Legal And Ethical Issues In Sports Administration
Race To The BCS
By: Cora LeClair
February 14, 2011
Legal & Ethical Issues in Sports Administration
Matthew Soroka
Every September, when colleges and universities open their doors and athletic facilities, the buzz about football season is all around. Whether it is on campus, in the newspapers or in the media, it’s all about football. For big time colleges and universities however, football season isn’t just another season, it’s the start of creating a new champion. Every game they play is like a playoff game for the national championships; you lose one game, you’re basically out of the running to become football champs that year. “The consequence is that the top teams face virtual knock out games every week of the season, from September to …show more content…
December” (Whalen). The championship for these schools is known as the Bowl Championship Series, or the BCS. However, since the BCS took over the Bowl Alliance in 1998, many have different views on how the BCS is setup; most believing that it is unfair and rigged.
The BCS is the most recent attempt to create a national championship without having an actual playoff. “The BCS is administered by the conference commissioners and the Notre Dame Athletic Director” (BCS FAQs). They have created a rating system to determine who should and will play in the National Championship, at the end of the season. The top two teams in the ratings at the end of the regular season will meet in the title game.
There are four bowls within the BCS, the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl. All in which have name brand sponsors for spectators and consumers to follow brand recognition. Since 2006, a fifth BCS game was added to be the championship game, because of the addition, 10 teams play in BCS rather than eight. This gives two more schools the opportunity to play for the BCS championship. Currently, there are six conferences that are a part of the BCS, including the Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC, Big East, Big 12 and SEC.
How the teams are picked is one of the most controversial issues within the BCS system. Today, the system is made up of two polls and a six computer ranking system after throwing out the best and the worst rankings for each team. “Because the polls reward teams with impressive records more than ones with impressive resumes, it discourages scheduling an earl-season, out-of-conference challenge” (Wetzel, p.93). In the two polls, a team 's score is its point total divided by the best possible point total for that poll. “In 2008, there are 114 Harris voters and 61 coaches voting, which means that the best possible score for the Harris poll is 2850 (114 voters x 25 points for a first place vote) and in the coaches ' poll, the best possible score is 1525” (BCS FAQs).
The six computer ranking system is complicated and a lot of teams don’t like the outcomes. However, a school like Ohio State University always ranks and they like the system because of this. If the system were to change, they probably would have a harder time being rank than such as undefeated Boise State or Texas Christian University. For each team, they will be considered as voters in a mini-poll. This being said, the team ranked number one in the computer rankings will get 25 points. The number two ranked team will receive 24, and so on, and so on, down to the number 25 team in the computer system getting one point. “Each team 's four computer scores (after tossing the best and worst) will be added and divided by 100 (the best possible score) to give the computer average” (Zane). Then, the three numbers will be averaged for the total BCS score; the higher your score is, the better chance you have at going all the way to the national championship.
Since the 1900s, college football has been the most widely recognized sport; even the NFL couldn’t top the ratings that college football brought it. As of 2009, there was over “120 Division I football programs in the nation, making football the number 1 sport for participation” (College Football Scholarships for All NCAA Divisions). In the 1960s, college football ratings were at an all time high, especially in the state of Texas. Texas has always been known for having the best college football programs and the best football players; Texas is all about football, they eat, sleep and breathe football. However, Texas isn’t the only state with a great football program, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and a few other states are amongst Texas’ biggest competitions.
When it comes to participating in the Bowl Championship Series, all Division I football programs want to be involved and participate in the most anticipated game of the year. “A lot of schools feel very strongly that, no matter what the cost, they had to go to the bowl game” (Wetzel, p.45). Athletic directors believed that if their football program participated in the BCS, their school would be more known nation-wide, and more students would be applying to enroll in the college or university, which would bring more money coming in from tuition and student fees. More spectators would come to cheer on their favorite college team, and with more spectators, comes more money bringing into the college to fund the athletic program.
