posted
You must be a soccer fan. I think they should make it illegal for 2 soccer fans to get married.
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I have to admit, I was a bit perplexed at that decision as well. The corporate types might not see much difference between ESPN and FOX (who has the rights now) or ABC (who will have the Rose Bowl in perpetuity, if they have their way...), but for the average folks who don't have cable, this is a pretty big deal.
Oh, money. How you change people's lives in such small ways.
And if this means I have to put up with Kirk Herbstreit even more, I might have to join in with the bricking.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
So Utah beats the Regular season #1 team and ends the season undefeated, and will get what, 4th place?
Citigroup, who we gave 75$ billion to, bought the rose bowl and showed 30 commercials. So we paid citigroup to buy our bowl and advertise to us?
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
The emperor has not only been revealed to be wearing no clothes at all, but has turned out to be a rampant exhibitionist as well.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
But.. but.. the TRADITION of the bowl games must be preserved! The FINE tradition of the Meinike Care Care Bowl! and the Outback Bowl! and the PapaJohns.com Bowl!
You're some kind of radical if you want to get rid of tradition like that!
On a serious note, Arguably, Football is the NCAA's premier event, yet it's the only one without a play off. Football needs a tournament. Just 4 weekends would give 16 teams and an undisputed #1. AND you could still have the bowls for the teams that didn't make it into the play off. The NCAA would be double dipping into that money.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I agree. I am a bit intrigued by the potential anti-trust lawsuit the article discussed.
As I see it, this isn't just about a title, there is are millions of dollars awarded to schools and conferences through the BCS system. I could not care less about whether we really know who the best college football team is. However, large sums of money are involved and it only seems fair for Colleges to insist that the system that decides who gets the money isn't rigged.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Except, at least as I understand it, that money is generated by the BCS schools themselves. So it's a bit like someone wanting a stake in the office pool without wanting to pay to play. Or at least wanting to play while paying a dramatically reduced amount.
Honestly, other than as a marketing ploy, tournament playoffs won't settle the issue of which team is "the best" either. I'm more of the mind that as long as regular seasons are constrained primarily to geographiclly determined conferences (which I think they should be, since the amount of travel would otherwise conflict with the players primary purposes as college students), you can't say much other than who the best team in the conference is, and often not even that.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
i believe that money does not come from the BCS schools, it is generated by the BCS bowls (predominantly television contracts and ticket sales).
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: i believe that money does not come from the BCS schools, it is generated by the BCS bowls (predominantly television contracts and ticket sales).
And BCS bowls have an interest in restricting access to colleges that can generate the biggest money. It's a little club of schools from conferences with big fan bases.
The only thing I find particularly offensive is the claim that the winner of the BCS is the national champion; like I said, I don't think there's any remotely satisfactory way within the (IMO, necessary) restrictions that conference play place on the sport, to determine a national champion.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: i believe that money does not come from the BCS schools, it is generated by the BCS bowls (predominantly television contracts and ticket sales).
And BCS bowls have an interest in restricting access to colleges that can generate the biggest money. It's a little club of schools from conferences with big fan bases.
Is there any data to back this up? Do the big bowls generate more revenue when two BCS teams play each other than they do when there is a non BCS team in the game? I haven't heard any complaints that the Alabama/Utah game generated to little revenue.
I think what we have is a select club that has managed to persuade the media that they are "elite' and deserving of differential treatment. The AAC went 8 straight years without winning a bowl game, but no one complained that they didn't belong in BCS, yet virtually any non-BCS team that looses a single bowl get those comments.
The BCS conferences have a vested interest in preserving their elite status and the revenue stream that goes with it even if it means creating rules that disadvantage the competition. That is virtual by definition a violation of anti-trust laws.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Not in any way rigorous, but here's a list of the Fiesta Bowl ratings for the last several years. When two "major" teams play each other, the ratings are significantly higher (meaning, I believe, that ad revenues and tv contracts are commensurately higher)
<edit>Here's the same analysis for the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Rose Bowl. All seem, to varying degrees, to exhibit the same trend. All of which analysis seems to support, to my mind, Danlo's assertion that the BCS is all about the money.</edit>
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I received an email forward of an email sent directly to BCSreform.org. I think it is an interesting read.
