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The Farce that is the BCS system

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  • #1

    The Farce that is the BCS system

    Man I hate this effing system.


    Tuesday, December 25, 2007
    SPECIAL REPORT: College football's money bowl
    Bowls profitability and not wanting to give up control probably means no future playoffs in Division I college football.
    By SCOTT M. REID
    The Orange County Register
    Comments 2 | Recommend 18

    The people calling Fiesta Bowl executive director John Junker these days apparently are not the same ones dialing up radio call-in shows from Athens to Norman to Los Angeles demanding a college football playoff.

    "I've been getting a lot of calls from people at all levels of college football these past weeks," Junker said, "and they are all strongly, strongly, strongly behind the current bowl system."

    Some university administrators maintain a playoff would result in too much missed class time and would be too intrusive on college life.

    But the main obstacle standing in the way of a playoff is the bowl system itself, a billion-dollar-a-year industry operated primarily by tax-exempt bowl committees who have spent decades and millions of dollars nurturing relationships with influential friends on university campuses, conference headquarters, state houses and the halls of power in Washington, D.C.

    Despite the renewed public outcry for a playoff, the bowl committees, operating with minimal oversight from the NCAA and Internal Revenue Service, have never possessed greater political and financial clout, according to an Orange County Register review of bowl financial records and other documents.

    "The forces propelling it now are stronger than ever," Smith College economics professor Andrew S. Zimbalist said of the bowl system.

    Those forces extend beyond those bowl directors dressed in loud blazers. Corporate sponsors, conference commissioners, administrators, coaches with bowl bonuses in their contracts and boosters and university trustees are accustomed to holiday rounds of golf in Arizona or Florida. Plus, local economies in bowl cities all have stakes in a bowl system that would be threatened by a playoff tournament.
    "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

    "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Originally posted by Mormon Red Death View Post
    Man I hate this effing system.
    I love Zimbalist - the economist the article quotes. He wrote May The Best Team Win about baseball's financial shenanigans.
    "More crazy people to Provo go than to any other town in the state."
    -- Iron County Record. 23 August, 1912. (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...23/ed-1/seq-4/)

    Comment

    • #3
      Part 2

      "The bowls have become this big gravy train," said Murray Sperber, author of College Sports Inc. "Everybody loves this gravy train so much they don't want to get off."

      But they have climbed aboard a vehicle, critics said, that has strayed from both the basis for which the bowls were originally granted tax-exempt status and the missions of the universities that send teams and hundreds of thousands of fans every winter.

      Current and former college presidents, prominent academics, and the NCAA's former executive director portray a bowl system rife with excess. For example, in 2003 officials from Nashville's Music City Bowl spent $7,203 on hosting an office miniature golf tournament.

      "It's really one of the most corrupt boondoggles in college and university life," Sperber said of the bowls.

      Among the Register's findings:

      •Twenty-two of the current 32 bowls are operated by organizations that, despite receiving tens of millions of dollars annually from corporate sponsorships, continue to benefit from tax-exempt status. Since 2001, those 22 games have generated more than $800 million in gross receipts, according financial records reviewed by the Register.

      •Seven tax-exempt bowl organizations received $21.6 million in government funding between 2001 and 2005, the most recent year complete financial records are available.

      •The combined compensation packages for officers at bowl committees with non-profit status have more than doubled since 2001. Some bowl executives' financial packages actually have tripled during that period. The salary for one bowl CEO accounted for more than 10 percent of the game's entire operating budget. Other top officials have received $100,000 interest-free loans from their bowl committees.

      •A Washington, D.C., lobbying firm run by former Oklahoma congressman and Sooners quarterback J.C. Watts has received more than $500,000 since January of 2003 from a fund created by the four Bowl Championship Series games (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange), according to documents filed with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

      Bowl officials maintain their continued tax-exempt status is merited because the majority of revenues are distributed to participating universities and conferences and the economic impact the games have on their areas.

      "It (the tax-exempt status) is a recognition of the type of business we're in," Junker said, "and the benefits we provide for college sports and our communities."

      Bowl officials, conference commissioners and university administrators say those benefits have not influenced the decision to favor the bowl system over a playoff.

      "That's a fundamentally erroneous concept," said Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen. "The people who ultimately decide these things are the presidents and chancellors and they are really not interested in the economics. If maximizing income was their sole goal, we would go to a playoff system tomorrow."

      It's all about control

      While a football playoff system would likely attract a larger payday than the NCAA basketball tournament's $6.2 billion, 11-year TV contract with CBS and ESPN, a playoff would also dramatically reshape where that money would go and who would control it.

      "The current bowl system needs overhauling," said former NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey. "But the people that control college football don't want to give up that control, control of all that money."

