Feds to NCAA: Why no playoffs?

[Rickomatic]

I know this is in The Wire area. But a thread belongs here for discussion.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6479279

[Katy Lied]

dang i cant see this at work. any summaries?

[Rickomatic]

I know there will be questions about why the government is getting involved. But no one else is powerful enough to get the NCAA to look at the Bc$ and the crap that is going on. The money that is getting thrown around is a great reason to look into the problem.

[Rickomatic]

Here is the first few lines:

The Justice Department wants to know why the NCAA doesn't have a college football playoff system and says there are "serious questions" about whether the current format to determine a national champion complies with antitrust laws.Critics who have urged the department to investigate the Bowl Championship Series contend it unfairly gives some schools preferential access to the title championship game and top-tier end-of-season bowls.
In a letter this week, the department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, asked NCAA president Mark Emmert why a playoff system isn't used in football, unlike in other sports; what steps the NCAA has taken to create one; and whether Emmert thinks there are aspects of the BCS system that don't serve the interest of fans, schools and players.
"Your views would be relevant in helping us to determine the best course of action with regard to the BCS," she wrote.
"Serious questions continue to arise suggesting the current Bowl Championship Series system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in the federal antitrust laws," Varney said.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'll say it again: someday we will look back and shake our heads in disgust at the BCS/bowl system and wonder how on earth it managed to last as long as it did.

[Coach McGuirk]

This is about to get real serious for the BCS and a response of

"Goodness gracious, with all that's going on in the world right now and with national and state budgets being what they are, it seems like a waste of taxpayers' money to have the government looking into how college football games are played,"

isn't going to sit well with these politicians. Ask the baseball players.

[wally]

I heard a theory once (I'll be if it was here) that the BCS schools just might form their own league if there was a enough political and legal arm twisting. Has anybody else heard this? Is it even a posibility?

[PaloAltoCougar]

Hancock sounds like a knucklehead, and his lawyers ought to rein him in, fast. His smug declaration, "with national and state budgets being what they are, it seems like a waste of taxpayers' money to have the government looking into how college football games are played," misses the point entirely, while providing support for the anti-BCS'ers.

The government probably doesn't give a crap "how college football games are played." It does care about whether the system which controls the distribution of hundreds of millions in revenue is unfair and anticompetitive. And given the difficult economic times and limited state budgets, that issue is more important now than ever.

[shoganai]

I heard a theory once (I'll be if it was here) that the BCS schools just might form their own league if there was a enough political and legal arm twisting. Has anybody else heard this? Is it even a posibility?

This theory has been around in some form ever since the NCAA lost control of TV rights back in 1984. It might have happened already except nobody is willing to open the pandora's box of taxes on college athletic departments.

The BCS has shown a lot of practical wisdom in the past, and they know how to respond to threats. The most likely result of all this is that the BCS tries to morph itself into a quasi-playoff while still keeping the same business interests happy.

By the time this case heats up, I predict that the BCS will operate in a "Plus One" format, with the top four teams participating in seeded national semifinals (at rotating BCS sites) without regard to conference affiliation. Within five years after that, seeded quarterfinals will be added and the Top 8 teams will all have a shot at the national championship in the post season - again, without regard to conference affiliation.

15 years from now, the era of true BCS/Non-BCS will be over. The traditional power conferences will still be the best, but the playing field will be more level as it was in the 80s and early 90s. Bowl games will still exist, but 6-6 won't usually be good enough to make them anymore. Oh, and BYU will still be an independent because the only real allure of joining the Big 12 will be gone.

I could write a book about this... maybe I will some day

[Rickomatic]

If the majority of the schools receive public funding, how can they ignore the feds demanding a playoff? As long as they are public institutions, I am sure they have to at least prove they are being fair and inclusive.

[Bjorn Turoque]

The biggest obstacle to BCS schools breaking off from the NCAA is that the NCAA certifies athletes as amateurs, rather than professionals. As long as it's under the auspices of the NCAA, D-I football is an amateur activity that supports the missions of educational institutions.

Without the NCAA, D-I football is simply minor-league football. Any threatened move away from the NCAA would prompt the politicians to ask: "Why should minor-league football be a tax-exempt enterprise?"

But that's just part of it. Nobody wants the hassle of certifying the amateurism of thousands of other (non-football) student athletes, or staging championships for those athletes. That's what the NCAA does.

It's not an option.

[LA Ute]

I am not thrilled about getting the federal government involved in deciding how college sports ought to be run any more than I am about federally-run healthcare. If the threat of a DOJ lawsuit gets the BCS to open up, or gets the NCAA to run a playoff, great. But please - no consent decree, no federal watchdog, nothing of the sort. That would be a cure worse than the disease. The BCS needs to go away, and we need a playoff, but I don't want federal football.