Congress has nothing better to do than talk about college football?

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
it does take away time that could be better spent.

Would you dissagree with them holding a hearing on which flavor of gum is better?

This is not a congressional matter. And it is a waste of every second spent by congress that they spend on it.

You really don't understand much about how the government, the NCAA, or professional sports work, do you? By law, this IS a congressional matter.

It maybe but if Utah doesn't get a bid to a BCS bowl isn't going to cause US taxpayers billions of dollars.

They need to work on slightly more important things than a bunch of people wanting a fair college bowl structure.

They DO work on more pressing issues. Just because they're also working on lesser things doesn't mean nothing else gets done... in fact, it seems like the government has been up to quite a bit lately.

 

[classy]

Somebody needs to talk about it. The BCS is a disgrace to athletics.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
what a joke our politicians are. They do an entire hearing on the BCS and threatened the BCS leaders to make a change otherwise congress and the president will make a change for them.

Good to know the country is in such great shape that this is what the president and congress need to focus on.

Welcome to socialism! Next topic will be whether you can use a bath tub or just a plain shower to save water and be "green". I mean "Green" like in "Global warming", "Gore" and "Greed".

 

[IronWing]

The simple solution is a Constitutional amendment banning the use of tax dollars to fund sports of any kind. If people want to play ball or pay others to play ball, they can for for it themselves. Universities have no business wasting their time/energy on sports programs. It's just embarrassing.

 

[scruffypup]

Originally posted by: sactoking

Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
it is like that in all sports. The "BCS" schools in basketball make more money than the mid majors.

Go to the pros and the Yankees make a ton more money than everyone else because of their TV deal. Is that fair?

Now I disagree with automatic tie ins which the BCS deals with. But this hearing is not about that, this hearing is about the championship game which gives no weight to being in a BCS conference.

Getting back on subject, this is a huge waste of time, and I would bet that nothing comes of it other than time wasted.

You're not deflecting that easily. This IS about the money. The BCS schools use the money to ensure that the mid-majors can't compete with them. Then, when a mid-major comes along like Utah, the BCS schools close ranks and say "Well, you're from a mid-major conference. You guys can't compete. You get no shot." Why can't they compete?

BECAUSE THE BCS SCHOOLS CAN OUTSPEND THEM ALMOST 10-1!

Your examples are fallacious because:
a) In college basketball, the majors don't use their money to exclude the mid-majors. They all go to the same tournament. Many times, the mids beat the majors. They have a chance at winning the whole thing. That's not the case in football.
b) Yes, because they STILL have to earn their WS berths through the playoffs. Noone's looking at the AL at the end of the season and saying "The A's can't go to the Series since the West was so weak, and and Minnesota is good but they play against the Royals too much, so let's just take the better team between the Yankees and Sox since they spend a lot and play each other a lot so they must be the best."

Your argument also has holes in it,... the reason this is brought before congress is not due to the Utah case and midmajors,...

This started with the Texas senators due to Texas being "snubbed" in their eyes in favor of Oklahoma, then Utah joining in on the "snubbed" bandwagon,... Texas is a BCS school, their boosters who had connections with the senators wanted something done,... the Texas senators originally were going to present legislation in congress that the BCS could not name a national champion,... Utah AG then started in,...

First this is not an antitrust issue or a commerce issue,... (the aforementioned politicians want it to be),... IT is a matter of some boosters whining to their connections with power,..... the BCS doesn't exclude anyone,... it is a format that does include everyone, the computers, polls, etc determine who gets in the national championship game, prior to that national championships were based on opinions only by sportswriters and such,... guess what,... whenever you have opinions included by people who cannot possibly see every game with 119 schools playing a handful of games making comparisons tougher,.... there will be heavy inclinations to "award" the traditional powers,.... EVEN IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM,.... 12 team playoff,... guess what,... #13, #14 teams will have gripes,... we see that in the college tourney with 65 teams,.. there are still gripes at #66, #67,...

This is a waste of time for congress and yes they can spend the time actually working on things like border security and illegal immigration issues that have been ignored for the most part for many many years (just to name one example of a better use of their time - the argument that they can do more than one thing is lame,... they already have hundreds of issues, some of which they spend little time on or basically leave in the same mess year after year,.....

