Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

[fsquid]

From what I've read from sports writers who've read the advance copy, it really puts college admins in a horrible light.

http://www.deathtothebcs.com/site/about_the_book/

[buckeyefan78]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

I won't read it.

Just from reading the link these folks sound like most of the pro-playoff people who have no idea how unequal the setup of college footbal is by nature that a playoff would be just as, if not more, "unfair" than the BCS.

[Cebby]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

What's the point?

There's nothing they have to say that hasn't been said a million and a half times.

However, I take one specific point to likely be very incorrect in "It unearths athletic directors reaping five-figure bonuses for sending their teams to bowl games that end up costing their schools money."

This is vastly flawed for two reasons.

1. The only way a bowl will cost a school money over the long term is if it is a very infrequent occasion (think Buffalo or Temple), and in those occasions I would have to think that the student excitement and pride taken in that bowl game would be a disproportionately good externality than the few thousand extra dollars.

2. If a bowl is a regular occurrence for a program than it is producing a far greater externality than the money otherwise would in publicity for the school. Football success brings increased applications to the school, merchandise revenue, and ultimately and most importantly academic rankings.

Obviously the Ivy League, University of Chicago, and MIT schools don't need this publicity, but there's a reason everyone in the country has heard of Florida St, Auburn, Purdue, Virginia Tech, and Texas A&M. The University of Maryland didn't become a legitimately hard to get into (for a state school) until applications tripled the year after the school went to the Orange Bowl and won the National Championship in basketball.

[Jr.]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

What's the point?

There's nothing they have to say that hasn't been said a million and a half times.

However, I take one specific point to likely be very incorrect in "It unearths athletic directors reaping five-figure bonuses for sending their teams to bowl games that end up costing their schools money."

This is vastly flawed for two reasons.

1. The only way a bowl will cost a school money over the long term is if it is a very infrequent occasion (think Buffalo or Temple), and in those occasions I would have to think that the student excitement and pride taken in that bowl game would be a disproportionately good externality than the few thousand extra dollars.

2. If a bowl is a regular occurrence for a program than it is producing a far greater externality than the money otherwise would in publicity for the school. Football success brings increased applications to the school, merchandise revenue, and ultimately and most importantly academic rankings.

Obviously the Ivy League, University of Chicago, and MIT schools don't need this publicity, but there's a reason everyone in the country has heard of Florida St, Auburn, Purdue, Virginia Tech, and Texas A&M. The University of Maryland didn't become a legitimately hard to get into (for a state school) until applications tripled the year after the school went to the Orange Bowl and won the National Championship in basketball.

To add to this point, less than 10% schools that play NCAA division 1 athletics make money from their athletic departments every year anyway, and the ones that do, make money because of the success of their football and, to a lesser degree, basketball programs. Like Cebby said, teams that go to bowl games infrequently lose money, but they would lose money traveling for a playoff game as well so it's a moot point. The schools that go to bowl games 4 out of 5 years make much more money for their respective school in increase in applications, and therefore students and tuition fees, than the money they lose for traveling their team for a bowl game.

[fsquid]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

What's the point?

There's nothing they have to say that hasn't been said a million and a half times.

However, I take one specific point to likely be very incorrect in "It unearths athletic directors reaping five-figure bonuses for sending their teams to bowl games that end up costing their schools money."

This is vastly flawed for two reasons.

1. The only way a bowl will cost a school money over the long term is if it is a very infrequent occasion (think Buffalo or Temple), and in those occasions I would have to think that the student excitement and pride taken in that bowl game would be a disproportionately good externality than the few thousand extra dollars.

2. If a bowl is a regular occurrence for a program than it is producing a far greater externality than the money otherwise would in publicity for the school. Football success brings increased applications to the school, merchandise revenue, and ultimately and most importantly academic rankings.

Obviously the Ivy League, University of Chicago, and MIT schools don't need this publicity, but there's a reason everyone in the country has heard of Florida St, Auburn, Purdue, Virginia Tech, and Texas A&M. The University of Maryland didn't become a legitimately hard to get into (for a state school) until applications tripled the year after the school went to the Orange Bowl and won the National Championship in basketball.

If you say so:

After two years of examining tax documents and university contracts, Wetzel and company were also able to detail how the bowl system as a whole is a financial disaster, with only 14 of the 35 games legitimately generating profits for the teams involved. The book especially targets the huge blocks of tickets schools are forced to buy from the bowls, then resell to their fans, often forcing athletic departments to eat hundreds of thousands of dollars in empty seats.

Conferences hide the losses by pooling the payouts to all their bowl teams, then redistributing the wealth in equal shares. The book explains how that process whittled Florida's $17.5 million check for playing in the 2009 BCS championship game down to a profit of $47,000.