Dear Fellow Football Fairness Fans,
First, let me apologize for the length of this email in this era of soundbytes.
As a former automobile salesman, I know a little about negotiating. Right now, just about everyone negotiating with the BCS is doing so from a position of weakness. We all appear to them to be sniffling crybabies from weak conferences who have no business even being in Division I.
If the BCS had its' way, I think they would actually like to see the non-BCS conferences become a Division II or a Division IAA, whatever. The evidence of that is when newscasters and people from the BCS conferences refer to the non-BCS conferences as "Mid-Majors." They have, as we all know an unofficial, artificial seperate division for non-BCS programs.
We are operating from a position of weakness currently for a number of reasons, among them are these: 1. The discussion is only held publicly during December when bowl bids are announced and the first week or two in January when the fallout happens and people are outraged when their program (BCS or non-BCS) wasn't selected to play in the big game, then the rhetoric dies out and fans start looking at basketball or the superbowl. 2. The BCS knows that all we want is a playoff and they keep making minor concessions that seem fair at the time but in fruition they are just as unfair as the previous system, in other words they have seen our hand.
We have an opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength, perhaps even on an equal footing with the BCS with the legal challenges that are pending from Gary Miller, and the Utah Attorney General and several others in Congress. However, the BCS has hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal to fight these actions. We do not.
What if we began negotiating from a position that was stronger than the BCS'? What if our negotiations drove a wedge between the BCS and the NCAA and the Bowl Games the way a car salesman is trained to pit a husband and a wife against each other? What I propose is a well played poker bluff.
If the BCS could be made to believe the following scenario was not only plausible but also probable, in fact imminent, I believe they would do whatever they needed to do to keep it from happening. Here's the scenario:
If the Anti-Trust suit is successful and the NCAA/BCS is found to be an illegal monopoly, (for which there is legal precedent)
*The government mandates financial damages from the BCS programs to the non-BCS programs backdated to the inception of the BCS.
*The NCAA is divided into two independent leagues, the ACAA and the NCAA. The precedent for this is the breakup of Ma Bell in the 1980's.
*The NCAA would be divided conference by conference with the ACAA and the NCAA each taking turns choosing teams. As an added insult, the ACAA would take first pick. This would mean that traditional rivalries, conferences, and the BCS would be eliminated altogether. March Madness would become March Semi-Neurotic by default.
*The Bowl Games would be divided between the NCAA and the ACAA in much the same way. As a concession to the NCAA, they could have first pick on the Bowls.
*Each league would be mandated to select a champion through a sixteen team playoff series with the Bowl Games being the venues, that way all bowl games would become relevant. This also creates fair access to the title game for any team in the two leagues.
*The government would also mandate a final playoff game (such as the SuperBowl which was played by two different leagues in the early years rather than two divisions of the same league, or the World Series which is still played by two seperate leagues).
*The venue for the final championship game would rotate through ALL the bowl games, not just the big four, with the first year being hosted by the ACAA and the second year being hosted by the NCAA and so on. Each of the bowl games at that point would become relevant, not just the four majors.
*National Championship games would be mandated between the two leagues in all Collegiate Athletics, not just football.
Why not get the NCAA/BCS to "settle" for a sixteen team playoff instead of facing a much harsher but viable alternative that is mandated by congress. If you can change the dynamics of the discussion and get important people to start talking seriously about alternatives that are far worse than a playoff system, don't you think the NCAA/BCS would at least come to the table? Negotiate from strengths, not weaknesses. Make this fictional scenario a credible threat.
For me, personally, all I want is a mere sixteen team playoff with a legitimate national champion. But if the NCAA is unwilling to budge on this point, I wouldn't mind seeing my radical plan.
Sincerely, Bascombe (I changed the name to a pen name)
Posts: 5 | Registered: Jan 2009
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By the way, I'm by no means a poker expert, but it has been my experience that the key to a "well-played" bluff is to not publicly announce that you're bluffing.
Posts: 1794 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
BCS declares Germany the winner of World War II based on strength of schedule and # of victories.
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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