couldn’t be happier.

Imagine feeling such a sense of optimism about the Royals and their future again.

Kansas City may have missed a chance to buyout David Glass this time, but don’t worry, it won’t be long before he demands more renovations or a downtown stadium.

By then, sports fans need to be ready to trade him away.

–

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

On Friday, the Bowl Championship Series responded to a new ESPN The Magazine poll of college football players by pretending as though the poll’s most significant finding – that most college football players want a playoff — doesn’t even matter. The BCS is linking to their press release by claiming, ”Athletes support current postseason system,” even though the ESPN poll definitively shows that players want a playoff.

ESPN surveyed 135 players from across the country – 72 from BCS schools and 63 from non-BCS schools – and asked them, “Do you want a playoff?” 62.2% of the players said yes, they favor a college football playoff.  (61.1% of BCS players support a playoff, as do 63.5% of non-BCS players.)

Clearly, college football players want a playoff.

The support for a playoff, however, breaks down when it comes to how exactly a playoff would work – and what it would mean for bowl games. The majority of players would rather have the current system than a 16-team playoff and would rather go to three bowl games in their career than one playoff trip. (This latter question seems a bit arbitrary.)

These results aren’t surprising. Basically, players don’t want a playoff to mean that they themselves don’t get to compete in the postseason.

But there’s no reason that college football can’t have a playoff and bowl games. One Big Ten “defensive standout” told ESPN:  “I’ve got the perfect solution. Take the top 16 ranked teams in the country and play it off like the World Cup. Take the next 24 teams with winning records and put them in bowl games.”

Had ESPN asked whether players favored a system with a playoff and bowl games, there would have probably been overwhelming support.

But that’s not what we have now.

No matter how hard the BCS tries to spin these results, the fact remains that college football players – and fans – support a playoff.

–

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

Yankees Match Great Food Selection With Absurd Prices

By Scott Kornberg

During my trip to Yankee Stadium this past weekend, one of the first things I noticed about the new ballpark in the Bronx was the incredible amount of different concession options that fans are able to choose from. Fans can choose from classic baseball foods like hot dogs, burgers, chicken fingers, pizza, and French fries, or order less traditional ballpark foods like sushi, Southern barbeque, deli sandwiches, and even fruit and vegetables from a stadium farmer’s market. However, fans better be ready to pay ridiculous prices for whatever they decide to order at the New Stadium.

The Yankee Stadium experience in general is extremely expensive. A good parking deal is about $20, and that comes after ordering baseball’s third-most expensive ticket. Fans are not allowed to bring any food or drinks into the stadium, which forces their hands shell out big bucks to the concessions scam artists: $9 burgers, $7 milkshakes, $10 pulled pork/chicken sandwiches, $15 deli meat sandwiches, $10.75 cheese steaks, $5 fries, $9 burritos ($6 queso is sold separately), $5.50 hot dogs (compared to $2 dogs outside the stadium), and $6.50 ice cream sundaes.

The Yankees are the poster child for absurd food prices, but most professional sports teams share similar issues with their fans. However, other teams do make some conveniences to fans. The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals do allow fans to bring a sealed bottle into games. When prices inside a stadium are almost three times more expensive than at a normal restaurant, and stadium rules prohibit fans from bringing their own food or drinks, fans are being taken advantage of. To add insult to injury, the statistics on health code violations with concessions vendors will make any fan think twice about running to the ATM machine before the game.

A solution for this issue would be for teams to either allow fans to bring their own food and drinks, or to lower concession prices to a more reasonable rate. It has become a major expense for fans to attend a sporting event. They already have to pay for their ticket, and in most cases, parking. Charging fans absurd rates on concessions has made attending a game an economic burden. While teams like showing off their diverse concession selection to fans, they completely turn their head on the cost of these concessions, making fans pay a completely unreasonable rate for food and drinks that they could have just brought into the stadium themselves.

Scott Kornberg is a sportscaster for WMUC Sports (www.wmucsports.com). He hosts his own sports talk show, and announces baseball and softball games for the University of Maryland. He covers Maryland’s football and basketball writing for www.turtlesportsreport.com part of the scout.com network.