Kvetch-22: BCS Conspiracy Theory

(Yeah I know - everybody else is wailing and gnashing their teeth about this, that's why I filed it under redundancy in the files.)

This October, Tulane University President Scott Cowen joined other university administrators in testifying before the United States Senate that the Bowl Championship Series discriminates against non-member conferences in selecting post game participants which costs the conferences and their member schools big money.

In November, the execs at the BCS stepped over a Horned Frog when TCU from non-member Conference USA fell from the ranks of the unbeaten to its fellow outcast school, Southern Miss.

This Saturday night, LSU plays Georgia in a special game to determine the best team in the SEC (a BCS member conference). The winner will be declared SEC Champions. Many bucks will be spent.

So why would the BCS execs care?

There's a kicker: The SEC has one shot, a remote shot, at the Big Payday that is the BCS Championship Game against the all-acclaimed Number 1 Oklahoma Dancing Wagon Masters (holyhosannasmilewhenyousaythatpardner) where MEGA Bucks will be spent. That remote shot is Number 3 LSU. The only way LSU stays in contention at all is to beat Number 5 Georgia. Beating Georgia will drop them from the BCS Top 10, thus eliminating LSU's four-tenths "Quality Win" bonus - in essence giving the four-tenths to the Number 2 USC Toejams.

Never mind the fact that LSU would have beaten a team ranked in the Top Ten twice, just give four-tenths to the Toejams.

Never mind the fact that the loser of the SEC Championship game winds up in a lower-tier bowl because the BCS co-opted the SEC's traditional post-season bowl (Sugar) for this year's BIG PAYDAY BOWL.

They've promised to address the issue of defiant teams from non-member conferences. Thanks to Tulane's petition to Congress, they may have to actually follow up on that promise, lest the murmur of "anti-trust suit" get any louder.

The execs at the BCS now also say they'll address the inequities of post-season conference championships and the oh-so-volatile Quality Win component. Sounds good, but what ELSE have they missed?

You can't tell me that these BIG UNIVERSITY MUCKEDY-MUCKS don't have access to unlimited herds of über-geeks for statistical studies and scenario permutation analyses. They need to review this using some other type of expert besides accountants if they're going to maintain their Rube Goldberg championship cacalatin' machinery.

Hey, that sounds like a better name anyway: RGCS, the Rube Goldberg Championship Series.

Naw, it's a conspiracy - Y'see...

shhhhhh - gather closer...
[whispermode] The RGCS execs paid the University of Kensucky to take a dive against Tennessee. Since that didn't cost too much, they had money left over and paid the Volunteers to make it look close. Next, they paid the ACC refs to call seventeen and a half fumbles against the University of Floriday so they'd loose to the Florid Estate Samolians Semolinas. To top it all off, they've arranged to have special chemicals secretly added to the water provided to the refs at the SEC Championship game that causes instant but temporary mild hallucinations involving purple and yellow colors to increase holding and pass interference calls.

They also arranged for LSU and Georgia to be playing at a neutral site which just so happens to be in Georgia's back yard. Oh wait, that's the SEC's stupid arrangement, but it is consistent with its "neutral" sites for basketball and baseball conference tournaments.

Now the Oregon State Beavers are supposed to take a dive for the Toejams, but I have it on good authority that Vanderbilt has worked out an incentive payoff out of the additional bowl money the Commodores stand to get if LSU gets to the Sugar and Georgia catches another high-ranking bowl because USC drops. Gotta love those eggheads for ingenuity.

[/conspiracymode]

Flawed though it is, the RGCS is marginally better than the old 2 poll system, and regardless, is cast in stone for 2003. LSU just needs to go to Atlanta and take care of those dawgs. Let the rest of the chips fall wherever and let's hope the RGCS either get with the playoff program or get displaced by a smarter group of moneygrubbers.

Comments

[Kevin]

Hey, let me in on this one, Schmed.

The conferences all split the same payout (at least initially). Assuming the total revenue from the 2004 BCS games is about $90 million (!shocking, ain't it?!), then ...

the ACC, Big East, Big XII and SEC each get $17,015,555. The Pac 10 and Big Ten each gets $3,128,889, because the Rose Bowl pays the Pac 10 and Big Ten directly for playing in it. If a Big 10 or Pac 10 end up in the title game, then the money goes directly to the conference and it all balances out.

The only way that a conference can gain the upper-hand, is if it has two participants. This year, it could be Texas & Ohio State, so the Big XII and Big 10 would each get an extra 4.5 million.

The really interesting part of the BCS money is what happens to the rest of it.

The BCS will contribute $6 million to other D-I and I-AA conferences to be used in support of the overall health of college football. In addition, the BCS will give $600,000 in other payments, including a $200,000 stipend to the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame for administering the BCS Standings.

Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and WAC each gets $1 million. The Sun Belt gets $480,000. D-IAA leagues Atlantic 10, Big Sky, Gateway, Mid-Eastern, Ohio Valley, Southland, Southern, and SWAC each gets $190,000.

There's a lot of money out there and it's a shame (I guess, kinda, maybe) that the SEC might only get paid once. But, you gotta have two teams up near the top to double-dip. This year it just happens that it might be Big XII and the Big 10.

As always - love the site.

[schmed]

Kevin, thanks for the visit, but don't distract me with simple facts when I'm kvetching AND imagining a deep dark conspiracy.