As long as college football has been around, every school recruits the best players to produce the best football team to become champions. To recruit these young football players, the school, coaches and booster clubs did everything and anything they could to keep the player interested in the school. Incentives were widely tossed around to convince the players and their families to sign a contract on recruiting day to play for a certain school. Every school was doing this, and everyone knew what was going on, even the NCAA.
Players were offered cash, cars, houses for their families, and other products and services to come play football at these powerhouse schools. In 2007, the “…players of the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl were each given one of the Nintendo Wii consoles along with the Madden NFL 08 game; players in the San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl got a copy of Madden NFL 08 as well as a Sony PSP Slim” (Yost). All these transactions were not kept private for the most part, and pretty soon, news of NCAA violations started making newspapers headlines. The worst recruiting violations were in 1986, by Southern Methodist University where they were on the “death penalty” according to the NCAA for consecutive violations. This resulted in no bowl appearance that year, and for the following year; 1987, the whole football season was cancelled.
An investigation found that “21 players received approximately $61,000 in cash payments, with the assistance of athletic department staff members, from a slush fund provided by a booster. Payments ranged from $50 to $725 per month, and started only a month after SMU went on its original probation” (Sullivan). SMU was the only school to be given the “death penalty” even though other schools back then and today violated the NCAA recruiting rules and paid off athletes to play football at their school. I believe that the NCAA was under a lot of pressure in 1986, and decided to do the worse thing possible by just singling out one school, instead of suspending other football programs for committing the same violations that SMU did. The NCAA in 2010, found USC in violation of recruiting rules dating back to 2004. The NCAA banned USC’s “football program from bowl games in the 2010 and 2011 seasons, they will also be forced to vacate all victories in which the Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush participated beginning in December 2004; including the Orange Bowl victory that produced the Trojans’ Bowl Championship Series title in January 2005, and 10 scholarships will be taken away in each of the next three seasons” (Zinser). What I don’t understand is why USC got such little punishment from the NCAA when USC did so many wrong things and knew what they were doing was violating every recruiting rule set by the NCAA? Did no school, coach or player learn anything from what SMU went through in 1986?
Recruiting violations never went away, they were just hidden behind closed doors. Obviously these schools didn’t learn anything from past football programs violating NCAA rules. All that matters to these football programs is that they win, and if winning means cheating, then so be it. Cheating hurts not only the football program, but their fans as well. By violating NCAA rules, the programs that did so may not have their faithful fans anymore, and their ratings may go down. This results in losing revenue because the program is no longer eligible for the BCS for that season or maybe even two or three.
Recruiting today hasn’t changed much, besides that all incentives were talked about and done behind closed doors; not much slips away these days. Although, favorite quarterback Cam Newton, of Auburn University brought his team to the Nokia BCS finals, and won the national championship, he was accused of recruiting violations for accepting money from another school to give to his family. Newton pleads that he is innocent of such accusations, but to be honest, why shouldn’t college football players be paid for the work they put into bringing their team to the BCS?
The Bowl Championship Series today is like the Bowl games that were held in the mid 1900s, except for the way teams are picked. If we were to get rid of the BCS system and trade it in for a playoff system, the tradition of the bowl games would be thrown out the window, and in America, no one likes change, especially when it comes to sports. The BCS however, does create a playoff atmosphere already, without having to have actual playoff games. As I mentioned before, during the football season, each game played every week is one game close to being in the national championship game. It’s already like a playoff system, if you lose one game; you’re knocked out for the running to earn points to get into the National Championship game.
The schools bring in revenue for each game they play, along with the money that is earned from tuition and student fees, and alumni donations. If all these powerhouse schools made their football programs non-profit programs, then all the money they earn and the incentives they bribe their recruits with, wouldn’t be a NCAA violation. “Many conferences cut each school a check whether or not it participated in the bowl game” (Wetzel, p.41). Bowl games have always been the long-term goal for all the Division I programs because if they make it to one of the bowl series games, they are guaranteed to be on live television. “Great coaches, great teammates. And obviously coming into this game and coming into this year, the goal was you want to play for the national championship” (Blaudschun). The Bowl Championship Series brings in a huge amount of money for the schools that are a part of the conference championships. This money not only helps the school and the athletic program, it also helps out the community around the school.