      Dempsey and others complain that the NCAA and its member institutions over the past 25 years has increasingly ceded too much control to a small group of major conference commissioners, the bowls and their corporate and television sponsors. The turning point in that dynamic was a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA in an anti-trust suit brought by the University of Georgia and University of Oklahoma that left schools free to negotiate their own TV deals.

      "I think (the NCAA is) afraid to" take more control of college football, said Charles Young, former UCLA chancellor and member of the Knight Commission on NCAA athletics. "And the anti-trust suit probably has a lot to do with it."

      Another pivotal event in shaping the current bowl landscape occurred in the 1990s. A 1991 IRS audit of the Cotton Bowl ruled that a sponsorship deal with Mobil that included naming rights was advertising and taxable as business revenue. The bowl reached out to friends in Congress and legislation was passed in 1997 that allowed qualified sponsorship payments to non-profits to be tax-exempt.

      "The IRS had its head handed to them," said Les Lenkowsky, director of the graduate program at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

      In 1996 there were 18 bowl games. Today there are 32 games stretching over 14 states and across the border into Canada.

      "You can have a bowl in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the NCAA can't do anything to stop it," said UCLA administrator John Sandbrook, author of a Knight Commission report on postseason football.

      This growing number of bowls saw Congress' restraint of the IRS as a green light to push the edge of the tax-exempt envelope, according to university and conference officials and non-profit experts.

      In annual filings with the IRS, bowls, like all non-profits, must list reasons for receiving tax-exempt status and charitable activities the organization conducted that fiscal year. For instance, the Orange Bowl in its statement of charitable activities states, "The organization conducts the Fed-Ex Orange Bowl so that residents and visitors of the community become interested in the climatic, recreational, commercial, agricultural, social, educational, and economic interests of the area." In the same filing the Orange Bowl listed $22.6 million in gross receipts for the 2005 fiscal year.

      Other bowls stressed their contributions to higher education.

      "The notion that the stated pretext has anything to do with the reality is absurd," Zimbalist said.

      But while University of Iowa law professor Ethan Stone acknowledges that bowl filings seem "like pretty feeble attempts" at gaining tax-exempt standing, he and other non-profit experts said the bowls are not in danger of losing that status.

      "The IRS doesn't go around asking, 'Is your tax-exempt status valid?' " Lenkowsky said.

      For all the high-minded prose in IRS filings, bowl officials and their supporters in interviews are direct about the bowl's purpose.

      "Bowls have always been commercial ventures by nature," the Pac-10's Hansen said. "They really don't care about how good you are but about how many people you can bring."

      "We do these games to generate economic impact," said Bruce Binkowski, executive director of San Diego's Holiday and Poinsettia bowls. "To get people into town during a slow time of year."

      Everyone treated well

      Bowl committees spend hundreds of thousands annually reminding corporate sponsors, local politicians and businesses just how many people their games attract.

      Arizona's Fiesta and Insight bowls and the BCS National Championship last season produced a $410 million economic impact on greater Phoenix area, according to an Arizona State study paid for by the local bowl committees. San Diego's Holiday and Poinsettia bowls had $41 million economic impact, according to San Diego State research also funded by the bowls.

      The Sugar Bowl pays a consultant $11,000 annually to "monitor legislative developments … related to the continued financial support of the Sugar Bowl." The investment has paid big dividends. In one recent four-year period, the bowl received more than $4.1 million in funding from the state department of economic development.

      El Paso's Sun Bowl has also been successful attracting government funding. Between 2001 and 2005, the game received more than $9 million, 38 percent of its total revenue, in government funding primarily from rental car tax. Funding from the car tax accounted for 53 percent of the Sun Bowl's $5.6 million budget in 2002.

      The government funding and continued tax-exempt status come at a time when bowls are taking a larger share of bowl revenues and corporate and title sponsorships have doubled (reaching $34.9 million since the 2002 season).

      In 2002, all bowl games posted combined gross receipts of $227.1 million, just under 20 percent ($45.3 million) of which went to the groups putting on those games. Gross receipts last season totaled $313.8 million, with the bowl groups retaining 30.6 percent ($96.3 million).

      Salaries for top bowl officials also have increased dramatically. There are now more bowl officials making $400,000 or more annually than there were officials making $200,000 in 2001. The director of Tampa's Outback Bowl receives nearly $500,000 per year in total compensation. Sugar Bowl director Paul Hoolahan has an annual financial package worth $462,857, more than doubled his 2001 figure.

      Then there's Gary Cavalli, executive director of the San Francisco Bowl Game Association, which puts on the Emerald Bowl. Cavalli received $362,018 in compensation and employee benefits in 2006, accounting for 11 percent of the bowl's budget. The game cleared $271,412. In a filing with the IRS, Cavalli said he works 35 hours a week.

