Anti-trust issues and the 'new' BCS

[Ignatius]

I hear a lot about how the revenue distribution for whatever playoff system is devised needs to be equitable in order for Congress to stay out of it, and/or to prevent a ton of lawsuits from the 'little guys'. Not being an attorney, I don't understand why this is the case.

Obviously there's no issue with a school being able to decide who they play in non-conference games; Texas State can't sue to be able to schedule UT, even though it would obviously be to their benefit (financially and for PR) to do so. Likewise, you can't sue to join a given conference, even though doing so would benefit you; if you could, Missouri would be going to the Big 10.

So if an individual team can decide who they want to play, and if an individual conference can decide who they let in their club, why can't a group of conferences get together to decide to schedule a game at the end of the season to be determined however they choose. Specifically, if the Big10, Pac12, Big12, and SEC decide they want to have a game after bowl season between the winners of the Rose and Champions Bowl (and negotiate their own TV rights and revenue distribution from such a game), why can't they do that? If you drop the pretense of it being a 'national' championship (even though realistically it would be) and don't do it as part of the 'BCS', what legal issues are there at that point?

I don't necessarily advocate this, and I'm sure there are concrete legal issues at play, I just don't know what they are.

[ORD_Buckeye]

I've never bought the anti-trust argument of the mid-majors. I think it's a feel good thing for them to throw around, but ultimately an empty threat. Here's why.

First, these schools have voluntarily joined the BCS. How the $#@! do you voluntarily join an organization and then turn around and sue it for anti-trust violations.

Second, these schools are free to leave. GTFO and start your own system with your own playoff if you think you have a product that more than 37 people care about. Nobody is stopping you. Now if the big boy conferences were to use their economic muscle to prevent the start up mid-major playoff from obtaining sponsors, broadcasters or venues, THAT would be collusion and anti-trust. The mere fact of the matter that nobody wants your product is not. Consumer indifference and market failure do not constitute the grounds for an anti-trust suit.

[rantanamo]

$#@! the BCS.

[BroccoliD]

This Forde article does a great job of using Stony Brook to show how exclusionary the proposals the big boys are putting forward really are. I personally think an NCAA DI championship is only truly justifiable way to go, rather than the current proposals, which are even less inclusionary than the BCS. (SIAP):

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--...l-honchos.html

..Perhaps Stony Brook's College World Series run will make college football's honchos wake up
.
.By Pat Forde
..PostsEmailRSS..By Pat Forde | Yahoo! Sports – Mon, Jun 11, 2012 12:55 PM EDT
....
Email.....Stony Brook reaching the College World Series is the baseball equivalent of discovering life on Mars.

Until the Seawolves did it, this kind of thing was only possible in sci-fi books or northeasterners' imaginations. A cold-weather team from a bottom-feeder league doesn't make it to Omaha. Just doesn't happen.

Even the cold-weather teams from the power leagues believe they have no chance. Ask the Big Ten, which hasn't placed a team in the CWS since 1984 and whines incessantly about the deck being stacked against schools outside the Sun Belt. Time to get a new excuse.


Stony Brook celebrates after securing a bid to the College World Series. (AP)Last time we had such a geographic and conference-alignment outlier was 1986, when Maine crashed the CWS – but that's when the regionals truly were regional. Maine beat other schools from the northeast, whereas Stony Brook rolled through regionals hosted by traditional super-powers Miami and LSU on its way to Omaha.

Will Kimmey has covered college baseball for more than a decade for Baseball America and ESPN. By his application of the basketball math to baseball seeding, Stony Brook is similar to a 13-to-16 seed in the NCAA hoops tournament. LSU would have been a No. 2 seed. And the games were not at neutral sites.

"[Baton Rouge] is probably the toughest place in the history of college baseball to play," Kimmey said. "Guys go in there and wet their pants."

Pants dry, Stony Brook went in there and outhit the Tigers 50-15 over three games. The Seawolves didn't just win the series; they dominated the series.

So today we're all Martians. Or Seawolves.

Today, Butler, VCU and George Mason – the darlings of March Madnesses past – can identify with the Stony Brook story. Underdogs everywhere can unite behind the heroes of the mighty America East Conference.

And if the exclusionary kingpins in college football are paying attention, they'll see another example of why they made a grave mistake in shutting off all access for the little guy to the national title.

[Countdown to Kickoff: Top 100 players countdown – Nos. 100-91]

A four-team playoff is coming, and while that's better than the BCS, it doesn't go anywhere near far enough to be considered a national tournament. It's supposed to be enough to stop the "drumbeat of criticism," as Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany put it last week, and it certainly will tone down the drums for a while.