These people need to realize they have a job we entrust to them and expect them to do it,... instead they do this kind of stuff,... which I expect is in part to garner some votes for their next reelection in those particular states (especially Texas,.. all about football and if you step up to ensure that your team doesn't get it by a rival like Oklahoma,... you are half way to reelection already).

Really if this was an antitrust issue,.. it is a matter for the FTC, Us attorney general and the courts anyways,... not congress.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: ironwing
The simple solution is a Constitutional amendment banning the use of tax dollars to fund sports of any kind. If people want to play ball or pay others to play ball, they can for for it themselves. Universities have no business wasting their time/energy on sports programs. It's just embarrassing.

You know that for most schools the football program is a net money maker, right? In fact it is the sport that funds all the other programs for the school. Playing a sport most certainly has a place in a university education and I would recommend it to anyone.

If people want to spend their tax dollars funding sports it is their business, and the people have made it abundantly clear that they do.

EDIT: Arrgh! Beaten to it.

 

[Killerme33]

Originally posted by: ironwing
The simple solution is a Constitutional amendment banning the use of tax dollars to fund sports of any kind. If people want to play ball or pay others to play ball, they can for for it themselves. Universities have no business wasting their time/energy on sports programs. It's just embarrassing.

Just thought you'd like to know, at most D-1 schools the football programs more than pay for themselves. Cutting them would mean the school would be losing money.

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: ironwing
The simple solution is a Constitutional amendment banning the use of tax dollars to fund sports of any kind. If people want to play ball or pay others to play ball, they can for for it themselves. Universities have no business wasting their time/energy on sports programs. It's just embarrassing.

And if they do that then the girls wouldn't play sports. Football, hockey, and men's basketball are the only sports with positive cash flows in a majority of the programs. Pretty hard to justify spending money on the ladies with your line of reasoning since all of the women sports lose money for a university. I don't care for Title IX, but if one of my girls is able to use it to get through college at a great reduced price then I am all for it. My little brother went to school on the back of a athletic scholarship to a school he could of never afforded and let me tell you it worked out pretty well for him. If one of my girls have success a fraction of his then I'll be very satisfied.

 

[IronWing]

Colleges take the money from the sports program and spend it on ... the sports program. It is a wasted effort and distraction that does nothing to further the mission of colleges: education, research, service.

 

[spacejamz]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Are people complaining in large enough numbers to force the issue? If so, shouldn't Congress respond to its people?

If these people have complaints about the system, they need to voice it with their wallets and protest the system (but yeah, like that will ever happen)...

Our goverment does not need to be involved in how to determine a college football championship...

 

[Genx87]

1. The majority of the participants in the BCS are state run insitutions
2. This looks like an anti-trust situation where a group of schools(BCS) formed a system that effectively locked out the competion of the same caliber
3. Interstate commerce to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars
4. All of these schools are tax exempt, why?

 

[nageov3t]

multitasking isn't difficult... unless you're Obama, in which case you get a free pass on ignoring issues because the economy sucks.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: loki8481
multitasking isn't difficult... unless you're Obama, in which case you get a free pass on ignoring issues because the economy sucks.

i thought the criticism of obama was that he was trying to do too much at once?

 

[brandonbull]

Originally posted by: ironwing
Colleges take the money from the sports program and spend it on ... the sports program. It is a wasted effort and distraction that does nothing to further the mission of colleges: education, research, service.

Do you actually know anything of how this works?

Lots of kids get a "free ride" to schools because of these "wasted" efforts.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: scruffypup

First this is not an antitrust issue or a commerce issue,... (the aforementioned politicians want it to be),... IT is a matter of some boosters whining to their connections with power,..... the BCS doesn't exclude anyone,... it is a format that does include everyone, the computers, polls, etc determine who gets in the national championship game, prior to that national championships were based on opinions only by sportswriters and such,... guess what,... whenever you have opinions included by people who cannot possibly see every game with 119 schools playing a handful of games making comparisons tougher,.... there will be heavy inclinations to "award" the traditional powers,.... EVEN IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM,.... 12 team playoff,... guess what,... #13, #14 teams will have gripes,... we see that in the college tourney with 65 teams,.. there are still gripes at #66, #67,...