      Non-profit experts said the high salaries might look bad but they are not illegal. The IRS allows non-profits to pay employees salaries comparable to those with similar positions.

      "So," Lenkowki said, "I'm sure the (bowl directors) always cheer when a guy at another bowl gets a raise. It's a pretty small universe for comparison."

      Bowl officials also benefit from a lack of oversight.

      "One of the reasons bowl games can do this is that, unlike local charities, they don't have to go out and raise money from individuals who might ask questions," Lenkowsi said. "Nobody is going, 'Gee, why are you paying so much for this director?' "
      "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

      "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

      Comment

      • #4
        What? the BCS is all about money and not about football?

        Why hasn't anyone here brought this to our attention already?!
        Fitter. Happier. More Productive.
        sigpic

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        • #5
          part 3

          Those bowl directors spend millions annually making sure those who could ask questions – conference commissioners, university presidents and athletic directors, corporate sponsors – stay happy.

          "Because of the relationships the bowls have with the schools, the conferences, the bowls make sure they take care of everybody and everybody scratches each other's backs," Zimbalist said. "(College) presidents get wined and dined by the bowls. Deans, trustees are taken out by the bowls for a round of golf."

          Orange Bowl officials spent $450,459 in 2005 alone traveling the country, nurturing and building relationships. The Outback Bowl has run a $3.5 million tab since 2001 on social functions. Atlanta's Chick-Fil-A Bowl has spent more than $4.5 million on conferences since 2001.

          "It's a good old boys club," Zimbalist said, "where everybody gets treated royally well."

          Whether he's between the hedges, in the Swamp or at the Big House, John Junker is always spotted across the college football landscape in his lemon yellow blazer with the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl patch on the breast pocket.

          Junker's jacket, however, isn't the only thing raising eyebrows.\

          As director of both the Fiesta and Insight bowls, Junker received compensation totaling $415,035 in 2005, making him in the eyes of critics one of the poster boys for the excesses of a bowl system dominated by tax-exempt organizations largely unrestrained by the NCAA and Internal Revenue Service.
          "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

          "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

          Comment

          • #6
            part 4

            The Arizona Sports Foundation, one of three non-profit groups that operate the two Phoenix-area bowls, also gave Junker a 10-year, $100,000, interest-free loan in April 2002, according to financial records reviewed by the Orange County Register.

            "I don't think my compensation is anybody's business other than myself and my board of directors," Junker said when asked about his salary and the loan. "I work hard and I'm also not a believer in socialism and socialism is what some of these people who are against the bowls want. And socialism has been one of the biggest purveyors of pain and deprivation throughout history."

            Bowl critics would no doubt be amused by Junker's comments. Junker and other bowl directors' financial compensation, critics said, are emblematic of a bowl system that no longer merits its tax-exempt status.

            Between 2001 and 2005, the three tax-exempt organizations run by Junker that operate the two Arizona bowls generated more than $110 million in gross receipts.

            "You would be hard pressed to find a greater abuse of the tax laws and the taxpayer," said Murray Sperber, the former chairman of the Drake Group, a national faculty committee pushing for college sports reform. "Because ultimately, it's you and I, the taxpayer, that are paying for all this."

            Junker said he was paid $17,000 his first year with the Fiesta Bowl, the game founded in 1971 for teams other bowls didn't want.

            Today the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl is one of the most sought-after destinations in college football, one of the game's five crown jewels. More than 30 years after he left the Arizona State athletic department, Junker has built a bowl empire in the desert with assets totaling $22 million, according to a March 2006 filing with the IRS.

            He has done so, conference and university administrators said, by hard work and years spent building relationships from the sweaty equipment rooms to posh corporate and chancellors' offices.

            "This is not an easy business," Junker said. "It's not as important as working in a hospital emergency room but you have a lot of people depending on you."

            Junker runs all three non-profit groups from the same office on Scottsdale's tony Camelback Road. According to IRS filings, Junker works 31 hours per week for Arizona Sports, the primary Fiesta Bowl group, receiving $264,512 in salary in 2005.

            He works 24 hours a week for Fiesta Events, a non-profit created to handle Fiesta Bowl related activities. Fiesta Events paid Junker $91,389 in 2005. Junker devotes another 15 hours per week to Valley of the Sun Bowl Foundation, which operates the Insight Bowl. Valley paid Junker $59,134 in 2005.

            Non-profit experts said because Junker's compensation is comparable to financial packages for other top bowl executives, it likely falls within IRS salary guidelines that allow non-profits to pay employees at levels for those holding similar positions.