But a four-team deal certainly presents no opportunity to the Stony Brooks of college football. The champions of the Sun Belt, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Western Athletic Conference (should it survive) never will make that cut. The Mountain West and even the Big East would be long shots.

Football, greedy and decentralized, doesn't care.

Meanwhile, the rest of college sports give the little guys a chance to do it on the field. It gives life to the overachiever stories that are a large part of what makes sports compelling.

Football could find a way. All it would take is for the Haves to become more flexible and generous – which is precisely why it never will happen. But creating the structure wouldn't be terribly difficult.

The power brokers want to "preserve the integrity of the regular season." Fine. That can be done while still having an inclusive NCAA football tournament.

[Dan Wetzel: Four-team college football playoff better than giving automatic bids]

There are 11 conferences. Take the champions of each and add one at-large team. You don't think that would still put a premium on the regular season? That wouldn't make winning a conference championship important?

A selection committee chooses the at-large teams and seeds the field. The top four seeds get a first-round bye. Seeds 9-12 play on the road against seeds 5-8 in the first round, then the top four hosts the winners of those games in quarterfinals.

Say you end up with No. 12 seed Florida International at No. 5 Michigan in the first round. And say FIU wins. The impact would be Stony Brook on steroids.


What if Doc Holliday and Marshall beat Alabama in a college football playoff? (Getty Images)
How about if No. 8 seed Marshall beats No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa in the quarterfinals? The ghost of Bear wouldn't like it, but the ghost of Butler sure would.

The semifinals would be best at campus sites, but they could be played in bowl games. That's the direction they're going with the four-team playoff, so that's fine. Then the title game is bid out, just like it figures to be when the new model is unveiled.

It would take four weekends to play the tournament, five if you give the final twosome two weeks to rest and prepare, like the NFL. If that's too long for the coaches and academicians to handle, there is a solution. Dump conference championship games and free up the first weekend of December.

That's certainly a non-starter, given the revenue they produce, but if I were czar of NCAA football – and let's face it, I should be – it would happen.

It would be problematic given the super-sizing of conferences because it would be harder to crown a true champion. But, hey, that's the price of expansion. If the members squawk, go to nine or 10 league games.

Or we could dial back the season to 11 games, which it was for a long time. Athletic directors would faint over the lost home-game revenue, which would be a deal-killer. My response would be that they wouldn't need the extra home-game revenue if they'd been responsible with their expenditures on palatial facilities and skyrocketing coaching salaries – but that's just me.

Like I said, it never will happen. And football never will have its Stony Brook or Butler. Thankfully, there are other college sports that know how to end a season correctly and give the little guy a chance.

[Hellraiser97]

First, these schools have voluntarily joined the BCS. How the $#@! do you voluntarily join an organization and then turn around and sue it for anti-trust violations.

Basically they are saying that the BCS-AQ schools have conspired to lock up all the BCS bowls and thus illegally disadvantaged the competition. Not a slam dunk case, but it would meet the general scope of the anti-trust law IMO.

[Spotswood]

The have-nots aren't really trying to win a court case but they need that threat as leverage to get more money thrown their way in the new deal. That's what happened in the post-Tulane 1998 BCS agreement. It took a few years but more issues bubbled up with Boise, Utah and TCU, all of whom proved you can't ever rule out renegade congressmen mucking things up.

The trick in the next deal will be not only throwing bones to Tulanes of the world but also the NC States, etc. The top four leagues aren't powerful enough (yet) to just hoard all the dollars for themselves.

Baseball and basketball teams require less money to run and fewer star players to be competitive with the big boys. That's why they can have Cinderellas. In football, the have-not ADs have no intention of funding programs that can actually compete in a playoff. Even big time bottom feeders like Kentucky, Indiana and Wash State can't realistically compete with the goliaths in their own leagues. They just want more money.

[Lil' Fry McFly]

This Forde article does a great job of using Stony Brook to show how exclusionary the proposals the big boys are putting forward really are. I personally think an NCAA DI championship is only truly justifiable way to go, rather than the current proposals, which are even less inclusionary than the BCS. (SIAP):

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--...l-honchos.html

..Perhaps Stony Brook's College World Series run will make college football's honchos wake up
.
.By Pat Forde
..PostsEmailRSS..By Pat Forde | Yahoo! Sports – Mon, Jun 11, 2012 12:55 PM EDT
....
Email.....Stony Brook reaching the College World Series is the baseball equivalent of discovering life on Mars.

