Except that it wouldn’t have to. Oh, and except that the BCS system already interferes with the academic calendars of some schools.

Let’s look at the present system.

The college football postseason starts on December 18 with the much anticipated (ha) 5th annual New Mexico Bowl. The postseason starts on that date because by then all schools are finished with fall/winter finals exams. The postseason runs through January 10, when the BCS National Championship Game will be played in Arizona. That means there are four weekends of postseason football that apparently don’t interfere with the academic calendars, at least that’s what the defenders claim.

Except that the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls take place during the first week of classes for many schools.

And the January 10 national championship game takes place during the second week of classes for several schools.

So by the BCS defenders’ logic, Ohio State shouldn’t be playing in the title game or two of the other BCS bowl games. After all, classes for the Buckeyes start on January 3, 2011.

Same goes for 4 of the other 7 schools who played in BCS bowl games last year. The Oregon Ducks (January 3), Cincinnati Bearcats (January 4), and Florida Gators (January 5) all start classes in the week before the BCS title game. And unless the TCU Horned Frogs plan on attending classes the day of the title game, the national championship game would interfere with their schedule.

It is true that the January 10 BCS title game might interfere with the academic calendars of two schools — a sacrifice the NCAA and the BCS seem willing to make in order to have a national championship game. But is interfering with the academic schedules of (possibly) four teams instead of two really threatening the academic missions of all 120 FBS schools? Of course not.

Moreover, consider that the college basketball season not only spans two semesters, its postseason takes place over three weeks during the semester. And college basketball teams also typically play games during the winter break.

Truth is, even a 16-team playoff could work in the current time allotted for postseason bowl games with a title game on January 10. An eight-team playoff could culminate with a title game on January 3, causing student-athletes to miss virtually no class time. Or if the 16-team playoffs started on December 11, when there are no games scheduled, except for Army-Navy, the title game could still be January 3.

(For those wondering, in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA), 16 teams play on December 4, 8 on December 11, 4 on December 17-18 and two meet in the championship game on January 7.)

Clearly, there is plenty of time set aside for bowl games so as not to interfere with academic calendars during which an 8- or 16-team playoff could be completed. A 4-team playoff would be a piece of cake with the current schedule.

Just as the BCS title game itself kills the heart of the argument about the “great traditions” of bowl games, the date of the title game also proves that the BCS and the NCAA are willing to interfere with the academic calendars of some schools. They’re just not willing to do so for the sake of an equitable and far more compelling postseason.

Unless sports fans stand up once and for all.

–

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

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

In recent comments defending the Bowl Championship Series, BCS executive director Bill Hancock stated that college football has the “best, most compelling regular season of any sport.” Hancock was concerned that if college football had a post-season playoff like college basketball, fans would only care about the post-season.

“March is so wonderful, but the regular season is losing its appeal,” Hancock said. “It breaks my heart, but it’s because everything is going into March.

“We can’t take the risk of that happening in football because we have the best, most compelling regular season of any sport.”

Hancock is a good man tasked with the unenviable task of defending a system that has lower public approval ratings than Congress. And one of his primary defenses is the “most compelling regular season” claim.

But there are several problems with that claim.

First, is Hancock really claiming that the NFL’s regular season games aren’t as compelling as college football regular season games? What about Monday night football? Speaking of Monday nights, does Hancock think that Monday night Big East and Big 12 conference basketball games in January aren’t compelling enough?

Essentially, Hancock is arguing that every other sport that has a playoff is getting it wrong?

Second, under the BCS system, once a team falls out of contention for the national championship, don’t their seasons become less compelling than if they were playing for a conference championship or an at-large playoff berth, not only for fans of those schools but for the rest of us?

Take the powerhouses where anything short of playing for a national championship is a wasted season. This year those schools included Florida, Oklahoma and Ohio State. If those schools lose one game – and certainly two – there is no way those schools are playing for a national championship under the current system. While this might make the games up until the losses more compelling, what happens after those teams lose one or two games?

How compelling was the 2009 season for Oklahoma Sooners fans after the team lost their opening game to BYU? A friend who is a Texas alum told me that if UT loses to Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, he hardly pays attention to the rest of the season after that. Maybe those UT and OU fans still find their seasons compelling, but how about the rest of us? Why was there any reason to watch OU after losing that first game? On the other hand, if a team could still win the national championship in a playoff, the games after one or two losses would still be compelling.