Meanwhile, the bowl games themselves are thriving thanks to their tax-exempt status, phony payouts, receipt of direct government handouts, lack of charitable contributions and huge cash reserves. The system has allowed bowls to spend lavishly, with some bowl directors making high six-figure salaries — more than most athletic directors or school presidents.

The book's underlying argument is that colleges, which collect $220 million off the bowl system, stand to make $750 million in revenue with a 16-team playoff. Even better, that money would actually go back into athletic department budgets — not bowl game coffers — while still allowing teams outside the playoffs to participate in bowls.

[Cebby]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

If you say so:

Again, that article is making all kinds of stupid arguments.

The book especially targets the huge blocks of tickets schools are forced to buy from the bowls, then resell to their fans, often forcing athletic departments to eat hundreds of thousands of dollars in empty seats.

And what is "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to a university especially when it's converted to publicity? Without bowl games nobody would know what the **** a Bowling Green or Marshall was.

The book explains how that process whittled Florida's $17.5 million check for playing in the 2009 BCS championship game down to a profit of $47,000.

Assuming that's true (which I highly doubt), it's still getting paid $47,000 for the best advertising campaign a college can receive.

The book's underlying argument is that colleges, which collect $220 million off the bowl system, stand to make $750 million in revenue with a 16-team playoff.

And this is where the argument just goes off the deep end.

College football as a whole stands to make more money. The SEC, Big 10, etc very well may not. Those two teams get a disproportionately huge percentage of $220 million as opposed to a relatively evenly split of $750 million.

Furthermore, it's a book clearly arguing for one specific side. I would bet my bottom dollar they didn't try to be unbiased in any way. Their $750 million figure could easily be "estimates place the value of a playoff between $450 million and $750 million."

[fsquid]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

people knew what Marshall was before they were even D1-A

[Cebby]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

people knew what Marshall was before they were even D1-A

Big college football fans did. Everyone else not so much.

[Yeti_2009]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

there's no purpose. Everyone knows that the BCS is flawed and all other divisions in college football have playoffs.

FBS is the only major college sport that doesnt have a playoff. Its obvious that there should be one. BCS has been controversial ever since it started.

Only way that it gets changed is if the sponser's of the bowl games stop and no one replaces them

[ut_jazz]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

here is a interview i found with the Author Dan Wetzel:

http://www.mwcconnection.com/2010/10/13/1749714/death-to-the-bcs-interview-with-author-dan-wetzel#storyjump

Jeremy Mauss: Have you always been anti-BCS, or was there a particular moment or scenario that inspired you to write "Death To The BCS"?
Dan Wetzel: We've been always been pro-playoff, the system has never made any sense to me. What really inspired us to research and write the book were the ridiculous excuses given to defend the BCS. Common sense says you can stage a playoff easily. So we became tired of having our intelligence insulted and decided to find out why we are really stuck with the BCS.
We went through thousands of pages of tax documents, university contracts, television deals and talked to everyone from marketing professionals to conference commissioners to analytical mathematicians to pull the BCS apart and find out the root of the resistance. The book isn't an emotional rant covering the same tired arguments, it is a fact-based destruction of the BCS excuses.



JM: How is it that NCAA lost control over the college football post season and is now in the hands of as you call in the book 'the cartel.'

DW: It never had control of college football. The NCAA doesn't crown a champion of Division I-A football. The bowl games got in very early - pre-World War II - and have served as the postseason.

Once entrenched, they've now gone from innocent exhibition games to a 35-strong cadre of businesses that rip college sports off of hundreds of millions of dollars, hold the post season hostage and define who is and isn't a major football program. None of which they should have any jurisdiction or ability to do.

JM Did you find any legitimate reasons to how or why bowl games operate as a tax-exempt entity; even though the bowl executives, especially the BCS bowls, make well over six figure salaries?

DW: We don't make a claim on the legitimacy of some bowl games not-for-profit status. That's up the Internal Revenue Service and it's a complicated issue. What we focused on was debunking the propaganda that bowl games are just these little charities that run a game.
There's a difference between being a charity and being a not-for-profit. Bowl games give very little of their money to charity, many give none. The people running the games make up to $600,000, the games can turn up to $12 million in profit annually, there are lavish expense accounts and millions wasted on parties, golf outings, first class travel and so on. The Music City Bowl once even spent over $7,000 on an office miniature golf tournament.

Once you analysis the facts and follow the money you realize bowl games aren't what you've been told they are.