Until the Seawolves did it, this kind of thing was only possible in sci-fi books or northeasterners' imaginations. A cold-weather team from a bottom-feeder league doesn't make it to Omaha. Just doesn't happen.

Even the cold-weather teams from the power leagues believe they have no chance. Ask the Big Ten, which hasn't placed a team in the CWS since 1984 and whines incessantly about the deck being stacked against schools outside the Sun Belt. Time to get a new excuse.


Stony Brook celebrates after securing a bid to the College World Series. (AP)Last time we had such a geographic and conference-alignment outlier was 1986, when Maine crashed the CWS – but that's when the regionals truly were regional. Maine beat other schools from the northeast, whereas Stony Brook rolled through regionals hosted by traditional super-powers Miami and LSU on its way to Omaha.

Will Kimmey has covered college baseball for more than a decade for Baseball America and ESPN. By his application of the basketball math to baseball seeding, Stony Brook is similar to a 13-to-16 seed in the NCAA hoops tournament. LSU would have been a No. 2 seed. And the games were not at neutral sites.

"[Baton Rouge] is probably the toughest place in the history of college baseball to play," Kimmey said. "Guys go in there and wet their pants."

Pants dry, Stony Brook went in there and outhit the Tigers 50-15 over three games. The Seawolves didn't just win the series; they dominated the series.

So today we're all Martians. Or Seawolves.

Today, Butler, VCU and George Mason – the darlings of March Madnesses past – can identify with the Stony Brook story. Underdogs everywhere can unite behind the heroes of the mighty America East Conference.

And if the exclusionary kingpins in college football are paying attention, they'll see another example of why they made a grave mistake in shutting off all access for the little guy to the national title.

[Countdown to Kickoff: Top 100 players countdown – Nos. 100-91]

A four-team playoff is coming, and while that's better than the BCS, it doesn't go anywhere near far enough to be considered a national tournament. It's supposed to be enough to stop the "drumbeat of criticism," as Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany put it last week, and it certainly will tone down the drums for a while.

But a four-team deal certainly presents no opportunity to the Stony Brooks of college football. The champions of the Sun Belt, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Western Athletic Conference (should it survive) never will make that cut. The Mountain West and even the Big East would be long shots.

Football, greedy and decentralized, doesn't care.

Meanwhile, the rest of college sports give the little guys a chance to do it on the field. It gives life to the overachiever stories that are a large part of what makes sports compelling.

Football could find a way. All it would take is for the Haves to become more flexible and generous – which is precisely why it never will happen. But creating the structure wouldn't be terribly difficult.

The power brokers want to "preserve the integrity of the regular season." Fine. That can be done while still having an inclusive NCAA football tournament.

[Dan Wetzel: Four-team college football playoff better than giving automatic bids]

There are 11 conferences. Take the champions of each and add one at-large team. You don't think that would still put a premium on the regular season? That wouldn't make winning a conference championship important?

A selection committee chooses the at-large teams and seeds the field. The top four seeds get a first-round bye. Seeds 9-12 play on the road against seeds 5-8 in the first round, then the top four hosts the winners of those games in quarterfinals.

Say you end up with No. 12 seed Florida International at No. 5 Michigan in the first round. And say FIU wins. The impact would be Stony Brook on steroids.


What if Doc Holliday and Marshall beat Alabama in a college football playoff? (Getty Images)
How about if No. 8 seed Marshall beats No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa in the quarterfinals? The ghost of Bear wouldn't like it, but the ghost of Butler sure would.

The semifinals would be best at campus sites, but they could be played in bowl games. That's the direction they're going with the four-team playoff, so that's fine. Then the title game is bid out, just like it figures to be when the new model is unveiled.

It would take four weekends to play the tournament, five if you give the final twosome two weeks to rest and prepare, like the NFL. If that's too long for the coaches and academicians to handle, there is a solution. Dump conference championship games and free up the first weekend of December.

That's certainly a non-starter, given the revenue they produce, but if I were czar of NCAA football – and let's face it, I should be – it would happen.

It would be problematic given the super-sizing of conferences because it would be harder to crown a true champion. But, hey, that's the price of expansion. If the members squawk, go to nine or 10 league games.

Or we could dial back the season to 11 games, which it was for a long time. Athletic directors would faint over the lost home-game revenue, which would be a deal-killer. My response would be that they wouldn't need the extra home-game revenue if they'd been responsible with their expenditures on palatial facilities and skyrocketing coaching salaries – but that's just me.