A college football playoff would create a scenario in which a number of teams would still have a shot at winning their conference championship or an at-large berth and thus would still be in the hunt for the national championship.

Third, even if we grant that the college football regular season is more compelling than other regular seasons, what if the cost of saving it is a less compelling post-season? Does the NCAA really think that one national championship game and a few marquis bowl games would get better ratings and be more compelling than a series of playoff games each one becoming increasingly more significant. A 16-team playoff would give college football fans a reason to watch at least 15 meaningful postseason games. (That’s in addition to any bowl games they might be interested in.) How many bowl games did the average fan watch last year? A few?

Bowl games just aren’t that meaningful to any college football fans without a rooting interest. Sure, they can be entertaining (sometimes) but there is no larger post-season narrative. Just a series of random bowl games punctuated by one often-controversial championship game.

Moreover, by sticking with the bowl and BCS system, the NCAA may actually be losing money – a lot of money.  SI.com writer Andy Staples writes:

Even BCS leaders will admit that there’s more money in a playoff. The NCAA basketball tournament brings in an estimated $545 million a year, and college football is exponentially more popular than college basketball. The BCS brings in only $150 million a year, but it funnels most of it to the most powerful conferences. Government intervention would strip those conferences of their power. After that, given a choice between less money and more money, here’s betting college presidents forget about their arguments against a playoff and opt for more money.

It’s clear that the claim that college football has the “most compelling regular season” is simply a sleight of hand to cover up that college football’s post-season is not only problematic and controversial, it’s not even that compelling. That is, unless virtually every other sports league (and the NCAA itself with its Football Championship Subdivision) has it wrong.

–

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

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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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.

We were happy to do an interview with the very popular website’s staff which you can listen to here.

It should be noted that SFC wholeheartedly supports Playoff PAC in their fight to create a college football playoff and end the cartel’s (read: BCS)  dictatorial reign over post-season college football. 

Whatever you do, DO NOT miss the video posted on the blog post.  If you have been paying any attention to Ari Fleischer’s PR campaign to save the BCS by smearing opponents, you’ll enjoy it.

It was a great game, with a little of everything in it for college football fans – interceptions, injuries, trick plays, and heartwarming stories of players who faced adversity and kept going.

However, there was something just not right about it.  This is not the game we should have had.

It has been over a month since the BCS, aided by computers (what would we do without them?), decided which two teams would face each other in its don’t-call-it-a-national-championship game. There were four more Saturdays of college football in which the fans could have had the playoff that included all of the best teams in football, not just those ordained by a group of insiders deadset on protecting their million dollar paychecks.

Joe Paterno said it best in a recent interview with ESPN. “We must have a championship game. We get forgotten after we finish the season. I don’t like the BCS. I think we need a playoff.”

The team with even one loss gets forgotten because their fate is decided immediately upon the regular season’s end. And what’s worse for teams that are not in an elite conference such as Penn State, even with a perfect season, a mid-major will be similarly exiled. Just ask Boise State how they felt after beating TCU in the anticlimactic Fiesta Bowl.

As responsible sports fans, we want the college football season to last with an eye toward keeping our school’s athletes healthy – but with meaningful games leading up to the crowning of a true champion.

Without a playoff in the month of December, we will never know. If that means Alabama doesn’t play Jack State in September, so be it. We’d rather see an Alabama-Florida playoff rematch then the Florida-Charleston Southern blowout in Week 1.

Picking the final two teams for NCAA Football’s top prize  shouldn’t include a debate of what clique they hang out in. In this new decade, let the champion be decided on the field.

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.

We are at a real tipping point. It has been said that there are 3 types of
people in the World; those people who make things happen; those people who watch things happen; and those people who never knew what happened. SFC needs people who make things happen and we need you now.

Together with your help, SFC can help put a stake in the heart of the BCS. We
need you to join SFC to help us help you make this happen. We are so close
to bringing equity and fairness to college football. A success in killing
off the bowl system will empower the fan to realize many more
accomplishments in areas like blackouts of games, ticket pricing, stadium
funding, etc.

Let’s double up our efforts today to help bring real change to college
football.