Today the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what some media outlets are billing as the most important case in the history of professional sports.

Nine years ago, the National Football League agreed to a deal with Reebok wherein Reebok would have the exclusive benefit of producing licensed NFL apparel. In 2004, American Needle, one of the former official team apparel manufacturers, sued the NFL. American Needle claimed that by brokering this exclusive deal with Reebok, the NFL had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, restricting competition between the 32 teams. American Needle has appealed the decisions of the trial and appellate courts.

Both American Needle and the NFL want this case to appear before the high court. The NFL would like the antitrust issue settled as much as the company that is suing them. With a Supreme Court ruling that the NFL is one business, not a group of 32 competing businesses, the NFL will function exactly as Major League Baseball does. MLB has been exempt from antitrust legislation since shortly after the first World War. The MLB is a monopoly where the owners have control. The players union (MLBPA) exists as a counterpart to that monopoly, accepting or rejecting the decisions that affect the players.

Drew Brees is slated to testify as a representative of the NFLPA. His recent editorial in the Washington Post spelled out a grim future in the event the NFL wins this suit. The NFL operating as one business will mean increased league leverage in player salary negotiations. American Needle’s success in its quest to define the league as a group of competing businesses means each team will be able to operate within its own framework, giving players maximum contract control. However, the union exists to protect the players. The labor concerns of the current players fall on deaf ears, because players don’t have to agree to any contracts they do not want. Additionally, the current collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and NFLPA gives the players 60% of all league revenues, including proceeds from licensed products. It boggles the mind why current players would want the manufacturing of apparel to go back to the individual teams without the larger platform of the NFL to maximize revenues from sales. It’s because they don’t – they just want to make sure they have the ultimate power over where they play and for how much.

Somehow this case has departed from what it is really about: who can produce NFL team apparel. American Needle was one of many businesses that manufactured licensed apparel, sold it, and enjoyed a profit. Now only one company gets to do that. The NFL controls the prices, the outlets, and anything else they choose. Defining the NFL as a single entity is not a precedent. The precedent was already set in 1922 with MLB. The fans need to keep their eye on the ball – what does a ruling in favor of the NFL mean to us? If the NFL is declared a single entity, will this apparel price point control stretch to ticket prices and concessions?  Stay tuned.

There will be no BIG DANCE in 2010 much to the chagrin of college football fans across the country. Rejecting the pleas of sports fans, the BCS has shown hubris in deciding to not even consider implementing a playoff.

The Quinnipiac University National Poll numbers suggest that the public wants to scrap the current system for a playoff.  SFC board member Dave Zirin wrote an article published in the LA Times advocating for Congress to get involved.

While the public is split about 50/50 on whether Congress should lean on the BCS, the Sports Fans Coalition is not.  When sports issues enter Congress, there is a tendency for public disgust.  However, the public disgust over the inaction by the BCS is the greater evil in this situation.

In fact, rather than ameliorating the situation with sports fans, the BCS has hired Ari Fleischer to make their inaction look better, their stubbornness to appear like justice was served.

The truth is that no justice has been served.  It is an injustice that tonight’s college football game is the last of the season.  Texas and Alabama compete for a non-title while Boise State remains undefeated, and Florida overpowers Cincinnati for a consolation prize. 

There is no consolation for the college football fan.  There is no dance.

Yesterday, the proposed markup of the College Football Playoff Act of 2009 sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-Texas)  was approved in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The measure, which SFC reported on and approved on Monday, “would ban promoting, marketing or advertising a ‘national championship game’ unless the game is part of a single-elimination playoff tournament like the National Football League playoffs, lest college football’s governing body be held in violation of Federal Trade Commission truth-in-advertising provisions.” 

The bill appeared to anger BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock who has repeatedly claimed that congress has ‘more important things to do’.  Sounds like a Karl Rovian or Fleischeresque, if you will, tactic focusing on the WMD’s.  That is, Weapons of Mass Distraction.  Fortunately, the subcommittee chairman and co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) slapped Hancock down with a classic line, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” that could have just as easily been uttered by Clint Eastwood in the final scene of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

For any still on the fence about the legitimacy of ‘congressional meddling’ in this instance, please read John Feinstein’s rant in Monday’s Washington Post.  It’s a scathing review of a system that’s more dysfunctional than your typical family gettogether around the holidays.

While the SFC has accurately explained why securing a playoff for college football is the only way to restore the integrity of the NCAA, it has not been fully demonstrated how much fun all this would be for fans when all is said and done.  Whether it’s a plus-1 scenario or a full-blown 64 team bracket replicating the Final Four in college hoops (suggested by Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach), we’re in for an exciting and, more importantly, satisfying winter ritual to determine who really is the best in the country. 

