The Battle for BCS Bucks  

 

 

 

 

 

While watching the State of the Union speech the other night I was struck by the different perspectives of the Republicans and Democrats. Whether it’s the economy, jobs, Iraq, healthcare reform or energy, each party has solutions that are markedly different from the other. 

 

Here's my value-added profundity of the week....  Generally speaking – VERY generally – people who have attained financial bliss (the “haves”) want to keep as much as they can, and those without solid incomes or assets (the “have-nots”) want to catch up, get benefits and services and/or be given as much as possible.

 

Of course, good arguments can be made either way.

 

The “haves” argue that they deserve their riches because they’ve earned them. They justify their comfortable lot in life by pointing out that they (or their father before them, if they are an heir) have taken risks, worked hard, educated themselves and/or they are smarter, stronger, luckier or and prettier.

 

The have-nots argue that regardless of talent, ambition and randomness of inheritance, there is no justification for the huge income gap between the top and the bottom.  Have-nots want more than what they’ve got, and they know exactly where it will come from – the haves – and many of them are quite comfortable with the government being the conduit for the redistribution of income.

 

None of this is anything new. Over a hundred fifty years ago, Karl Marx, the poster boy of communism, wrote, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.”

 

Of course, the class struggle Marx was talking about pitted the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

 

 

Meanwhile, there’s a huge class struggle going on in big-time college football, and this one pits the big six conferences versus the five coalition (or non equity) conferences over the distribution of the substantial payouts from the BCS bowl games. This year the total payout from the five BCS bowl games was a whopping $142.5 million. Of that, 81% of the total went to the big six conferences.

 

This year Boise State and TCU had great seasons, but they didn’t do well enough in the BCS poll to get into the big game.   Egged on by sports talk radio and sports columnists with nothing else to write about, millions of fans came up with millions of versions of playoffs that would supposedly make everything fair and equal.

 

SportsBusiness Journal published a detailed article in the Jan. 25 issue about the BCS payout, and I’ve distilled the wordage and charts to make it a quick read for you.

 

Here are the payouts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s see now, 81% percent of the total $142.5 million payout — $115.2 million — went to the big six conferences.

 

Most of the rest — $24 million — goes to the five coalition conferences: Mountain West, Western Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt. Notre Dame, as an independent member of the BCS, got $1.3 million.

 

BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock explains the seeming inequity by pointing out that schools from the big six conferences accounted for eight of the 10 teams in the BCS bowls, so those conferences should take roughly 80% of the total payout. “It’s a fair and appropriate distribution of the revenue,” he said.

 

The $82.5 million Fox media deal accounts for most of the revenue, and the rest comes from revenue generated by the five BCS bowls.

 

Starting next year, the payouts will increase by more than 50%, when a new four-year rights-fee deal with ESPN averaging $125 million a year.

 

Not everyone agrees with the BCS’ payout formula, especially the coalition conferences.

 

Western Athletic Conference Commissioner Karl Benson points out that upsets – like Utah over Alabama or Boise State over Oklahoma – prove the value coalition conference teams to the BCS. So, he says, shouldn’t the payout to the conferences like the WAC and the Mountain West that send teams to the BCS look like the payout to the big six conferences?

 

But Harvey Perlman, University of Nebraska chancellor and chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, says there’s a difference between playing well in a game is different from  driving value in long-term media contracts. Said Perlman, “The real question is whether including those conferences when you negotiate a TV contract adds to the willingness of the network to increase the bid. I don’t think we’ve seen evidence that that’s true.”

 

This year’s Fiesta Bowl pitting coalition conference members TCU and Boise State on Fox drew an 8.2 rating, just behind the Sugar (8.5) and well ahead of the Orange (6.8), both of which featured teams from the big six conferences. The Fiesta’s attendance of 73,227 was higher than the previous two Fiesta Bowls, which again featured teams from the big six conferences.

 

“When given the opportunity, we’ve shown that these teams deliver,” the WAC’s Benson said. “We believe that teams like Boise State and TCU have become an important piece to the BCS.”

 

However, Barry Frank, an IMG media consultant who worked with the BCS on its new ESPN deal, begs to differ. He said, “When you talk about adding value, from a media standpoint, the Boise States and the Utahs add very little. They’re not population centers. And speaking from a personal standpoint, in football terms, I can tell you that networks look at them as ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ to the national scene that don’t play the kind of schedules that major conferences play.”

 

Ouch. If Mr. Frank is correct, then that’s significant, because TV money is what definitely drives the BCS bus.

 

More later.....

 

 

 

 

 

[from a Clips eFLASH on 5-1-09]

 

 

As depicted in the chart below, college football's major postseason games have produced about $1.28 billion for the 120 D1-A schools since 1999 (year one of the BCS). The big six conferences have earned over 90% of the total revenue payouts.

 

One of mankind's most overused truisms is the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  The phrase simultaneously indicates wisdom & practicality as well as laziness & complacency.  The $1.28 billion in payouts is a huge figure, and, to many (mostly the “Big Six” conferences, media moguls, the bowls, etc.), it is perfect evidence that there ain’t anything broken.

 

However, there are also a lot of people (mostly the coalition conferences, the Senate Finance Committee, millions of playoff-happy fans and -- presumably -- the NCAA) who think that things definitely are broken. -- Why? -- Because, they say, almost half of the D1-A conferences (five out of eleven) have received less than 10% of the payouts. And they’ve sought out federal intervention to change things.

 

The perspectives can be boiled down to the fundamental philosophical differences between the “winner takes all” attitude versus the “share the wealth” attitude.  Said Steve Hogan, chief executive officer of Florida Citrus Sports (Capital One Bowl and Champs Sports Bowl), "Conferences have to ask themselves if the hundreds of millions they share 12 ways should be shared 120 ways.  Most have trouble with that scenario."

 

And why should the six most powerful conferences desire a change?

 

That’s the Clips $64,000 question of the week . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[from a Clips eFLASH on 5-7-09]

 

 

ACC commissioner John Swofford (in his role as BCS coordinator) was sitting at a table in a congressional meeting room, being overloaded with questions about the BCS [see picture below]. A highly agitated Rep. Joe Barton (TX) was peppering Commissioner Swofford with all sorts of over-the-top remarks, threats and accusations.  About the only things the congressman failed to do was make remarks about Swofford’s mother or the family dog.

 

Congressman Barton said several ridiculous things, but in my favorite he used the “c” word (in this case being “communism”), when he made a clumsy analogy trying to link the BCS with communism.  Here it is:

 

 

But that was not all for the blustering Barton.  Near the end of the hearing, he asked BCS coordinator and ACC Commissioner John Swofford if D1-A college football would adopt a playoff system should Barton’s legislation be passed into law.  Swofford, who afterward said he was not familiar with the legislation, responded that such a scenario had not been discussed "at any level."

 

To which Barton gruffly sneered:

 

 

Yeah, right, a mandatory voluntary switch.  Ahem.  Only in Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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