CNN Breaking News: “The Justice Department said in a letter to the NCAA that it has opened an antitrust inquiry into the Bowl Championship Series system.”
UPDATE: Andy Staples says the “CNN story makes it seem as if there is more news than letter provides”:
Here’s the full text of the DOJ BCS letter to the NCAA. Sounds like DOJ is still considering whether to attack. http://bit.ly/khxWCj
Andy_Staples
UPDATE: CNN FAIL:
An earlier e-mail alert incorrectly reported the contents of a letter from the Justice Department to the NCAA about the Bowl Championship Series.
The Justice Department has not announced an antitrust inquiry into the BCS. The letter asked for information about the BCS system to help determine if an inquiry should be launched.
Also, the alert should have said the BCS system makes it more difficult for some athletic conferences to qualify for major bowl games, but it does not exclude them.
As I posted on Twitter, Obama can ruin the economy, but if he screws up college football…
Plus as I pointed out a few weeks ago, the BCS has created opportunities for smaller schools and given them greater access than the old system. And they can’t mandate by fiat a playoff like some people want. if teh BCS gets broken up I think we just go back to the old bowl format.
Is the NCAA’s investigation of Boise a RETALIATION for bringing the DoJ upon the head of college football?
I know we’ve discussed this before, but here is Andy Staples’s excellent rebuttal to the argument that we’ll “just go back to the old bowl format” if the BCS is broken up.
Can we investigate the NCAA?
I think there is also an argument to be made that the recent media deals show that the money in football is in the regular season, not a hypothetical playoff.
@Brendan Ok, you’re the BigTen/Pac-12. You can hope that one of your teams makes it into and through the finals of the theoretical playoff, or you can gaurentee that they play each other in the Rose Bowl every year. Same with SEC and the Sugar Bowl and Big 12 and Cotton/Fiesta bowl. With all the money being thrown at the major conferences for media rights whats to stop them from just seceding from the NCAA altogether in football if they try and force a playoff on them?
It’s not those conferences you should be worried about — it’s the ACC and Big East, who, as Staples argues, would become “have-nots” if we went back to the pre-BCS, pre-Bowl Alliance, free-market bowl free-for-all. If those leagues join the non-BCS leagues, suddenly they have enough votes to make a playoff happen. And then, sure, the SEC and Big Ten, and perhaps Pac-12 and Big 12, could secede from the NCAA entirely, but that’s a pretty damn drastic step, and a whole lot more problematic than just “oh, they’ll just go back to the old bowl system, la la la.”
Staples explains this all much better than me, but as I recall, that’s the gist.
I doubt the ACC would be left out. Also see: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/05/04/pac-12-mailbag/index.html?eref=twitter_feed
David, I don’t think you understand the argument. I’m not being a jerk when I say that — I’m just saying that your verbiage suggests you’re addressing a somewhat different argument than the one Staples makes. Have you read the Staples piece? It’s not a matter of a conference being “left out” of the big-conference bowl tie-in system. We’re talking about blowing up that system. The correct question to ask is how often an ACC team would be selected by one of the major bowls in a free-market, anything-goes world. The “old bowl system” doesn’t mean the old pre-BCS Bowl Alliance. It means the bowls, to avoid antitrust problems, would be free to make deals with whomever they want, on an individual basis — no collusion among the bowls, or among the conferences. In that world, which bowl would voluntarily agree to take the ACC champion every year? The Orange Bowl, which has suffered horrific ratings due to a parade of ACC horribles? The Sugar Bowl? C’mon. The ACC will occasionally produce a marketable champ like Miami or Florida State, but most of their teams are ratings poison, and the occasional Miami and FSU can be included through side deals as needed without committing to always invite the ACC champ. The 2nd- and 3rd- and 4th- place teams from the SEC and Big Ten will often (usually?) be more marketable than the ACC champ. The ACC would inevitably see its stock decline in such a system; the question is how much. I think a lot.
The Mandel piece you linked does a good job explaining why the Big 12 and Pac-12 (and of course SEC and Big Ten) have a renewed vested interest in the status quo, but it doesn’t address the ACC and Big East, which is the real issue.
I think Staples underestimates the appeal the ACC champ would have in a free bowl world where bowls could make alliances with whomever they wanted. I think the Orange Bowl knowing it wouldn’t get the SEC, Big Ten or Big 12 number 1 team would definitely take the ACC champ, and pair them with SEC 2 or 3. And yes, the Orange Bowl ratings have sucked but is that really the ACC’s fault? Or the fault of the teams they’ve been paired with? Louisville in 07, Kansas in 09, Cincinatti in 09, Stanford this year. (Stanford was a great team, but not a good tv or fan draw).
I don’t think the ACC would get left out in a new Bowl pecking order because who would the Orange Bowl take instead? SEC #2 vs Big Ten #3? Thats no longer as big a deal as being tied to the champion of a major conference. Now if you did ACC #1 vs SEC #2/3 thats a bowl game.
You know the Rose Bowl will go back to Pac12/Big Ten champs. The Sugar Bowl will snap up the SEC champ and could pair them against, say the Big 12 champ for another champ vs champ matchup to rival the Rose Bowl. The Orange woudl then, have the opportunity to pit a champ against at least a runner up from a major conference like the SEC, Big 12 or Big Ten (or I suppose the Big East champ, but really?). You throw the Pac-12 runner up and a third SEC team into the mix and you can fill out 5 bowl games right there.
So, theoretically:
Rose: Pac-12 #1 vs Big Ten #1
Sugar: SEC #1 vs Big 12 #1
Orange: ACC #1 vs SEC #2
Fiesta: Pac-12 #2 vs Big 12 #2
Cotton: SEC #3 vs Big Ten #2
Voila.