By Scott Kornberg

When just looking at conference expansion on the surface, it makes sense why Colorado and Nebraska would switch alliances from the Big 12 Conference to the Pac-12 and Big Ten, respectively. Each school gains a significant amount of money and stability in their new conference. However, with these moves, fans lose a lot more in terms of tradition and rivalries.

Sports fans love bitter rivalries and classic moments that come from them. Both Nebraska and Colorado had long established that for their fans with the Big 12. Nebraska was a founding member of what became the Big Eight conference (and in 1996, the Big 12 conference) in 1907, while Colorado joined the conference in 1948.

College football fans no longer will have the opportunity to see the great Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry, a rivalry that produced the “Game of the Century” between the two schools in 1971. They lose a significant amount of history like the infamous Fifth-Down game between Colorado and Missouri in 1990. It will not have the same meaning for fans to be watching a Nebraska-Indiana or Colorado-Washington State game. In their new conferences, Nebraska and Colorado games will lack the intensity and passion that their fans loved in the bitter rivalries of the Big 12.

Another casualty for sports fans, especially those cheering on the Cornhuskers and Buffaloes, is the lack of ability to follow their team on road games. In the Big 12, Colorado fans could make a 7-8 hour drive to see their team play at Nebraska, Kansas, or Kansas State. Now their closest competitor in the Pac-12 is Oregon (Eugene), which is a 14.5-hour drive from Boulder. It will be much less convenient for Colorado fans to watch their team on the road in the Pac-12.

Nebraska fans face a similar dilemma. In order to watch road Husker games at Kansas State, Kansas, or Missouri, Nebraska fans made a manageable 2-4 hour drive from Lincoln. The closest school in the Big Ten to Nebraska is a 5-hour drive to Iowa (Iowa City), while a trip to the furthest, Penn State (University Park), would take 17 hours.

For Colorado and Nebraska, conference expansion makes road trips for fans increasingly expensive and time-consuming. In addition, Buffalo and Husker fans are losing the intense and passionate rivalries which existed in the Big 12. So while Nebraska and Colorado may be making more money in the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively, their decision does not benefit the tradition and rivalries their fans loved and enjoyed for decades.

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.

Read more about University of Nebraska Athletic Director and former US Representative Tom Osborne’s decision – also known as ‘the first domino to fall’ – here.

One of the many unknown pieces to the puzzle which has received little attention is government intervention addresses here by Texas.Rivals.com:

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION?

It has been expressed to Orangebloods.com by a top collegiate executive that any movement toward four, 16-team super conferences will be met with resistance by Congress.

The executive said that could be bad news for college athletics because Congress has already taken some cursory looks at the fact athletic departments enjoy a tax-exempt status as part of their universities.

The executive said if it appears the rich are getting richer in college athletics, there will be a hard look at whether to take away the tax exempt status of athletic departments.

“And it won’t just be Orin Hatch (a member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee from Utah and longtime BCS critic) looking into this,” the source said.

Stay tuned.

by Jeremiah Tittle

NCAA Conference Realignment is upon us. What does it mean for the BIG EAST? Will Notre Dame sustain its independence? What about the WAC? Will we wake up one day and find its all outta whack?!?!

Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com (the Rivals Texas site) is reporting that the Pac 10 school presidents and chancellors voted at their meetings this past weekend on extending invitations to 6 schools-Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Colorado, and Texas Tech.

Those 6 schools plus existing members Arizona and Arizona State would make up an Eastern Division with the remaining 8 schools making up the Western Division. Pac 10 meetings took place this past weekend in San Francisco.

What does this mean for sports fans? Superconferences dominating our BS BCS Championship? Perhaps. But more importantly, one of the faulty arguments presented by the BCS on why a playoff would be so harmful to country’s economy as we know it – that is, forcing college kids to travel – is a real concern during the regular season.

While the BCS’ argument is indeed a weak one when we consider the ills of college kids making a road trip during winter session, the conversation takes a turn for the worse and is something altogether different when regular season games require Texas Longhorns diehards to travel from Austin to Washington State to represent at U-Dub.

We’re talking about a conference that spans half the country.  Central time zones to Pacific.  It would truly become the minor leagues of pro football. While these decisions are again driven by money and more specifically television revenue, it will be startling to wake up and find out that the BIG-12 has become the small-6. Might as well run to the store to pick up a 6-pack of pony bottles while your there.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org. Reach him at Jeremiah@SportsFansCoalition.org.

By Scott Kornberg

As usual, Bowl Championship Series critics are condemning how the BCS process always seems to find a way to leave out the Cinderella’s of the sports. In this article by Tim Brando, Brando harps on the fact that the college football “National” Championship, is in fact, not “National” because teams like Boise State and TCU consistently get left out.

The one thing missing for college football is the Cinderella. The Cinderella is what makes college basketball great, and it could do the same for college football in the fall. Think back to 2006 when the #11 seed George Mason somehow danced to the Final Four. Or in 2008 when the #8 seed Davidson barely lost to the #1 seed Kansas in the Elite Eight. A more recent example is the #5 seed Butler Bulldogs coming within a missed half-court prayer of being the National Champion this past season.  Those teams made miraculous runs, and made each of those tournaments memorable to fans.