(The non-BCS represents schools such as Boise State and Texas Christian University; where as the BCS conference teams would represent schools such as Ohio State, Louisiana State University, and Florida State).
When a football game is played, people come out to support their team either away or at home, fans will travel near and far to watch their favorite college football team play. When these fans come into the college community, they eat, go shopping, do activities, and sometimes sleep in or around the town that the game was played in. This helps out the college town and small businesses that rely on college students to stay in business. An example of this is right here in Castleton, VT; without Castleton State College in Castleton, VT a lot of the small mom and pop stores wouldn’t bring in as much profit as they do now. In the summer when college is out, the town doesn’t make nearly as much as it does when college is in session. Many college towns don’t like the idea of having a college or university be the center of their town or county, but in all reality, the college students are what keeps these small businesses from going under, especially during our economic crisis the past few years.
(The graph below depicts for each conference in the Division I level, how much television ratings and attendance, along with how much revenue is brought in for the BCS, the schools, and media).
The Bowl Championship Series is mainly for entertainment purposes only, “in 2008, the BCS earned over $43.8 billion in revenue” (Wetzel, p.26). People love to watch every game that leads up to the national championships because every game is a knock out series; you lose one game you’re basically out of the running. This keeps the season interesting, and makes every team push themselves harder and harder everyday to succeed. The BCS should stay the way it is because if they were to switch to a playoff system, then the final decision to who would go to the national championship would be based upon head-to-head competition, rather than going my statistics, which is how the BCS ranking system is set up today.
As a Sports Administration major, I know that statistics are the most important part of any sport. Statistics show in all ways how good a team is no matter if they have a losing record or an undefeated record. If the system of the BCS were to be changed, then the great teams who have the stats to prove how good of a team they are wouldn’t have the same chance as they did before to play in the bowl games. Other teams who have horrible stats wouldn’t matter in this case anymore and they would probably have the opportunity to play in any bowl game only because they won one game that mattered; the playoff game. An example of this is the non-conference BCS teams today; they are at the disadvantage to actually play in the national championship bowl game. A playoff system would be unfair to the teams who have an undefeated or good record, because they wouldn’t be in the championship game like they usually are. Thus breaking tradition once again.
If college football were to add a playoff system like half the nation wants, then that will add even more games to the college football season. No matter what, the bowl games will not be replaced because of history and tradition, so by adding playoffs, you’re adding more pressure on the coaches and players. Lets face it, you can’t expect a college football player to work as hard as the pros and not receive any compensation from it. Yes, there are the incentives that happen behind closed doors, but let’s be realistic here; these players are playing football to make it to the NFL to earn the big bucks. If we’re going to add a playoff system on top of all the regular season games and the bowl games, then our athletes should be able to be paid without it being a violation with the NCAA. I’m sure that if it came down to this decision, the athletes would agree that they should be paid for playing football for all the hours and hard work they put into the team, while attending a Division I school to earn their education. Football is considered to be a job for these players.
If the Bowl Championship Series were to turn college football into a smaller version of the NFL by having a postseason and unimportant regular season games, it sets college football up to be too close to the professional football league and set up college teams for a risk of unfair comparisons. If you create a postseason, you’re going to invite comparison with the NFL, where college football can’t hope to win against the comparison. By implementing a playoff system, the new system would most likely regulate the regular season schedule. Playoff games would have to be played at the same time and on the same day so that every team would get the same amount of rest. This creates a lot of issues when it comes to media and broadcasting these games. Television programs would fight over which teams they were covering, making ESPN and other networks paying big bucks to air the game.
Another issue that arises with having the playoff system, is that the playoff games occur all at the same time and day is that spectators who are watching it on television can’t watch all the games at the same time unless they were to go to a bar with a lot of televisions. With Comcast, you can only record two programs at a time, so the media audience will easily be discouraged when they can’t watch their favorite match-ups because of the new playoff system that was implemented.
