The BCS: Breaking Down the Facts

(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Just look at 0-12 Washington, who made more money than almost every non-BCS team this year—Utah being the exception.

Barnhart's Fourth Fact

"The original BCS agreement that was put together back in 1998 never would have happened unless the champions of those six “equity” conferences (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10) had been promised automatic slots.

'Those conferences already had automatic bowl bids. We (in the SEC) had a long-standing agreement with the Sugar Bowl,' said Kramer. 'There is no way that those conferences were going to give that up without a guaranteed slot. And remember that we were working with four bowls, and those were the conferences they were used to dealing with.'

The fact is that the free marketplace determined that those six conferences would get automatic bids, and there were at-large spots made available to qualified teams. Maybe you believe that market forces have no place in college athletics, but that is how it happened. It wasn’t a conspiracy to keep the other teams out. It was the only way to get the deal done."

My Response

Ha, saying that free marketplace determined who would be in what bowls completely contradicts the earlier part of the statement that said,

"There is no way those conferences were going to give that up without a guaranteed slot."

That sounds nothing like a free enterprise system to me.  The only quasi-free market portion of the BCS is the four at-large sports because these spots go to deserving teams unless your non-BCS team gets bypassed for a school with a larger fan base in order to get a larger television audience.

Barnhart's Fifth Fact

"While the six equity conferences do get an automatic bid and the $18 million payday that comes with it, the five Coalition conferences (Conference USA, MAC, WAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt) have placed a team in the BCS in four of the past five seasons. Those five conferences get an automatic $9.5 million for participating and another $9.5 million when they place a team in a BCS game. So, over the past five seasons, the BCS has pumped about $80 million into those five Coalition conferences.

That’s a lot of money that did not even exist before the advent of the BCS. Should the Coalition conferences get more? Yes, and I believe they will. I also believe that in the future the conferences will be able to get more than one team in the BCS if they have two teams in the Top 10."

My Reponse

Again, it is true that the non-BCS teams are getting access to more money, but when a non-BCS team makes it to a lucrative bowl game, the money is not shared just within their own league.

The money is spread to all five of the non-BCS leagues, making their cut very small in comparison to any BCS conference.  Now, if the money was given to just the conference that make a BCS game, that would be more fair.

While the putrid amount of money that is being handed out to non-BCS conferences is larger than before, the difference in money is a lot more then it used to be before the BCS was formed.  The BCS leagues keep increasing revenue while the non-BCS get a spike only when they get a team in the big-money bowls.

My rebuttals do make sense, and they are not just stuff flung against the wall in hopes that they stick.  The MWC had no choice but to sign Goliath's contract because, in the end, money is what talks, and if the MWC and the WAC bailed, they would be left to dry.

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