The BCS, College Football, and its relation to politics...

[MellowDem]

For those of you sports junkies out there, especially college football fans, you are probably well aware of the Big 12's coming implosion and break-up. Nebraska is going to the Big 10 and Colorado to the Pac 10, with more predicted to bolt. The reason? Money. Television contracts specifically. The Big 10 now has its own network in fact, and the Pac 10 is thinking of doing the same. Indeed, it is looking more and more likely that it will be the Pac 16 and the Big 16 at this rate with superconferences.

Now, for those of you who may not know, the BCS system is akin to a "good ol boy" system. There is no college football playoff, so the BCS decides, through the combination of a formula, coach's polls, and rather arbitrary means (mostly based on what will make the most money), who gets to compete in the biggest and best bowls and even the national championship. To sports fans who are used to playoffs and fair play, this is blasphemy. And it does create a lot of controversy. The BCS rules are set up in such a way that the biggest schools with the most money are given inherent advantages (over what they already have as big schools with lots of money). Indeed, there are certain leagues that get preferance for the biggest bowl games. The non-BCS leagues are basically screwed and have little chance, even with very good teams, of getting to the biggest bowl games.

Who, you might ask, regulates all of this? The NCAA. But what is the NCAA's primary interest? Money. Just take a look at the recent punishments put on USC for their infractions of recruitment of big name players. Some will say this shows the NCAA is doing their job, but the "punishments" amount to a slap on the wrist after USC has gotten away with this for years. And the NCAA has been known to punish schools less if they have bigger names or more prestige or just punish them arbitrarily. USC will still make money hand over fist from sports and they won't be discouraged from pushing the limits of NCAA rules to get what they want.

So what does all this mean? Basically, college football has become insanely more profitable over the last couple decades. And with that profit incentive comes a free-market mentality of competition between schools and conferences. What has happened over time is that this competition has of course favored the biggest, most monied schools at the expense of smaller schools and conferences. It is not a fair system, it is a system of power and money. Sound familiar? This latest conference reallignment is just another example of the "rich getting richer" so to speak. The leftover schools from the Big 12, the "weakest" so to speak, will be left to find out what to do on their own. They'll most likely lose their automatic BCS bids (a luxery of being part of the big boys club) and have to downgrade to smaller conferences.

Now, when it comes to college football, the vast majority of fans want a playoff system. These fans are well informed about the current system and see how unfair it is. That doesn't stop the BCS from spinning all the time, but it is rather funny to see that when 90% or so of college football fans want a playoff, the BCS ignores them. Why? Because of money of course. What the people want doesn't matter. What makes the most money is what matters.

I'm sure many of you are wondering what this has to do with politics, being as it's just sports. For one, the vast majority of these schools are public institutions of learning. There is something to be said about the corruption introduced to such a public system devoted to learning when it becomes more and more dependant on private money based on sports to "compete" with other colleges and universities. Indeed, a big, successful sports program can bring money to even the most academically feeble institutions while hurting the pocketbooks of more rigorous institutions that actually lose money just to field their teams, but feel like they have to field teams in order to try to compete for all that money out there, not to mention competing for students.

But even more than that, a lot of my fellow college football fans lean right. Perhaps more than the population at large. But they all express the same frusteration with the NCAA, the BCS system, etc. etc. The analogy to politics is just too tempting not to make. "You mean, you're against a free-market system that has lax regulation and only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer? You're against the corporatizing of public institutions and the priority of profits over fair play and academics? Well then you, my friend, are a freakin' liberal." If only they were as well informed about politics in general as they are about college football.

Perhaps the most enlightening moment came when Utah, as a small conference school with a good team, got screwed out of a good bowl game by rules set up on money and prestige, not how good your team is. Then you had Republican legislators coming out and going off on the unfairness of the system and pushing for legislation to make the BCS have a playoff. Essentially, they were criticizing everything they stand for and pushing for regulation of a private business in the interest of parity and fairness. I almost fell out of my chair.