The Bowl Championship Series should stay because my favorite college football team, Penn State, is in the Big Ten Conference. Penn State has been in the conference since 1990, and has won three Conference Championships in 1994, 2005, and 2008, all under the same coach, Joe Paterno. Penn State has also made “…44 bowl game appearances, 37 in which were under Joe Paterno” (Overall Team Stats). By getting rid of the Bowl Championship Series, Penn State wouldn’t have the same chances they do today to make as many bowl appearances as they have in the past. On average, the Penn State Nittany Lions are 25-12 with Joe Paterno as head coach. Paterno has kept his job for almost 45 years, not only because of the Nittany Lion’s winning record, but because he has brought the Nittany Lion’s to 37 bowl appearance, winning 25 of them.
A Bowl appearance is the main objective for powerhouse football programs. Athletic Director’s want the publicity and the funding that comes along with a bowl appearance. By having a bowl appearance for the Big Ten and other conferences in the league each year, the school is bringing in on average, about $150 million. Joe Paterno’s “…salary for the period ending in June 30, 2008 was $1,037,322” (Schackner). Paterno’s salary is almost doubled of what the president of Penn State University makes; President Graham Spanier of Penn State University made $590,004 in 2008. Louisiana State University head football coach, Les Miles, makes a little more than $3.75 million annually, along with other benefits on the side. Ohio State University, another team in the Big Ten like Penn State, their head coach Jim Tessel makes about $3.5 million annually. Football is the biggest revenue for all these colleges, and because of this, mostly all head football coaches in the Division I conferences, make more than their schools president.
I believe that the BCS should stay the way it is because college football is number one in participation, football brings in the most money for schools, and all the best teams end up in each bowl championships, especially my team, Penn State.
The BCS brings in money to the surrounding communities as well, so why not keep the system the way it is? The BCS should also stay the way it is because the teams who are making it to the bowl championships are the teams that deserve to be there because of stats and points. By creating a playoff system, the audience’s favorite team may not make it to the national championships, and ratings will go down. By keeping the system, we are not only making revenue, but we are also promoting to our youth that physical activity, especially in sports is one of the best ways to stay fit and healthy.
References
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Blaudschun, Mark. "BCS Title Game Gets the Royal Treatment - The Boston Globe."
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03.09.87 - SI Vault." Breaking News, Real-time Scores and Daily Analysis from Sports Illustrated – SI.com. 09 Mar. 1987. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1135953/index.htm>.
Wetzel, Dan, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan. Death to the BCS: the Definitive Case against the Bowl Championship Series. New York: Gotham, 2010. Print.
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By: Cora LeClair
February 14, 2011
Legal & Ethical Issues in Sports Administration
Matthew Soroka
Every September, when colleges and universities open their doors and athletic facilities, the buzz about football season is all around. Whether it is on campus, in the newspapers or in the media, it’s all about football. For big time colleges and universities however, football season isn’t just another season, it’s the start of creating a new champion. Every game they play is like a playoff game for the national championships; you lose one game, you’re basically out of the running to become football champs that year. “The consequence is that the top teams face virtual knock out games every week of the season, from September to …show more content…
December” (Whalen). The championship for these schools is known as the Bowl Championship Series, or the BCS. However, since the BCS took over the Bowl Alliance in 1998, many have different views on how the BCS is setup; most believing that it is unfair and rigged.
The BCS is the most recent attempt to create a national championship without having an actual playoff. “The BCS is administered by the conference commissioners and the Notre Dame Athletic Director” (BCS FAQs). They have created a rating system to determine who should and will play in the National Championship, at the end of the season. The top two teams in the ratings at the end of the regular season will meet in the title game.
There are four bowls within the BCS, the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl. All in which have name brand sponsors for spectators and consumers to follow brand recognition. Since 2006, a fifth BCS game was added to be the championship game, because of the addition, 10 teams play in BCS rather than eight. This gives two more schools the opportunity to play for the BCS championship. Currently, there are six conferences that are a part of the BCS, including the Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC, Big East, Big 12 and SEC.