Like I said, it never will happen. And football never will have its Stony Brook or Butler. Thankfully, there are other college sports that know how to end a season correctly and give the little guy a chance.

I would like a playoff of 11 conference champs and one at-large. That would be awesome.

[Prophet]

I would like a playoff of 11 conference champs and one at-large. That would be awesome.

Bump it to 16 (5 at large with no more than 2 from any conference) and you have, imo, the perfect format.

[Godzillatron]

Bump it to 16 (5 at large with no more than 2 from any conference) and you have, imo, the perfect format.

You are correct. Also, will never happen.

[linux]

You are correct. Also, will never happen.

It will happen eventually.

I cannot WAIT to finally declare a true national champion, sadly it will not be with the very small playoff in the pipeline, at least not yet.

All conference champions (or to not litter it with too much chaff, have the smaller conferences play small playoffs for the right to get in). And all of the conference champions allowed are real conference champs none of that Big Televen Pac-10 cochamp BS. That and make the SEC/12 team conference use on the field metrics in case of a three way tie, now this will never happen so I lower my standards a bit.

[al pastor]

the sunbelt, wac, mwc, cusa, and mac need to be in a separate division

[ORD_Buckeye]

the sunbelt, wac, mwc, cusa, and mac need to be in a separate division

This. Not only will they not agree to it though, they're constantly agitating for bigger and bigger slices of a pie that they did nothing to create and do next to nothing to maintain.

If they had any real value, they would threaten to break off on their own and start a competing playoff system. They don't make this threat because they know damned well it's an empty one and the market would react with a gigantic $#@!ing yawn. The fact that nobody wants your product does not mean there exists some anti-trust conspiracy on the part of the man to keep you down. It just means that nobody wants your $#@!ing product. So show up at our stadiums, take your beating and collect your paycheck. Just make us a $#@!ing sandwich on your way out of town.

[Hawk Littlechild]

the sunbelt, wac, mwc, cusa, and mac need to be in a separate division

Do you really believe this is in the best interest for anybody? Also, why would you include the ACC and Big EAST among the big conferences?

I don't see a benefit to anyone by splitting again.

[Shmittytheloverboy]

I've never bought the anti-trust argument of the mid-majors. I think it's a feel good thing for them to throw around, but ultimately an empty threat. Here's why.

First, these schools have voluntarily joined the BCS. How the $#@! do you voluntarily join an organization and then turn around and sue it for anti-trust violations.

Second, these schools are free to leave. GTFO and start your own system with your own playoff if you think you have a product that more than 37 people care about. Nobody is stopping you. Now if the big boy conferences were to use their economic muscle to prevent the start up mid-major playoff from obtaining sponsors, broadcasters or venues, THAT would be collusion and anti-trust. The mere fact of the matter that nobody wants your product is not. Consumer indifference and market failure do not constitute the grounds for an anti-trust suit.

Thats the biggest load of $#@! I've ever heard. The whole system that y'all came up with was designed and rigged to keep the money and exposure just within a cartel of teams and to exclude the rest of college football. If your point has any credibility then Texas has 3 Heismans.

[ORD_Buckeye]

Thats the biggest load of $#@! I've ever heard. The whole system that y'all came up with was designed and rigged to keep the money and exposure just within a cartel of teams and to exclude the rest of college football. If your point has any credibility then Texas has 3 Heismans.

Here's a clue: we created the money and exposure. We invested in football programs and stadiums decades ago. Now, some $#@!stain mid-major comes along, strings a few good seasons together and demands a seat at the big boy table and a sack full of our money.

Here's a thought. Instead of just pissing, whining, saying it's a load of $#@! and gimme, gimme, gimme how about actually giving me a lucid rationale why the mid-majors are entitled to anything. What have they created? What are the anti-trust principles upon which they would sue? And why can't they just go off and start their playoff if anybody were to actually give two $#@!s about the product they would offer?

[Shmittytheloverboy]

Here's a clue (but Ohioans aren't the brightest so I doubt you'll comprehend), BYU created that exposure just like all the other major programs did. Now get the $#@! off our board and go back to stuffing your gullett with that $#@!ty ass chili spaghetti you Germanic Yankees eat and worship up there.

Here's a clue: we created the money and exposure. We invested in football programs and stadiums decades ago. Now, some $#@!stain mid-major comes along, strings a few good seasons together and demands a seat at the big boy table and a sack full of our money.