By years end, there will be a handful of undefeated teams left, and despite the fact that one’s alma mater might win the Citi BCS National Championship Game, there will still be some remorse in the fact that it’s not a bona fide national championship.  All doubt was not removed.  The results are in and they leave us wanting more. 

Some would argue that this is a good thing.  In this case, ’some’ refers to Ari Fleischer and the BCS.  They are using dissatisfaction to market their sport.  The debate, in their opinion, is more exciting than actually watching a great game between two teams who deserve to be on the field based on their performance in a previously held playoff contest in order to crown a true champ. 

If you take a look at the lineup of BCS Bowls this year, you are seeing the matchups of conferences before the results are even in.  What does that tell you?  It is proof positive that the current system of predetermination is unfair and underwhelming. 

The fact is that these BCS Bowl positions are promised to certain conferences long before the first kickoff of the season.  We are left with a week of weak programming; a slew of lopsided victories just so contractual obligations are satisfied while the fans are left unsatisfied.

We won’t see the underdog triumph.  The system is built in a way to reward affiliation and association over actual wins and losses on the field.  The BCS benefits those teams in big conferences, and even the most respected coaches in those ‘elite’ conferences like Joe Paterno want this ‘bogus‘ system changed.  Even though Texas is the heir apparent to this year’s BCS National Championship, their head coach Mack Brown has stated that there should not be a distinction between BCS and non-BCS schools and that all schools should be treated equally.

The penultimate example of how anticlimactic Division IA football has become at the hands of those administering the BCS is found this Saturday when the number 1 ranked Florida Gators face the number 2 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide for the SEC Championship in Atlanta, Georgia.  Now, why would a game pitting number 1 vs. number 2 be disappointing?  It’s because there will be no chance for either team to avenge the loss. 

Think of all the possibilities.  Sports Illustrated has already done so creating a mock 16-team playoff that would serve as a fitting format for a 4 week thrill ride filled with matchups based on merit and quality of play rather than the conference your University President bought its way into analogous to being a member of a country club. 

Instead, the SEC Championship this Saturday represents what could have been.  While it’s near impossible to find a ’supporter of the BCS that isn’t paid by the BCS’ according to James Carville, we are surrounded by the pro-playoff contingent who won’t be satisfied until we see a National Championship decided on the field. 

Until then, we just won’t be satisfied.

It seems odd that the BCS has hired the original Final Four director, Bill Hancock, to maintain the false front that this system works in college football, and that it really is in the best interest of fans.  How will Hancock go from administering one of the most successful and profitable playoff tournaments in sports to the unjust BCS format?  With the amount of public outcry, his job won’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be. 

No playoff means no trust from fans that the governing body genuinely has their interests at heart.  The fact of the matter is, no matter what Hancock says, those cashing BCS checks in the ‘approved’ conferences don’t care about their fans’ wishes one iota.  Nor do those Universities and Conferences care about those on the outside looking in. 

This type of exclusion is maintained by a group of well-paid University Presidents and NCAA Officials or, as Washington Post columnist and ESPN co-host of Pardon the Interuption Michael Wilbon described it at the 4th Annual Shirley Povich Symposium last week, this “cartel” we mistake for a legitimate organization locks out whichever teams and conferences it chooses.  

The organized crime continues through 2013 with the signed TV contracts, and the current rules state that ‘the champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and Southeastern Conferences will have automatic berths’.  Any school outside of these major conferences needs to jump through hoops just for the chance to be considered, and even then, you’re a computer glitch away from rejection.

For the sports fan, the problem with caring about your alma mater’s football team so much is that no matter how well the players compete on the field, they still might be left out of contention for the BCS National Championship.  When teams like TCU, Boise State, and Cincinnati knock on the door of a perfect regular season, but know from the outset that no mathematical outcome could grant them admittance to the big dance, the inequity is glaring and egregious.

How do you think Tom Brady and the 2007/08 Patriots  would respond after being told they can only play one post-season game, win or lose, following their perfect 16-0 regular season?  If  Bill Belichek’s perfect Pats were competing in the NCAA, they’d never meet the New York Giants in a proper finale, and ‘the catch’ would never have been. 

The bottom line is titles should be determined on the field of play.  Not in the offices of NCAA Conference Commisioners, University Presidents, or in the plush new confines inhabited by the first Executive Director of the BCS.

Don’t just sit there and wait for change.  JOIN THE COALITION today, and get all your family and friends to do the same.  There is strength in numbers.