There is no miraculous run to be had in college football without a playoff system. Last year, Boise State was not given a chance to be the “National” Champion despite finishing undefeated. The Broncos were not given that chance either when they were undefeated in 2006, or in 2008, when Boise State had one loss. That one loss was the same amount of losses that the LSU Tigers and Ohio State Buckeyes had coming into their battle for the “National” Championship.

With no playoff system in place this year, the likelihood of a Cinderella crashing the BCS “National” Championship scene is slim. Boise State seems to be the most probable candidate, as they will likely enter the season ranked in the Top 5. The Broncos, however, will face only one team that finished with more than 8 wins last year (Virginia Tech). They played a slightly more difficult regular season schedule last year, with two teams on their slate that finished with 8 wins or more from the 2008 season (Oregon and Tulsa). The Broncos, or any other “Cinderella” team, are going to need to finish undefeated and hope that every other team in the country loses at least once in order to have a chance to play for the “National” Championship because the BCS computers will deem their schedule too weak to vault the major-conference teams with similar records. A playoff system is the only way to give these small-conference teams a fair chance at the BCS “National” Championship.

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.

It’s Just a Bowl Game

by Scott Weiss 

As the 2010-2011 College Football season approaches, college football fans will once again be subjected to the sham that is the BCS system.  Computers deciding who will play in the supposed championship game; could anything be more contrary to the concepts of competition and fairness than this?  The NCAA wants fans to buy into the contrived game that they create as a championship game.  As a fan, I have never considered this to be a championship game.  Let’s face it, the game is just another bowl game.  There were 34 bowl games played in the 2009-2010 college football season, and to arbitrarily call the winner of one of these games as the national champion is a total joke. 

Somehow, the NCAA has found a way to come up with a playoff system to determine their basketball, baseball and hockey champions.  They have even found a way to come up with a 16 team playoff format to determine the champions of the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA).  Contrary to what Gordon Gekko said, greed is not good.  Should college football fans continue to endure the bogus way that the national champion is determined because the NCAA needs to stuff their pockets with bowl game bucks?  As a sports fan, I think that the answer is a resounding, no! 

Scott Weiss is the Local Chapter Chair for SFC-New York/New Jersey.  He has been involved in the sports fans advocacy movement since 2000.  He is a life long fan of the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers.

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by Jeremiah Tittle

Amongst a plethora of sports-related three letter acronyms, CBA which stands for Collective Bargaining Agreement – typically negotiated between sports athlete unions and the sports leagues employing their labor – could end up providing fans the best opportunity to voice their concerns about the four major sports as each finds its deal expired in 2011.

While SFC has detailed many of the implications of the NFL’s CBA reaching maturity, Players Association President DeMaurice Smith warned that the threat of work stoppage is real on SFC board member Dave Zirin’s sports radio show “Edge of Sports”. Furthermore, the NBA Players Association executive director recently made headlines when providing intel to the press on the union’s CBA proposal to arrive on Roger Goodell’s doorstep come June.

The bottom line is that 2011 is a time of great uncertainty. But it is also an exciting time to be a sports fan as change is in the air. Would any of us like to see our favorite sport take a year off due to the owners locking out the players? Hell no. But the fact remains that now is as good a time as any for sports fans to get involved and make a difference while all the chips are still on the table.

The founding principle behind Sports Fans Coalition’s formation is that fans deserve a seat at the table. Smith says fans should ’stay informed’. Certainly, education is a start. Without it, we don’t know that there’s even a problem with the sports industrial complex and where fans fit into the equation. However, following that realization, we might ask, ‘What’s next?’

The answer is action. We must take action to stop the bloodflow. We must use our power as the fuel that feeds leagues putting money in the pockets of the already rich. We must organize, and fight for what we believe in. Affordable seating in stadiums. A college football playoff. No more tax breaks for billionaires. TV coverage of our home team’s games.

Join SFC today to start being part of the solution.

by Jeremiah Tittle

While all the discussion and opinion and argumentation and analysis of what expansion would do to or for or against the NCAA Tournament spiraled out of control, the reality was something altogether anticlimactic.

In a nutshell, the NCAA opted out of the last few years of its previous contract with CBS only to net an additional 4.8 billion dollars over the course of a 14 year deal – adding revenue of more than 2oo million per season – with both CBS and Turner in which the television host of the Final Four and National Championship will toggle back and forth following the 2015 season.

As if the TV networks agreeing to share wasn’t strange enough, the only expansion in terms of actual games played resulted in the addition of 3 play-in games on the Tuesday before the real bracketology starts. Despite the approval of the NABC to move forward with the much hyped 96-team bracket, the NCAA decided to take the money and minimize expansion to merely 4 play-in games resulting in a 68 team tournament.