How the teams are picked is one of the most controversial issues within the BCS system. Today, the system is made up of two polls and a six computer ranking system after throwing out the best and the worst rankings for each team. “Because the polls reward teams with impressive records more than ones with impressive resumes, it discourages scheduling an earl-season, out-of-conference challenge” (Wetzel, p.93). In the two polls, a team 's score is its point total divided by the best possible point total for that poll. “In 2008, there are 114 Harris voters and 61 coaches voting, which means that the best possible score for the Harris poll is 2850 (114 voters x 25 points for a first place vote) and in the coaches ' poll, the best possible score is 1525” (BCS FAQs).
The six computer ranking system is complicated and a lot of teams don’t like the outcomes. However, a school like Ohio State University always ranks and they like the system because of this. If the system were to change, they probably would have a harder time being rank than such as undefeated Boise State or Texas Christian University. For each team, they will be considered as voters in a mini-poll. This being said, the team ranked number one in the computer rankings will get 25 points. The number two ranked team will receive 24, and so on, and so on, down to the number 25 team in the computer system getting one point. “Each team 's four computer scores (after tossing the best and worst) will be added and divided by 100 (the best possible score) to give the computer average” (Zane). Then, the three numbers will be averaged for the total BCS score; the higher your score is, the better chance you have at going all the way to the national championship.
Since the 1900s, college football has been the most widely recognized sport; even the NFL couldn’t top the ratings that college football brought it. As of 2009, there was over “120 Division I football programs in the nation, making football the number 1 sport for participation” (College Football Scholarships for All NCAA Divisions). In the 1960s, college football ratings were at an all time high, especially in the state of Texas. Texas has always been known for having the best college football programs and the best football players; Texas is all about football, they eat, sleep and breathe football. However, Texas isn’t the only state with a great football program, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and a few other states are amongst Texas’ biggest competitions.
When it comes to participating in the Bowl Championship Series, all Division I football programs want to be involved and participate in the most anticipated game of the year. “A lot of schools feel very strongly that, no matter what the cost, they had to go to the bowl game” (Wetzel, p.45). Athletic directors believed that if their football program participated in the BCS, their school would be more known nation-wide, and more students would be applying to enroll in the college or university, which would bring more money coming in from tuition and student fees. More spectators would come to cheer on their favorite college team, and with more spectators, comes more money bringing into the college to fund the athletic program.
As long as college football has been around, every school recruits the best players to produce the best football team to become champions. To recruit these young football players, the school, coaches and booster clubs did everything and anything they could to keep the player interested in the school. Incentives were widely tossed around to convince the players and their families to sign a contract on recruiting day to play for a certain school. Every school was doing this, and everyone knew what was going on, even the NCAA.
Players were offered cash, cars, houses for their families, and other products and services to come play football at these powerhouse schools. In 2007, the “…players of the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl were each given one of the Nintendo Wii consoles along with the Madden NFL 08 game; players in the San Diego Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl got a copy of Madden NFL 08 as well as a Sony PSP Slim” (Yost). All these transactions were not kept private for the most part, and pretty soon, news of NCAA violations started making newspapers headlines. The worst recruiting violations were in 1986, by Southern Methodist University where they were on the “death penalty” according to the NCAA for consecutive violations. This resulted in no bowl appearance that year, and for the following year; 1987, the whole football season was cancelled.
An investigation found that “21 players received approximately $61,000 in cash payments, with the assistance of athletic department staff members, from a slush fund provided by a booster. Payments ranged from $50 to $725 per month, and started only a month after SMU went on its original probation” (Sullivan). SMU was the only school to be given the “death penalty” even though other schools back then and today violated the NCAA recruiting rules and paid off athletes to play football at their school. I believe that the NCAA was under a lot of pressure in 1986, and decided to do the worse thing possible by just singling out one school, instead of suspending other football programs for committing the same violations that SMU did. The NCAA in 2010, found USC in violation of recruiting rules dating back to 2004. The NCAA banned USC’s “football program from bowl games in the 2010 and 2011 seasons, they will also be forced to vacate all victories in which the Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush participated beginning in December 2004; including the Orange Bowl victory that produced the Trojans’ Bowl Championship Series title in January 2005, and 10 scholarships will be taken away in each of the next three seasons” (Zinser). What I don’t understand is why USC got such little punishment from the NCAA when USC did so many wrong things and knew what they were doing was violating every recruiting rule set by the NCAA? Did no school, coach or player learn anything from what SMU went through in 1986?
