Justice Department to look at BCS

[JeremyHight]

People need to stop looking at this like it's just some stupid sport that has no relevance in the real world. College football is a business...and it's a very profitable business, bringing in BILLIONS of dollars each year. Take a look at this chart that shows revenue for each team in the 2007-2008 season:

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sp...ke-in-in-200708-this-chart-will-tell-you.html

College football violates the anti-trust law, there's no doubt about it. And for those who don't understand the anit-trust law, here's a little wiki sampling:

United States antitrust law is the body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly) and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are designed to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both, or generally to violate standards of ethical behavior.

Utah, TCU, Boise State...take your pick, they'll never see BCS Championship money so long as the current system is in place, despite producing similar products (undefeated records) as the big boys. Teams like Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. are given an unfair advantage in the college football marketplace.

I applaud the actions of the government. It's about fucking time someone stepped in and made it a fair game, instead of some half-assed system rooted in ancient and shitty tradition. College football gives certain football programs a monopoly. It's wrong, it needs to stop, and it's EXACTLY what anti-trust laws were put in place for.

The big flaw in your logic is that the NCAA doesn't give out a National Championship, only money through bowls. The NCAA has shown that nearly every team in the nation has a shot at getting that money, so no one is being hurt. If the USA Today and AP decide to hand out Championships, that is there prerogative, but the NCAA has no part in it.

Personally, I am not a fan of the BCS, but I am by no means a hater of it. It is much better than the options people are throwing out there of 8 or 16 team playoffs that would destroy the sport.

 

[Bear Pand]

Personally, I am not a fan of the BCS, but I am by no means a hater of it. It is much better than the options people are throwing out there of 8 or 16 team playoffs that would destroy the sport.

Truth.

---

And honestly from top to bottom the college sports are corrupt and shady. There's lots of athletes being paid under the table and all sorts of other things going on. Some of these schools are making a killing off of amateur athletes who only get a scholarship. And a lot of the time those athletes are pushed towards majors like sports management and encouraged to take the easiest classes possible.

The government trying to get involved with changing the BCS is a joke. There's other more important things they could look at.

 

[Fox1994]

Nope, that was legit. USC is the one and only champion that year, if you don't like it, live with it.

The BCS is the authority on these matters.


- signed, all USC fans who pick and choose when the rules are ok

If it's any consolation, I'm an SC fan and I support a playoff system. Haha.

 

[FirstTimer]

The big flaw in your logic is that the NCAA doesn't give out a National Championship, only money through bowls. The NCAA has shown that nearly every team in the nation has a shot at getting that money, so no one is being hurt. If the USA Today and AP decide to hand out Championships, that is there prerogative, but the NCAA has no part in it.

Personally, I am not a fan of the BCS, but I am by no means a hater of it. It is much better than the options people are throwing out there of 8 or 16 team playoffs that would destroy the sport.

Agreed. A playoff system isn't inherently better simply because it's a playoff. That's what people don't get. You can make a fucked up playoff system that would be just as bad if not worse than the BCS is. I LOL at the people who advocate creating a playoff system using the BCS rankings to determine the teams. Talk about retarded logic there.

 

[Sportsbuck]

Use a selection committee much like they do in NCAA basketball, FCS, DII, and DIII. Don't know why people would want to use the BCS rankings to seed the teams.

The biggest the playoff should ever go is 8. And honestly I think 8 is almost too much for FBS college football. In college basketball and the other 3 divisions there really isn't as great of a difference among the top 10 or so teams as there is in the FBS.

 

[FirstTimer]

Use a selection committee much like they do in NCAA basketball, FCS, DII, and DIII. Don't know why people would want to use the BCS rankings to seed the teams.

The biggest the playoff should ever go is 8. And honestly I think 8 is almost too much for FBS college football. In college basketball and the other 3 divisions there really isn't as great of a difference among the top 10 or so teams as there is in the FBS.

I'll still stand by being a proponent of choosing the conference champs only and putting them in a playoff. I could maybe see your plan working a bit and being a compromise of sorts but would still rather see a playoff as being built around teams that were objectively chosen.

 

[Sportsbuck]

I'll still stand by being a proponent of choosing the conference champs only and putting them in a playoff. I could maybe see your plan working a bit and being a compromise of sorts but would still rather see a playoff as being built around teams that were objectively chosen.

In the lower divisions, its like the NCAA tournament, where the conference champs get auto-bids and then the committee chooses the at large teams. I could see a system like that working if it was implemented properly.

 

[FirstTimer]

In the lower divisions, its like the NCAA tournament, where the conference champs get auto-bids and then the committee chooses the at large teams. I could see a system like that working if it was implemented properly.

The whole "at large" bid thing still rubs me the wrong way, even sometimes in college basketball.

(Don't even get me started with basketball where the conf tourney champ gets an autobid but the regular season champ gets nothing. Lame.)

I think football would be better served to just use the conference champs, you'd get more than a big enough tournament for the sport and there'd really be little to no debate on who got in unless you have a Big 12 fiasco like you did two years ago with the tie break. Then again that blame would shift to the conference's method of choosing a champion and not on the "BCS" or whatever you would call the playoff selecting the team.

 

[Sven Draconian]

Here's the system I want....

Let every conference champ get a shot at the playoffs. If you didn't win your conference, STFU, you had your chance. Have some committee seed them, or use ranking...or BCS rankings for that matter.

There are 11 conferences-- 6 major, 5 minor.

Kep the "BCS" conferences with the auto-bid, make the other conferences play themselves in. Since you have 6 BCS conferences, you need 2 more teams to make an 8 team playoff.

1 Auto-Bid (Best record, use SoS as a tie-breaker).
4 Team playoff in one week to get in (Tuesday game-->Saturday game).

Now you have the 2 minor-conference champs + the 6 BCS champs.

If Conf. Championship weekend is Dec 4th this year (I don't know if it really is, just guessing). You would play the sub-BCS playoff the 14th and 18th.

Round 1-Dec 25th (4 games)
Round 2-Jan 1st (2 games)
Championshi-Jan 8th.

All on Saturdays of course.



Everyone else can go to bowl games. Every bowl (but one) is meaningless anyway, no point in destroying that tradition.. You can have a playoff system and a little ceasars bowl too.

 

[JeremyHight]

Here's the system I want....

Let every conference champ get a shot at the playoffs. If you didn't win your conference, STFU, you had your chance. Have some committee seed them, or use ranking...or BCS rankings for that matter.

There are 11 conferences-- 6 major, 5 minor.

Kep the "BCS" conferences with the auto-bid, make the other conferences play themselves in. Since you have 6 BCS conferences, you need 2 more teams to make an 8 team playoff.

1 Auto-Bid (Best record, use SoS as a tie-breaker).
4 Team playoff in one week to get in (Tuesday game-->Saturday game).

Now you have the 2 minor-conference champs + the 6 BCS champs.

If Conf. Championship weekend is Dec 4th this year (I don't know if it really is, just guessing). You would play the sub-BCS playoff the 14th and 18th.

Round 1-Dec 25th (4 games)
Round 2-Jan 1st (2 games)
Championshi-Jan 8th.

All on Saturdays of course.



Everyone else can go to bowl games. Every bowl (but one) is meaningless anyway, no point in destroying that tradition.. You can have a playoff system and a little ceasars bowl too.

... an 11 team playoff? Pass.

Simple, take the top 4-6 conference champions in the BCS Standings (once the CPU's are altered to allow for Margin of Victory and the coaches poll is replaced by hopefully the AP, if they agree), and have them play. Personally, I would prefer a 4 team, but I throw in the extra 2 to give #1 and #2 a bye.