Here's a thought. Instead of just pissing, whining, saying it's a load of $#@! and gimme, gimme, gimme how about actually giving me a lucid rationale why the mid-majors are entitled to anything. What have they created? What are the anti-trust principles upon which they would sue? And why can't they just go off and start their playoff if anybody were to actually give two $#@!s about the product they would offer?

[Prophet]

Now get the $#@! off our board...

When the $#@! did Shaggy become a magic underpants board?

[Shmittytheloverboy]

Basically they are saying that the BCS-AQ schools have conspired to lock up all the BCS bowls and thus illegally disadvantaged the competition. Not a slam dunk case, but it would meet the general scope of the anti-trust law IMO.

That's what they have done. Talk about self fulfilling prophecy. The Big conferences aka BCS Cartel created the system for that very purpose, to create a divide between the have's and have nots and make it greater and greater till the have-nots disappear altogether. It is all about the $$$ and not having to share it or let others have access to it. CFB would be much better off and far more competitive without this corrupt element in it. And all this B.S. about running off and forming our own division of big-boys is nonsense, and part of the whole vision of the corrupt scheming power-brokers in CFB with guys like Delaney, Scott, Neinas, Slive and Dodds and Boren.

[Shmittytheloverboy]

Do you really believe this is in the best interest for anybody? Also, why would you include the ACC and Big EAST among the big conferences?

I don't see a benefit to anyone by splitting again.

The best interest is to give all 122 teams equal access to the MNC and the $$$ by winning their games instead of having to rely on scraps and consolation prizes from a rigged system ran by a Cartel of Bowl, School and Conference leaders.

[Shmittytheloverboy]

the sunbelt, wac, mwc, cusa, and mac need to be in a separate division

You put them on a level playing field with the Big 6 Cartel and you will start to see some of those programs develop into stronger programs which will begin to outstrip many of the BCS programs.

[boomhorn]

If they had any real value, they would threaten to break off on their own and start a competing playoff system. They don't make this threat because they know damned well it's an empty one and the market would react with a gigantic $#@!ing yawn. The fact that nobody wants your product does not mean there exists some anti-trust conspiracy on the part of the man to keep you down. It just means that nobody wants your $#@!ing product. So show up at our stadiums, take your beating and collect your paycheck. Just make us a $#@!ing sandwich on your way out of town.

Its' similar to the NIT vs MARCH MADNESS, I dont even know who shows the NIT anymore. The smaller leagues cannot compete with the legendary programs that have spent decades building brands & gaining loyal followings. Most schools have achieved this by winning, & creating historic rivalies OU/UT-ND/USC-tOSU/UM ect. and so on. When a playoff does arrive, the top 4 leagues will have most of the contestants. Occasionally, BYU may make the tournament & remind people that the Utes ain't the only show in Utah. It has a lot of factors to gain people who give a $#@! about your program, not by just being mormon.

[Shmittytheloverboy]

This. Not only will they not agree to it though, they're constantly agitating for bigger and bigger slices of a pie that they did nothing to create and do next to nothing to maintain.

If they had any real value, they would threaten to break off on their own and start a competing playoff system. They don't make this threat because they know damned well it's an empty one and the market would react with a gigantic $#@!ing yawn. The fact that nobody wants your product does not mean there exists some anti-trust conspiracy on the part of the man to keep you down. It just means that nobody wants your $#@!ing product. So show up at our stadiums, take your beating and collect your paycheck. Just make us a $#@!ing sandwich on your way out of town.

You need to post less. Your program and conference helped to create that problem and disadvantage to create a self fulfilling prophecy t0 keeping those programs down. Essentially, you helped create a system that shut out those programs, thus making them less competitive so that down the road, they would be at a severe disadvantage and have us tell them later on that they bring no value. Your assertion is laughable at best.

[Shmittytheloverboy]

Its' similar to the NIT vs MARCH MADNESS, I dont even know who shows the NIT anymore. The smaller leagues cannot compete with the legendary programs that have spent decades building brands & gaining loyal followings. Most schools have achieved this by winning, & creating historic rivalies OU/UT-ND/USC-tOSU/UM ect. and so on. When a playoff does arrive, the top 4 leagues will have most of the contestants. Occasionally, BYU may make the tournament & remind people that the Utes ain't the only show in Utah. It has a lot of factors to gain people who give a $#@! about your program, not by just being mormon.

Nice try, BYU fans outnumber Utah fans in Utah 4:1 and that is just in Utah. You might want to think about what you're saying before you lump BYU with the mid majors like Utah and Baylor.