'sorry, you can't get in because your SoS isn't high enough.'
'but we won every game we played!'
'sorry, our two one-loss teams, one of which lost to an unranked team, are going to play.'
'if we can't get in when we're undefeated when can we get in?'
'schedule tougher opponents.'
'but the BCS power teams won't play us' <----- and there is how the BCS excludes non BCS conference teams

 

[Genx87]

First this is not an antitrust issue or a commerce issue,... (the aforementioned politicians want it to be),... IT is a matter of some boosters whining to their connections with power,..... the BCS doesn't exclude anyone,... it is a format that does include everyone, the computers, polls, etc determine who gets in the national championship game, prior to that national championships were based on opinions only by sportswriters and such,... guess what,... whenever you have opinions included by people who cannot possibly see every game with 119 schools playing a handful of games making comparisons tougher,.... there will be heavy inclinations to "award" the traditional powers,.... EVEN IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM,.... 12 team playoff,... guess what,... #13, #14 teams will have gripes,... we see that in the college tourney with 65 teams,.. there are still gripes at #66, #67,...

You are correct they dont technically exclude anyone but how many undefeated non-BCS schools have failed to play for a BCS championship? If you play all of your games under the rules outlined by the league and go undefeated and barely make it into a BCS game but never a BCS championship. I would call that a defacto exclusion of non-bcs schools from playing for a BCS championship.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: ironwing
The simple solution is a Constitutional amendment banning the use of tax dollars to fund sports of any kind. If people want to play ball or pay others to play ball, they can for for it themselves. Universities have no business wasting their time/energy on sports programs. It's just embarrassing.

And universities have no business wasting their time/energy on stupid arts programs, then. Sports and athletics is just as much a part of culture and societal evolution as is any art program.

 

[Robor]

If it leads to the farce that is the BCS being replaced with a playoff system it's well worth it.

 

[MikeMike]

yaaa, why dont we just let congress regulate everything...

 

[marincounty]

What a waste of time. Congress needs to get back to important things like hearings on steroids in baseball and flag burning.

 

[MadRat]

Twelve team playoff is moronic. And eliminating bowl games is also bad. The best solution is a 16 team playoff with bowl games for the teams with winning records. If it's not 16 teams then it will continue to exclude non-BCS teams simply because it leaves no room for non-BCS cannon fodder. There are 11 conferences so right off the bat you'd have to ignore conference champions. The NCAA respects conference champions in the other sports so football should be no different. So then you have 11 teams play in through their conference championship and then take the next five best choices to be determined by committee. It's fair. It's simple. It keeps the post-season bowl traditions largely intact.

 

[scruffypup]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: scruffypup

First this is not an antitrust issue or a commerce issue,... (the aforementioned politicians want it to be),... IT is a matter of some boosters whining to their connections with power,..... the BCS doesn't exclude anyone,... it is a format that does include everyone, the computers, polls, etc determine who gets in the national championship game, prior to that national championships were based on opinions only by sportswriters and such,... guess what,... whenever you have opinions included by people who cannot possibly see every game with 119 schools playing a handful of games making comparisons tougher,.... there will be heavy inclinations to "award" the traditional powers,.... EVEN IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM,.... 12 team playoff,... guess what,... #13, #14 teams will have gripes,... we see that in the college tourney with 65 teams,.. there are still gripes at #66, #67,...

'sorry, you can't get in because your SoS isn't high enough.'
'but we won every game we played!'
'sorry, our two one-loss teams, one of which lost to an unranked team, are going to play.'
'if we can't get in when we're undefeated when can we get in?'
'schedule tougher opponents.'
'but the BCS power teams won't play us' <----- and there is how the BCS excludes non BCS conference teams

Wrong,... why is it that you say "BCS power" schools won't play these teams,.. yet every year (especially with the SEC), these "BCS power" schools load up on lower quality teams,... or are you saying they should alter the schedule made well in advance to suit those who are likely to go undefeated? Oh wait,.. if teams like Utah played a tougher schedule, most likely they wouldn't be undefeated,... that is taken into account,... Utah for instance played only 2 decent teams,.. Oregon St who should have won the game, and the last against an overrated Alabama (which set the stage for Utah's argument),.. TCU and BYU were way overrated,... the rest were cupcakes,... half of the pac-10, big-12, sec schools would have had a good chance to go undefeated with that schedule,.........

Let's say that was the case and there was 10-15 undefeated teams with that schedule,... now you are in the same boat as to having some system like the BCS to determine who is most worthy of getting those two spots for the national championship,... and there is gripes again,..