Recruiting violations never went away, they were just hidden behind closed doors. Obviously these schools didn’t learn anything from past football programs violating NCAA rules. All that matters to these football programs is that they win, and if winning means cheating, then so be it. Cheating hurts not only the football program, but their fans as well. By violating NCAA rules, the programs that did so may not have their faithful fans anymore, and their ratings may go down. This results in losing revenue because the program is no longer eligible for the BCS for that season or maybe even two or three.
Recruiting today hasn’t changed much, besides that all incentives were talked about and done behind closed doors; not much slips away these days. Although, favorite quarterback Cam Newton, of Auburn University brought his team to the Nokia BCS finals, and won the national championship, he was accused of recruiting violations for accepting money from another school to give to his family. Newton pleads that he is innocent of such accusations, but to be honest, why shouldn’t college football players be paid for the work they put into bringing their team to the BCS?
The Bowl Championship Series today is like the Bowl games that were held in the mid 1900s, except for the way teams are picked. If we were to get rid of the BCS system and trade it in for a playoff system, the tradition of the bowl games would be thrown out the window, and in America, no one likes change, especially when it comes to sports. The BCS however, does create a playoff atmosphere already, without having to have actual playoff games. As I mentioned before, during the football season, each game played every week is one game close to being in the national championship game. It’s already like a playoff system, if you lose one game; you’re knocked out for the running to earn points to get into the National Championship game.
The schools bring in revenue for each game they play, along with the money that is earned from tuition and student fees, and alumni donations. If all these powerhouse schools made their football programs non-profit programs, then all the money they earn and the incentives they bribe their recruits with, wouldn’t be a NCAA violation. “Many conferences cut each school a check whether or not it participated in the bowl game” (Wetzel, p.41). Bowl games have always been the long-term goal for all the Division I programs because if they make it to one of the bowl series games, they are guaranteed to be on live television. “Great coaches, great teammates. And obviously coming into this game and coming into this year, the goal was you want to play for the national championship” (Blaudschun). The Bowl Championship Series brings in a huge amount of money for the schools that are a part of the conference championships. This money not only helps the school and the athletic program, it also helps out the community around the school.
(The non-BCS represents schools such as Boise State and Texas Christian University; where as the BCS conference teams would represent schools such as Ohio State, Louisiana State University, and Florida State).
When a football game is played, people come out to support their team either away or at home, fans will travel near and far to watch their favorite college football team play. When these fans come into the college community, they eat, go shopping, do activities, and sometimes sleep in or around the town that the game was played in. This helps out the college town and small businesses that rely on college students to stay in business. An example of this is right here in Castleton, VT; without Castleton State College in Castleton, VT a lot of the small mom and pop stores wouldn’t bring in as much profit as they do now. In the summer when college is out, the town doesn’t make nearly as much as it does when college is in session. Many college towns don’t like the idea of having a college or university be the center of their town or county, but in all reality, the college students are what keeps these small businesses from going under, especially during our economic crisis the past few years.
(The graph below depicts for each conference in the Division I level, how much television ratings and attendance, along with how much revenue is brought in for the BCS, the schools, and media).
The Bowl Championship Series is mainly for entertainment purposes only, “in 2008, the BCS earned over $43.8 billion in revenue” (Wetzel, p.26). People love to watch every game that leads up to the national championships because every game is a knock out series; you lose one game you’re basically out of the running. This keeps the season interesting, and makes every team push themselves harder and harder everyday to succeed. The BCS should stay the way it is because if they were to switch to a playoff system, then the final decision to who would go to the national championship would be based upon head-to-head competition, rather than going my statistics, which is how the BCS ranking system is set up today.