[boomhorn]

Are you aware that Baylor plays in the same league with Oklahoma & Texas... Utah is conference mates with USC & Stanford... That seems to be 1/2 of the "power 4" leagues... the SEC & XII have the Champ Bowl, B1G & PAC the Rose Bowl... What conference is BYU in again? and no, not all independent programs are not the same... Notre Dame > BYU... just sayin'

[boomhorn]

Do you really believe this is in the best interest for anybody? Also, why would you include the ACC and Big EAST among the big conferences?

I don't see a benefit to anyone by splitting again.

The ACC & Big East still have some prestige filled programs or large land grant schools that are a strong brand in other sports...

[Hawk Littlechild]

If a strong brand in other sports is part of the bag you must include CUSA they are just as strong in other sports also.

Still don't see this as a positive for those conferences. College football would be the biggest draw in all of sports with a playoff system, but you have to in include all the conferences. That is a lot of tv sets to lose to your so called championship when you exclude everybody outside those six conferences.

[ORD_Buckeye]

Nice try, BYU fans outnumber Utah fans in Utah 4:1 and that is just in Utah. You might want to think about what you're saying before you lump BYU with the mid majors like Utah and Baylor.

Your anger reeks of $#@!ing fear: the gnawing fear that Utah--now that they've received a golden ticket to a big boy league--will leave your program in the dust. They're going to make more money, have greater exposure and a potential path to the national championship game. BYU will never get into the PAC. The academic schools will veto your religious indoctrination school at a moment's notice. The B12 apparently has little interest in you, so you'll wither on the vine playing on the Mormon network and pretending that you can be an independent like Notre Dame. Guess what, Notre Dame can't even be an independent like Notre Dame these days. Your little $#@!bag magic underwear school sure the $#@! isn't going to pull it off. In ten years, your program will have a national presence closer to that of Utah State than Utah....much less a true national program such as USC, Texas or Ohio State.

But hey, you'll always have 1984 to hang your hats on. You remember 1984: your glorious national championship run when the polls gave you the title only because everyone else sucked that year and you aggy'd your way into it by beating a 6-6 Michigan team in the $#@!ing Holiday Bowl. You'll always have that magnificent triumph forever and ever. Now go choke on your $#@!ing magic underpants.

[ORD_Buckeye]

You need to post less. Your program and conference helped to create that problem and disadvantage to create a self fulfilling prophecy t0 keeping those programs down. Essentially, you helped create a system that shut out those programs, thus making them less competitive so that down the road, they would be at a severe disadvantage and have us tell them later on that they bring no value. Your assertion is laughable at best.

We created that disadvantage a hundred years ago by investing in conferences, stadiums and building fanbases. Your school was too busy worrying about magic golden coins, special underwear, explaining why blacks weren't real human beings and teaching courses on how to maintain a household with seven wives. You show up to the party 75 years late and expect an equal seat at the table. Go $#@! yourself.

[ORD_Buckeye]

You put them on a level playing field with the Big 6 Cartel and you will start to see some of those programs develop into stronger programs which will begin to outstrip many of the BCS programs.

OK, genius. How do you put them on a level playing field? Let's take the current mid-major poster boy, Boise State. How do you truly put the potatards on a level playing field? Their stadium is one third the size of Ohio Stadium or DKR. They have neither a lucrative nor stable conference affiliation. They have virtually a non-existent alumni base and a t-shirt base that will forget about them the minute they stop winning 11 games a year. They're from a small city in a small state. How do you truly put them on an equal footing with Texas or Michigan or Alabama?

It all starts with give us equal access to a national championship, but that's not going to do it. Ohio State's BCS money is pocket change in their budget. The gold comes from the television money and filling a 105K stadium every single game at $70 a pop. How are you going to equalize that without full blown college athletics socialism where all media and attendance money is split equally?

I've had a lot of conversations with mid-major proponents. It always starts with, "we just want to play for a national championship," but you don't have to scratch the surface too far before notions about soccer style relegation, revenue sharing, budget caps and so on start spewing from their pie holes.

[BroccoliD]

Maybe the have-nots, plus the ACC and Big East should team up, go to the NCAA and say they want to form a D-I football championship playoff, whether or not the current self appointed big four conferences want to or not. They have more votes to pull together and outflank the big boys. In doing so, they could make it appear that the big 4 are ducking them, enabling them to get the big 4 into line after the ensuing backlash against their BSC-like cartel mentality.