Whether a team must win 6 games or 9 games straight, a playoff is the only true way to determine a champion. If only the BCS was taking notes when March Madness dwarfed the appeal and satisfaction of college football’s finale.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org.

by Jeremiah Tittle

The NCAA has been considering expanding the tournament beyond 65, and has only a couple of months to determine if opting out of its contract with CBS – making way for another 31 teams to join in on the Madness of March – is indeed a wise decision beyond the financials. 

According to ESPN SportsCenter, the NCAA has “walked media through the proposal” to expand the brackets despite the pleas of many who feel the product would be diluted by stretching the 3 week tournament to fit an entire month on the calendar. The debate will continue as the NCAA takes the temperature of the media measuring the public response to the idea floating out there.

Meanwhile, the BCS headed up by Bill Hancock and Ari Fleischer(not that he could help Tiger Woods) look to use some of college basketball’s over pursuit of the almighty dollar (the tournament brings NCAA Basketball 92% of its revenue) as standing for their steadfast tactic of doing nothing. They reject the fans’ demands. They look to use fans’ against each other as a method for spinning the issue. Enough is enough. College football fans want a playoff.

SFC has proven that protecting the integrity of the college athlete is a sham. If that were so, why do the highest ranked college football teams schedule cupcakes mid-season? Why do they pad their schedule with lesser opponents claiming that additional contests at the end of the season could stretch undergrads too thin and would compromise academic endeavors. Talk about dilution! Gimme a break.

The bottom line is that those in power are the benefactors of  the system. The University Presidents want to stay put cashing million dollar paychecks each year ignoring the cries of fans as the system continues to work in their favor.

Andrea Adelson writes in the Orlando Sentinel that this behavior is pure ‘hypocrisy’ to be so closed minded about expansion in one sport in the name of the student athlete while pushing an extra 32 games onto another sport. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or put more accurately, the one hand that collects paychecks is still demanding more, more, more.

Jeremiah Tittle is Managing Editor of www.SportsFansCoalition.org.

Money. Plain and simple.

Yesterday’s article provided a framework for the NCAA to flush the BCS in favor of a successful playoff system just as the Final Four has flourished in basketball and tournaments exist in every other sport in collegiate athletics.

The fact remains the same about expansion. It’s about the money.

To further develop this theory which is taken for granted, SFC board member Dave Zirin elaborates on a topic which SFC has chimed in on previously. The topic is a class-action lawsuit filed against the NCAA and EA Sports by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon.

According to Zirin’s article, ”Right now, the NCAA can license the images, uniforms and even the computer likenesses of anyone who ever played under its umbrella. So O’Bannon and his teammates can be featured in, say, a video game that makes millions – without getting a cut. It’s a business that generates $4 billion annually.”

It’s just another example of the NCAA’s madness for cash. And no fan, former player, or school board will get in its way as it grabs for every last penny.

No matter how many people complain about how easy Duke’s road is to the Final Four this year – which has generated enough conspiracy theories to fill a book - Jon Scheyer and the gang still have to play the games. Getting there is no cake walk in NCAA basketball like it is in other sports.  Coach K will tell you it’s true.

What frustrates college football fans so much this time of year is reflecting on what could have been and what could be. The sport would not merely be improved by a playoff, but rather brought up to the standards of every other sport in NCAA competition.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that this one sport continues to buck the trend, playing by its own off-the-field rules using backroom deals and million dollar-payoffs to continue this sadness for 90% of its fans. All of this amidst the NCAA Tournament in basketball which happens to be one of the greatest weekends if not the greatest month in sports.

NCAA Basketball has found a way to generate close to 90% of its revenue from 3 weeks of games. The buzz is unbelievable. So much so that the NCAA may end up backing out of its deal with CBS just to renegotiate the inclusion of another 32 teams. 

That’s right. Expansion is a real possibility. Whether that would be good or bad for the sport is another story centered on supply-and-demand arguments.

What’s shocking about that idea is that while the good ol’ boys in college football stonewall and stagnate on any change that might help their sport, improve their image among fans, and actually give up the sham of the current BCS system – which makes fans wait a month for a consistently uninteresting lineup of blowouts all for the sake of the University Presidents, Conference Commissioners, and NCAA honchos receiving their yearly bonuses – NCAA Basketball is looking to improve.

Long-time CBS broadcaster Billy Packer commented that the “decision is not a basketball decision.  It has everything to do with finances.” While many share his view that expansion is about the money first and foremost, the ultimate product would provide more opportunity for sports fans’ fringe teams typically relegated to the NIT. It also provides more games to watch. Less excitement? Perhaps. But consider the Cinderella story of a 9 game winning streak to reach the trophy. That story would be available to any school to claim as their own.

It’s about opportunity, the product for the fan, and as alway, the money.

Let today be a lesson to all those in favor of the BCS. Your inferior product makes you feel a little dirty every time you cash their checks and argue it’s better for the sport, doesn’t it? (This last sentence is based on the premise that the only people who are pro-BCS receive money from the organization, the NCAA, or a media-affiliate.)

For the rest of us sports fans today, you can lean back in your office chair, size up your brackets, and enjoy the next 3 weeks knowing anything can happen. Upsets are the rule rather than the exception. It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan. If only our winters could be this entertaining; fairly determining a champion of the sport we love.