JM: What was the most shocking item you discovered when researching the BCS?
DW: I guess I thought some of their reasons for existence would check out, but essentially none of them did. Everything they base the BCS's existence on is wrong. The BCS isn't lucrative; it's actually a comparative financial disaster for schools. Bowl games wouldn't go out of business with a playoff. The sports regular season would soar in popularity if there was a playoff. The computers aren't mathematically sound. And so on. A lot of conventional wisdom is just wrong, the result of 14 years of unchecked propaganda.

JM: Outside of political pressure what would it take for the BCS to make a change from their system to your proposed of a 16 team playoff?
DW: I think being educated on the real issues and how the system really works is a biggest step. The status quo wants the debate to be about their red herrings. Once those are blown up by facts and documentation, then the issue becomes not why we should change it but how soon can we change it. There is no debate here.

The system needs to be held accountable to what is real, not spin, that way university presidents realize how they are being worked over and change comes about because it's what is best for 99 percent of the people in the sport. The only ones hurt by a playoff are bowl directors who would have to survive on maybe $200,000 in salary.

JM: Is it really as simple as that the cartel wants all the money for themselves with little or none going to the current non-BCS leagues regardless of what a playoff could bring in?
DW: The distribution of the money is actual a symptom of the main problem. Yes, the big six get most of the money. But you could expand the revenue pie four-fold, so those leagues would make so much more even if their share dipped a bit.

Even under our system, the big six conferences would take around 75-percent of the revenue most years. That's more than enough. I don't think the spending imbalance changes that much. The people who currently get the biggest share of the money are the bowl games, which is mind numbing. The leagues are fighting for scrapes because the BCS actually doesn't make very much money for college football.

JM: Do you think major college football will ever see any kind of playoff, and if so when?
Yes. Money rules and there is an enormous pile of it when a playoff is adopted. Schools are strapped for cash, forced to rely on student fees and tax payers to balance the books. Sports are being cut. They need money and its laying right there. The new guard of conference leadership will pursue it and not cling to this archaic system.
JM: With the BCS around for at least a few more years, who do think will be in this years BCS title game, and who wins?

DW: Obviously that's very hard to say but I guess I'd predict Ohio State v. Oklahoma. With a lot of chaos, the system might be forced to allow Boise or TCU (or Utah) in.

[fsquid]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

College football as a whole stands to make more money. The SEC, Big 10, etc very well may not. Those two teams get a disproportionately huge percentage of $220 million as opposed to a relatively evenly split of $750 million.

I haven't gotten to that part of the book, but he has stated in interviews that the big 6 would still get 75-80% of the money in his system. Probably because it would be like the credit system the NCAA basketball tourney has.

[rmacteague]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

To add to this point, less than 10% schools that play NCAA division 1 athletics make money from their athletic departments every year anyway, and the ones that do, make money because of the success of their football and, to a lesser degree, basketball programs. Like Cebby said, teams that go to bowl games infrequently lose money, but they would lose money traveling for a playoff game as well so it's a moot point. The schools that go to bowl games 4 out of 5 years make much more money for their respective school in increase in applications, and therefore students and tuition fees, than the money they lose for traveling their team for a bowl game.

This is incorrect. Teams would not lose money travelling for a playoff system as games would be housed in their home stadiums. Travelling team would get a % of the gate that would more than cover their costs.

Playoffs = higher TV ratings which = bigger contracts. TV contracts is where the money is; look at the Big Ten Network's effect on the Big 10 Teams bottom lines. They make double the money from the BTN on an annual basis than BCS bowl payouts. Same with the SEC's new contract; Texas upcoming Bebo Network; etc...

The bowl system continues to lose it's luster. Even the Sugar and Orange bowl last year dipped in ratings. If those games are playoff games versus bowl games ratings are much higher.

[MrNFL_FanIQ]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

They posted an excerpt on Yahoo, here. Which goes to show how easily the "computer" ranking, which is supposed to be the subjective thing which balances out the biased voters, is nonsensical and easily manipulated.

I have no idea how anyone can support such a steaming pile of crap like the BCS.

[stain38]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

I'm a huge college football fan, and a big bowl fan (I just don't think a playoff is that important) ... sorry, don't lynch me.

Anyway, I plan on reading the book. I don't think it will change my opinion because I like the quirky nature of the sport. If I want a playoff I'll watch the NFL.

I don't want to turn this into a BCS/Playoff debate, so please don't take anything I post here as a challenge.

I certainly like the system now compared to before, we have had #1 vs #2 every year of the BCS, before that you only had #1 vs #2 thirty of so times in over 141 years of college football.

[nevadawp]

Re: Anyone going to read "Death to the BCS".

I can understand that. The quirky, ephemeral nature of college football post-season is sort of endearing. Unfortunately, that quirky system has been twisted to keep an unnatural power structure in place. It's a system that is anti-competitive, corrupt and seeks to maintain a competitive advantage for those in the "cartel".