BTW, anybody else find it strange that the mighty college football cartel includes Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Stanford, UCLA, Washington State and Utah?

[wrightaboutit]

Nice try, BYU fans outnumber Utah fans in Utah 4:1 and that is just in Utah. You might want to think about what you're saying before you lump BYU with the mid majors like Utah and Baylor.

Not even this is true. Because you're acting like such a jackass I took a scan of the Utah fan board. It turned up this well-timed link.

Utah fans in Utah alone have surpassed BYU in every age demographic except those over 65. See the link below, p. 13. Also, if you live in Utah, aren't Mormon, aren't white or aren't conservative the statistical odds of being a BYU fan aren't terribly good.

The BYU fanbase outside Utah is a mythical unicorn unsupported by data. I tried to find attendance info on your away games. For example, FSU attendance in 2010 drew virtually the same numbers to its opener against Samford as it did to BYU. You did outdraw Wake Forest, so you have that going for you. Also, your bowl ratings suck.

Please do something significant during lifetimes and then come back to talk down to people.

http://publicpolicypolling.typepad.c...se_UT_0721.pdf

[ORD_Buckeye]

Maybe the have-nots, plus the ACC and Big East should team up, go to the NCAA and say they want to form a D-I football championship playoff, whether or not the current self appointed big four conferences want to or not. They have more votes to pull together and outflank the big boys. In doing so, they could make it appear that the big 4 are ducking them, enabling them to get the big 4 into line after the ensuing backlash against their BSC-like cartel mentality.

They're free to do it any time they like. However, and unlike some of their fans, their leaders know that it's an empty threat. They'd be putting out a product that would utterly fail in the marketplace. Their playoff would outflank the Big4 just about as much as the USFL outflanked the NFL.

[Ignatius]

OK, genius. How do you put them on a level playing field? Let's take the current mid-major poster boy, Boise State. How do you truly put the potatards on a level playing field? Their stadium is one third the size of Ohio Stadium or DKR. They have neither a lucrative nor stable conference affiliation. They have virtually a non-existent alumni base and a t-shirt base that will forget about them the minute they stop winning 11 games a year. They're from a small city in a small state. How do you truly put them on an equal footing with Texas or Michigan or Alabama?

It all starts with give us equal access to a national championship, but that's not going to do it. Ohio State's BCS money is pocket change in their budget. The gold comes from the television money and filling a 105K stadium every single game at $70 a pop. How are you going to equalize that without full blown college athletics socialism where all media and attendance money is split equally?

I've had a lot of conversations with mid-major proponents. It always starts with, "we just want to play for a national championship," but you don't have to scratch the surface too far before notions about soccer style relegation, revenue sharing, budget caps and so on start spewing from their pie holes.

No $#@!ing $#@!. Write them a check for $5MM a year and they won't give two $#@!ing $#@!s about playing for the national championship...

[USC Traveler]

Here's a clue (but Ohioans aren't the brightest so I doubt you'll comprehend), BYU created that exposure just like all the other major programs did. Now get the $#@! off our board

LOL at the least-respected, most disliked, neg-repped poster since the Garnett Douchebag telling an OSU poster with solid rep to get off his board.

When did the Shag become the "delusional BYU teenage crackhead who's go-to insult is to say he $#@!ed your mom" board ? I must have missed something.



STFU you dumbass. There's a reason you have a $#@!load of red bars.

[USC Traveler]

So if an individual team can decide who they want to play, and if an individual conference can decide who they let in their club, why can't a group of conferences get together to decide to schedule a game at the end of the season to be determined however they choose. Specifically, if the Big10, Pac12, Big12, and SEC decide they want to have a game after bowl season between the winners of the Rose and Champions Bowl (and negotiate their own TV rights and revenue distribution from such a game), why can't they do that? If you drop the pretense of it being a 'national' championship (even though realistically it would be) and don't do it as part of the 'BCS', what legal issues are there at that point?

I don't necessarily advocate this, and I'm sure there are concrete legal issues at play, I just don't know what they are.

I've wondered the same thing, as I would love that setup. We'd have a National Champ determined solely by what happened on the field by the conferences fielding the vast majority of legitimate contenders. And if that was the setup, FSU, VT, ND and everyone else who mattered would be jumping into the Big 4, so within a few years, it would be a true NC.


There definitely seems to be a fear of legal issues there, as Larry Scott is always mentioning access for indy schools, etc whenever he's talking about big picture playoff scenarios, but I don't see where the legal case would be.