            But while stopping short of saying it violates IRS regulations, experts said Junker's loan, approved by the Arizona Sports board of directors, does raise concerns.

            "Loans generally, and especially interest free loans, are suspect," said Les Lenkowsky, director of Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

            Junker offers no apologies for his compensation. He said he and his blazer are on the road "most of the year." The three groups spent $374,082 on travel and another $249,261 on conferences in 2005.

            "Our business is a difficult business," Junker said. "This airline flies just once a year so you better be prepared and ready to work year round. You just don't wait for the phone to ring on (bowl) bid day and take (ticket) orders."

            Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
            "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

            "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

            Comment

            • #7
              john junker is a POS. He deserves to be kicked in the crotch
              "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

              "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

              Comment

              • #8
                Originally posted by TripletDaddy View Post
                What? the BCS is all about money and not about football?

                Why hasn't anyone here brought this to our attention already?!
                Dont read it if you dont want to see it. I thought people on the board would find it interesting how much money the bowls are worth.
                "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

                "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

                Comment

                • #9
                  "I don't think my compensation is anybody's business other than myself and my board of directors," Junker said when asked about his salary and the loan. "I work hard and I'm also not a believer in socialism and socialism is what some of these people who are against the bowls want. And socialism has been one of the biggest purveyors of pain and deprivation throughout history."
                  This is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

                  A competitive playoff - the system favored by "these people who are against the bowls" - is about as opposite of a socialist construction as I can imagine.

                  Playoffs reward individual merit and accomplishment (are supposed to, anyway). Sounds pretty socialist to me.

                  All this guy needs to add is, "If we get rid of the bowls, then the terrorists win."
                  "More crazy people to Provo go than to any other town in the state."
                  -- Iron County Record. 23 August, 1912. (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...23/ed-1/seq-4/)

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Sorry but you cant hate the BCS and then have that avatar. If it wasnt for the BCS you wouldnt even have an argument about being the National Champs. You would have gone to the Vegas Bowl and played 7-5 Arizona and ended up just like Marshall, Tulane, Louisville and all the others.
                    *Banned*

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Originally posted by cougjunkie View Post
                      Sorry but you cant hate the BCS and then have that avatar. If it wasnt for the BCS you wouldnt even have an argument about being the National Champs. You would have gone to the Vegas Bowl and played 7-5 Arizona and ended up just like Marshall, Tulane, Louisville and all the others.
                      Whatever the BCS's faults the system has come a long ways. On the farcie scale the system was a much bigger farce. In 1984. About that no informed disagrees.
                      When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

                      --Jonathan Swift

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Originally posted by cougjunkie View Post
                        Sorry but you cant hate the BCS and then have that avatar. If it wasnt for the BCS you wouldnt even have an argument about being the National Champs. You would have gone to the Vegas Bowl and played 7-5 Arizona and ended up just like Marshall, Tulane, Louisville and all the others.
                        Sure I can... The powers at be in the bcs didnt let in the small conferences because they thought it was fair. They let them in because congress threatened action.
                        "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

                        "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Mormon Red Death View Post
                          Sure I can... The powers at be in the bcs didnt let in the small conferences because they thought it was fair. They let them in because congress threatened action.
                          No, I'm sorry. The avatar police will be here shortly to remove it, you goddam hypocrite. The BCS is either all bad or all good. There is no middle ground. You moron with a trophy avatar. That trophy doesn't exist. The Sugar Bowl was a mythical, meaningless game. Get real. Only Las Vegas Bowls matter.
                          "More crazy people to Provo go than to any other town in the state."
                          -- Iron County Record. 23 August, 1912. (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...23/ed-1/seq-4/)

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Originally posted by cougjunkie View Post
                            Sorry but you cant hate the BCS and then have that avatar. If it wasnt for the BCS you wouldnt even have an argument about being the National Champs. You would have gone to the Vegas Bowl and played 7-5 Arizona and ended up just like Marshall, Tulane, Louisville and all the others.
                            It's true that without the BCS the Utes would have gone to the Vegas Bowl, but without the BCS the Utes would have had a better chance at a higher ranking and none of the BCS bowls would have been more important than the smaller bowls.

                            The bias created by the BCS system would have eliminated BYU in 1984 despite being undefeated as well.
                            "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill


                            "I only know what I hear on the news." - Dear Leader

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Solon View Post
                              This is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

                              A competitive playoff - the system favored by "these people who are against the bowls" - is about as opposite of a socialist construction as I can imagine.

                              Playoffs reward individual merit and accomplishment (are supposed to, anyway). Sounds pretty socialist to me.

                              All this guy needs to add is, "If we get rid of the bowls, then the terrorists win."
                              No kidding. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

                              That's a depressing article.
                              "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
                              "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
                              "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

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