Congress investigates the BCS

Although I'm really not sure that Congress needs to be spending its time worrying about college football when this nation has so many more pressing issues, last Friday's hearing at the House Energy and Commerce Committee commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee about the Bowl Championmship Series was rather interesting. Texas Congressman Joe Barton, who has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a game a "national championship" unless it is the outcome of a playoff, compared the current system to communism and said it was broken. "You can't fix it," he said. "It will not be fixable. Sooner or later, you're going to have to try a new model."

The ACC Commissioner and BCS coordinator John Swofford found himself on the hot seat at the hearing, having to defend the current system by which a college football champion is crowned. His reasoning as to why the BCS was better than a playoff was quite revealing:

John Swofford, the coordinator of the BCS, rejected the idea of switching to a playoff, telling a House panel that it would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games. Sponsorships and TV revenue that now go to bowl games would instead be spent on playoff games, “meaning that it will be very difficult for any bowl, including the current BCS bowls, which are among the oldest and most established in the game’s history, to survive,” Swofford said.

In other words: whatever might be best for sport of college football itself is secondary to the well-being of its postseason bowl games, especially the four that comprise the BCS. That's a tail-wagging-the-dog argument if there ever was one. Forget that a playoff is really the only way to decide a national champion based on on-field performance; if we have a playoff, then - gasp! - the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl might not survive! Never mind the fact that every playoff proposal I've ever seen incorporates, at the very least, the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta Bowls, or that the lesser bowls could survive in spite of a playoff format in the same way that the NIT basketball tournament survives in spite of the Big Dance.

Seriously. There are certainly valid arguments against a playoff, but the "it will kill off the existing bowls" argument ain't one of them. In fact, it's downright asinine.

Swofford was a bit more honest when he defended the inherent unfairness between the BCS and non-BCS conferences:

“How is this fair?” asked the subcommittee chairman, Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, who has co-sponsored Barton’s bill. “How can we justify this system ... are the big guys getting together and shutting out the little guys?”

“I think it is fair, because it represents the marketplace,” Swofford responded.

Swofford was no doubt referring to the fact that schools in BCS conferences generally enjoy more fan support and better TV ratings than schools in non-BCS conferences. This is partly due to the fact that the BCS conferences are (with the exception of the Big East) comprised mainly of well-established flagship state universities with large alumni bases and statewide fan appeal, whereas non-BCS conferences are largely comprised of regional and urban schools with smaller fanbases. But its also partly due to the perception that the BCS creates among fans; the media largely focuses on the six BCS conferences, because those are the only schools that have a real shot at a championship under the BCS system, while the non-BCS schools - the "mid-majors," to use an ESPN euphenism - get less coverage and less exposure, which results in diminished fan support. And let's not even talk about the ever-growing financial disparity between the schools that get to partake in the BCS windfall and those that don't.

Indeed, if the BCS "represents the marketplace" - and it's worth mentioning that several surveys have shown that college football fans, i.e. the "marketplace," favor a playoff system over the BCS - it does so at least partially due to the fact that the BCS system has distorted that very marketplace. This is an important, yet oftentimes overlooked, aspect of the system's inherent unfairness: it is self-reinforcing.

While I doubt that anything will come out of Friday's hearing - the powers behind the BCS will fight any attempts to move towards a playoff, even if those attempts are driven by Congress - anything that sheds more unfavorable light on this cynical and anticompetitive system is a good thing. And this tidbit of information made me smile:

A shiny red Houston Cougars helmet sat on the table in front of Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, as U.S. lawmakers prepared to kick off the government's involvement in determining a national champion in college football.

Way to go, Representative Green! If only more UH alumni were as proud of their school as you.