A high-stakes game of chicken

Sporting News, The, Sept 1, 2003 by Matt Hayes

Scott Cowen has some pep in his step these days, preaching equality and morality for college football's booming economy. He better be careful what he wishes for. His crusade could change college football, all right--but not nearly the way he hopes.

The outspoken Tulane president and the Presidential Coalition for Athletic Reform, a group of presidents from non-BCS schools, have convinced Congress, which apparently doesn't have enough on its hands, to look into what they call "the financial equity of the bowl system." Thus, the House Judiciary Committee will try mediating (or is that meddling?) in college football next week.

"The more sunshine we can give on this issue, the better off we are," Cowen says.

Here's another way to look at it: The more the have-nots push, the more they lose. And the ramifications could change the face of college athletics profoundly.

"If they continue on this course and Congress gets further into this," one prominent BCS source says, "at some point, we have to draw a line in the sand."

That line could end the NCAA as we know it. The sport's governing body has no real power over the universities other than to police theft practices, which is why it has been conspicuously silent in this offseason of turmoil. What now is being discussed quietly among BCS athletic directors and conference commissioners is the top 50 to 60 teams in college football breaking away from the NCAA and forming their own league, forcing the rest of college athletics into the ice age. Don't think it can't happen. When money is the mitigating factor, there are no rules and no reason.

The have-nots want greater access to the multimillion-dollar BCS system and are hoping to build a case with antitrust laws, saying the system has monopolized the postseason because no non-BCS team has played in a BCS bowl since its inception in 1998. Now, the BCS schools don't want to break away, don't want the headache of forming a new governing body and dealing with logistical nightmares in other sports, particularly men's basketball and its highly successful tournament. The have-nots know this, hut their case gets stronger in the public eye when Congress is debating it live on C-SPAN.

It boils down to a high-stakes game of chicken, with politicians suddenly roaming the sidelines. Anyone else nauseated?

"We hear their concerns; we understand their concerns" a prominent athletic director says. "But at the same time, if they get too demanding, we've told our commissioner to tell them we'll walk"

The small-school presidents want a national playoff modeled after the basket ball tournament. But that tournament works because the competitive gap can be squeezed when a school has a dominant player. One such player means next to nothing in college football. Consider this: Four years ago in the NCAA Tournament, Wally Szczerbiak carried Miami (Ohio) to the Sweet 16 and scored 43 of the RedHawks' 59 points in a win over Washington. Ben Roethlisberger, the RedHawks' current quarterback and a potential No. 1 pick in next year's NFL draft, faces a huge task to get his team's offense to score at all in Miami's season opener at Iowa.

Whether we want to admit it, there are certain teams that can't cut it in I-A football. That's why the NCAA recently set up Division I eligibility requirements to weed out those who don't belong. Yet these are the same teams the non-BCS presidents believe deserve access to the more than $500 million in annual income the BCS conferences are paid. In their dream, each conference champion would earn a spot in the tournament, and No. 16 seed Middle Tennessee could lose to No. 1 seed Oklahoma by 50 and still pick up a couple million for its troubles.

Understand this: Television drives the BCS deal, and advertisers drive the BCS. Advertisers don't want to shell out huge chunks of money for Oklahoma's jamboree against North Texas. And ABC doesn't want to show Tulane vs. Tennessee in a BCS bowl; it wants Tennessee vs. Southern California. Those who direct the deal and pay the bill want major teams or major television markets--preferably a combination of both in those four games.

The BCS conferences have the product, and they're selling it to the highest bidder. That's free enterprise, not a violation of antitrust law, which is defined as a group monopolizing trade or commerce through unreasonable methods. This is a waste of taxpayer money by a group of university presidents who are upset because the mean men at the BCS won't let them play with their ball.

After the BCS directors met this spring to discuss access for non-BCS schools, WAC commissioner Karl Benson told TSN his plan was to gain access through a fifth BCS game, not through litigation or more congressional hearings. Three months later, Cowen began his crusade--coincidentally just days after his university's board members decided to keep its financially floundering football team afloat. He has gone from a university president scrambling to save his program to a renegade on the verge of scrambling the state of Division I football.