The argument made that how many undefeated teams that were mid majors didn't get to play for the championship is crap as well,... there have been undefeated "power" teams too that have been snubbed,... just because a team is undefeated does not mean they are one of the 2 best in the country,... that is why the BCS system includes computer polls and polls done by people who can look beyond numbers,...

The BCS system DOES allow for a mid major (even a 1 loss one) to possibly play for the championship if things break right for them,.. guess what,... any team playing for the chamionship has to have the right breaks too,... so don't say it is like winning the lottery for the right breaks,... Utah was very close last year and if they had gotten another break at the end with certain teams losing,.. then we wouldn't have this conversation anymore,...

Now the BCS system is not perfect,.. it is far better than anything div 1 football has ever had before though,... and even with a playoff system,... there will still be issues and concerns,... and there will still be people with gripes...but the fact of the matter is that no matter whether it is the current format of bowls, or a playoff system,... there will have to be some tool to rate which teams get in and seeding of such,.... that is all the BCS system does,.... if you went to a playoff,... you could still have the BCS system to determine the playoff participants and rankings,... because like it or not,... you have to have something to determine who gets in when there are 119 teams and 12 games,... it is not like the NFL with much more clear cut yes or no situations,.. you have only 32 teams and 16 games which is easier to determine who should get in

The only way you could do similar in the NCAA is to take just the conference winners for the playoffs,.. then you would see teams switching conferences quickly and people would gripe that there is a USC and "the next level" types of situations in every conference,...

Now, that all being said,... if the system doesn't exclude anyone of the 119 teams, it is not an antitrust matter,... and as stated previously,... if it was, it is a matter for the FTC, US AG and the courts,... NOT CONGRESS

 

[scruffypup]

Originally posted by: Genx87

First this is not an antitrust issue or a commerce issue,... (the aforementioned politicians want it to be),... IT is a matter of some boosters whining to their connections with power,..... the BCS doesn't exclude anyone,... it is a format that does include everyone, the computers, polls, etc determine who gets in the national championship game, prior to that national championships were based on opinions only by sportswriters and such,... guess what,... whenever you have opinions included by people who cannot possibly see every game with 119 schools playing a handful of games making comparisons tougher,.... there will be heavy inclinations to "award" the traditional powers,.... EVEN IN A PLAYOFF SYSTEM,.... 12 team playoff,... guess what,... #13, #14 teams will have gripes,... we see that in the college tourney with 65 teams,.. there are still gripes at #66, #67,...

You are correct they dont technically exclude anyone but how many undefeated non-BCS schools have failed to play for a BCS championship? If you play all of your games under the rules outlined by the league and go undefeated and barely make it into a BCS game but never a BCS championship. I would call that a defacto exclusion of non-bcs schools from playing for a BCS championship.

It is not an exclusion,.. just because it hasn't happened in the short existence of the BCS system, doesn't mean it can't,... there are no rules that prevent it from happening, therefore it is not an exclusion by any means,... your argument fails

 

[scruffypup]

For all the complaining by football fans of the BCS system, most fail to realize it actually does a pretty good job of sorting things out. It is tougher than the situation in college basketball to fully determine the best canidates. That will always be the case due to the fact only a handful of games are played, and in college with such a high turnover of players, or players still learning the game, vast changes can be made from game 1 to game 12 as far as how good a team is,...

A "selection committee" like college basketball uses with the BCS ratings or similar as a tool similar to basketball's rpi might be a bit better,.... but if that was the case,... we still would have had the same 2 teams in the national championship.

Regardless of the merits of a playoff system (which will have the same flaws) or the BCS system,... or other,.... this is not the place for congress to be spending time and yes it is a waste of time and not what I want my elected officials to be worrying about. It is grandstanding at best,.. even Obama had to put his 2 cents in on it,... by saying he prefers a playoff system,.... Utah and Texas politicians are trying to win the popularity contest by doing this due to their respective teams fanbases,...

 

[txrandom]

Originally posted by: ironwing
Colleges take the money from the sports program and spend it on ... the sports program. It is a wasted effort and distraction that does nothing to further the mission of colleges: education, research, service.

You don't seem very familiar with college athletics. My university's athletic department makes a ton of money, which is taxed by the university. Saying all athletics profit goes right back to the athletic department is a lie.