AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2008 > December > 09
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Five burning questions about the BCS and the “Bowl Bidness”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Based on the responses on yesterday’s blog, you obviously have a lot of questions/criticisms about the BCS and its selection process. You’re not going to like all of the information and answers I’m about to share with you but here, as a public service, are five burning questions and some (hopefully) candid answers about what I affectionately call “The Bowl Bidness.”
1. Why can’t the BCS give us better matchups? It’s not their job. Seriously, it’s not. The BCS was created to do one thing and one thing only and that was to match No. 1 versus No. 2. The people who created the BCS never promised that we would agree on who No. 1 and No. 2 were. They never even promised that they would actually be the best two teams in the country. They never promised that we would never again have a split national championship, which we may have this season.
They only promised that when No. 1 and No. 2 were decided by whatever yardstick that was in place at the time, those teams would actually meet on the field.
After the national championship game is set, the rest of the bowls are pretty much on their own to use the selection framework to create the best matchups for the host cities and the conferences which have contracts with them. Never forget that his is a business, folks. The cities that host these games are going to make the best business decision for them in terms of ticket sales and television ratings, which are their two main revenue streams. A BCS bowl has to make at least a $30 million in profit just to make its payout to the two conferences involved.
Some folks wonder why the Big Six conferences (ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10) all continue to get automatic bids. In other words, why does a 9-4 ACC champion ranked No. 19 get a bid over a 12-0 WAC champion ranked No. 9? The only way to get the original deal done back in 1998 was to guarantee the champions of each of those conferences a spot in a BCS game. Next spring there will be discussions about coming up with minimum standards for automatic qualification to a BCS bowl. That will be an interesting discussion.
2. Why couldn’t No. 3 Texas play No. 4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl? That’s like asking why can’t the team that picks first in the NFL Draft get to make three or four selections before any other team gets a pick. It would be good for that team and would make their fans happy but it’s not fair to the other teams. There is a selection process in place to make the system fair to all the bowls. Here is a short version of how the selection process worked on Sunday.
No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Florida were placed in the BCS championship game.
Because neither the Pac-10 champ (Southern Cal) nor the Big Ten champ (Penn State) was in the BCS title game, by contract they automatically advanced to the Rose Bowl.
The ACC champion, Virginia Tech, was by contract placed in the Orange Bowl.
The Big 12 champ is contracted to play in the Fiesta Bowl. Because the Fiesta lost No. 1 Oklahoma, it got to pick first to replace its host team. The Fiesta picked Texas.
The SEC champ is contracted to play in the Sugar Bowl. Because the Sugar lost No. 2 Florida, it got to pick second to replace its host team. The Sugar picked No. 4 Alabama.
Once those moves were made, there was a pre-determined order of selection to fill the remaining bowl slots: Fiesta, Sugar, Orange.
The remaining pool of eligible teams included: No. 6 Utah (Mountain West champ), No. 9 Boise State, No. 10 Ohio State, No. 11 TCU, and No. 12 Cincinnati (Big East champ). As the highest ranked non-BCS team, Utah was guaranteed a spot.
The Fiesta took Ohio State. The Sugar took Utah and that left Cincinnati, an automatic qualifier as the Big East champion, for the Orange Bowl.
3. Why did No. 10 Ohio State (10-2) get in and No. 9 Boise State (12-0) get left out? The Fiesta could have taken undefeated Boise State to play Texas but it wouldn’t have made much business sense. Ohio State has been to Arizona a bunch since winning the national championship there in 2002 and their fans travel well. That game will also do a big television number because the Big Ten TV markets are huge and the game will stand alone on the night of Saturday, Jan. 5 . The Fiesta hosted Boise State two years ago and had a classic game when the Broncos upset Oklahoma. Chances are the folks in Tempe would not catch lightning in a bottle again.
4. Why did No. 7 Texas Tech (11-1), whose only loss was to No. 1 Oklahoma, get left out? The BCS rules say that no more than two teams from one conference may play in one of the five BCS games. The issue comes up from time to time, especially in a season like this. A possible change to the rule was briefly discussed at the BCS meetings last April in South Florida but there was virtually no support for the idea. Having three teams in BCS bowls would be a significant financial and competitive advantage for that conference.
5. Wouldn’t a four-team playoff solve a lot of these problems? Some, but not all. Consider this. If we had a four-team playoff using the final BCS standings then the teams would have been Oklahoma (12-1), Florida (12-1), Texas (11-1), and Alabama (12-1). No. 5 Southern Cal (11-1), who has been playing lights out lately and could be the best team in the country, would have been left out. I believe, however, that if there were four teams in the championship instead of just two, then the voting would have been different in the final polls. The Alabama fans won’t like this, but if we had a four-team playoff I think the voters would have put Southern Cal, the Pac-10 champion, into the No. 4 spot. The voters would have rationalized that Alabama had their shot in the SEC championship game and rewarded USC. Now how big of an argument would that have created?
With all due respect to the President Elect, we will not go straight from this system to an eight-team playoff. But I still believe we will have a four-team playoff in my lifetime. The current BCS contract with Fox ends after the 2009 regular season. ESPN will pick it up for the next four years. At the end of that contract, I believe ESPN will use its financial muscle to compel the Big Six conferences to make a format change to a four-team playoff. I think the number that ESPN will put on the table will be so staggering that the commissioners and presidents won’t be able to say no.
After all, it’s a business.