Maybe it's less about the legal issues and more about the fact that they wouldn't be able to get NCAA approval for such a game (they'd need it since they'd be adding a game to the season), so they keep talking equal access for now, with the idea being that they'll break away from the NCAA when the time is right (after further realignment/ consolidation of power).

[Hagbard Celine]

LOL at the least-respected, most disliked, neg-repped poster since the Garnett Douchebag telling an OSU poster with solid rep to get off his board.

When did the Shag become the "delusional BYU teenage crackhead who's go-to insult is to say he $#@!ed your mom" board ? I must have missed something.



STFU you dumbass. There's a reason you have a $#@!load of red bars.

shmitty appears to be channeling equal parts tigerslisp, laffaggy and preacherboy. at least his grey neg rep is grey.

[Hagbard Celine]

No $#@!ing $#@!. Write them a check for $5MM a year and they won't give two $#@!ing $#@!s about playing for the national championship...

There will soon be 128 "FBS" teams. Just for a moment, assume armageddon occurs, and only 64 teams get a split of the "Big 4" money. For the remaining 64 teams, at $5M a year per, that's a metric $#@!ton of coin, as in $320M. Do you really think the "haves" are going to surrender that large a pile of money? A more realistic (affordable) number is $1M-$2M per year per have-no-access school. Per the playoff scenario thread in the sub-forum, there are 4 guys who are the Presidents of WKY, NIU, Tulane and Idaho, who will be cutting that deal, and I can only imagine that there are a large number of schools that will be rightly pissed if all they get for rolling over is only $1M. $2M drops the number of dissatisfied parties. This is the question - what is their price for no access?

This thread really should be merged with Hurtlocker's thread in the subforum, either here or there.

[Hagbard Celine]

Not even this is true. Because you're acting like such a jackass I took a scan of the Utah fan board. It turned up this well-timed link.

Utah fans in Utah alone have surpassed BYU in every age demographic except those over 65. See the link below, p. 13. Also, if you live in Utah, aren't Mormon, aren't white or aren't conservative the statistical odds of being a BYU fan aren't terribly good.

The BYU fanbase outside Utah is a mythical unicorn unsupported by data. I tried to find attendance info on your away games. For example, FSU attendance in 2010 drew virtually the same numbers to its opener against Samford as it did to BYU. You did outdraw Wake Forest, so you have that going for you. Also, your bowl ratings suck.

Please do something significant during lifetimes and then come back to talk down to people.

http://publicpolicypolling.typepad.c...se_UT_0721.pdf

$#@!face smitty the wonderprick hasn't shown up to comment on this, now has he?

[Richard Kimball]

I've wondered the same thing, as I would love that setup. We'd have a National Champ determined solely by what happened on the field by the conferences fielding the vast majority of legitimate contenders. And if that was the setup, FSU, VT, ND and everyone else who mattered would be jumping into the Big 4, so within a few years, it would be a true NC.


There definitely seems to be a fear of legal issues there, as Larry Scott is always mentioning access for indy schools, etc whenever he's talking about big picture playoff scenarios, but I don't see where the legal case would be.

Maybe it's less about the legal issues and more about the fact that they wouldn't be able to get NCAA approval for such a game (they'd need it since they'd be adding a game to the season), so they keep talking equal access for now, with the idea being that they'll break away from the NCAA when the time is right (after further realignment/ consolidation of power).

I think it's definitely a situation where the NCAA becomes a little more irrelevant every day. The Big 4 conferences could break away from the NCAA and the NCAA would be pretty much hosed. They'll rubber stamp what the Big 4 want, hoping to put off the inevitable.
The Big 4 aren't quite ready to pull the trigger yet. They don't want the lawsuits or the negative publicity. Also, on the lawsuit, depends on the venue, & they don't want congress involved.
Notre Dame would be on the lawsuit big time if they were shut out.

[Hagbard Celine]

Notre Dame would be on the lawsuit big time if they were shut out.

i think they would choose to be a "have".

[MikeGundy'sRant]

Thats the biggest load of $#@! I've ever heard. The whole system that y'all came up with was designed and rigged to keep the money and exposure just within a cartel of teams and to exclude the rest of college football. If your point has any credibility then Texas has 3 Heismans.

[MikeGundy'sRant]

You put them on a level playing field with the Big 6 Cartel and you will start to see some of those programs develop into stronger programs which will begin to outstrip many of the BCS programs.

Butthurt BYU fan will be butthurt forever. Go away.