As a Sports Administration major, I know that statistics are the most important part of any sport. Statistics show in all ways how good a team is no matter if they have a losing record or an undefeated record. If the system of the BCS were to be changed, then the great teams who have the stats to prove how good of a team they are wouldn’t have the same chance as they did before to play in the bowl games. Other teams who have horrible stats wouldn’t matter in this case anymore and they would probably have the opportunity to play in any bowl game only because they won one game that mattered; the playoff game. An example of this is the non-conference BCS teams today; they are at the disadvantage to actually play in the national championship bowl game. A playoff system would be unfair to the teams who have an undefeated or good record, because they wouldn’t be in the championship game like they usually are. Thus breaking tradition once again.
If college football were to add a playoff system like half the nation wants, then that will add even more games to the college football season. No matter what, the bowl games will not be replaced because of history and tradition, so by adding playoffs, you’re adding more pressure on the coaches and players. Lets face it, you can’t expect a college football player to work as hard as the pros and not receive any compensation from it. Yes, there are the incentives that happen behind closed doors, but let’s be realistic here; these players are playing football to make it to the NFL to earn the big bucks. If we’re going to add a playoff system on top of all the regular season games and the bowl games, then our athletes should be able to be paid without it being a violation with the NCAA. I’m sure that if it came down to this decision, the athletes would agree that they should be paid for playing football for all the hours and hard work they put into the team, while attending a Division I school to earn their education. Football is considered to be a job for these players.
If the Bowl Championship Series were to turn college football into a smaller version of the NFL by having a postseason and unimportant regular season games, it sets college football up to be too close to the professional football league and set up college teams for a risk of unfair comparisons. If you create a postseason, you’re going to invite comparison with the NFL, where college football can’t hope to win against the comparison. By implementing a playoff system, the new system would most likely regulate the regular season schedule. Playoff games would have to be played at the same time and on the same day so that every team would get the same amount of rest. This creates a lot of issues when it comes to media and broadcasting these games. Television programs would fight over which teams they were covering, making ESPN and other networks paying big bucks to air the game.
Another issue that arises with having the playoff system, is that the playoff games occur all at the same time and day is that spectators who are watching it on television can’t watch all the games at the same time unless they were to go to a bar with a lot of televisions. With Comcast, you can only record two programs at a time, so the media audience will easily be discouraged when they can’t watch their favorite match-ups because of the new playoff system that was implemented.
The Bowl Championship Series should stay because my favorite college football team, Penn State, is in the Big Ten Conference. Penn State has been in the conference since 1990, and has won three Conference Championships in 1994, 2005, and 2008, all under the same coach, Joe Paterno. Penn State has also made “…44 bowl game appearances, 37 in which were under Joe Paterno” (Overall Team Stats). By getting rid of the Bowl Championship Series, Penn State wouldn’t have the same chances they do today to make as many bowl appearances as they have in the past. On average, the Penn State Nittany Lions are 25-12 with Joe Paterno as head coach. Paterno has kept his job for almost 45 years, not only because of the Nittany Lion’s winning record, but because he has brought the Nittany Lion’s to 37 bowl appearance, winning 25 of them.
A Bowl appearance is the main objective for powerhouse football programs. Athletic Director’s want the publicity and the funding that comes along with a bowl appearance. By having a bowl appearance for the Big Ten and other conferences in the league each year, the school is bringing in on average, about $150 million. Joe Paterno’s “…salary for the period ending in June 30, 2008 was $1,037,322” (Schackner). Paterno’s salary is almost doubled of what the president of Penn State University makes; President Graham Spanier of Penn State University made $590,004 in 2008. Louisiana State University head football coach, Les Miles, makes a little more than $3.75 million annually, along with other benefits on the side. Ohio State University, another team in the Big Ten like Penn State, their head coach Jim Tessel makes about $3.5 million annually. Football is the biggest revenue for all these colleges, and because of this, mostly all head football coaches in the Division I conferences, make more than their schools president.
I believe that the BCS should stay the way it is because college football is number one in participation, football brings in the most money for schools, and all the best teams end up in each bowl championships, especially my team, Penn State.
The BCS brings in money to the surrounding communities as well, so why not keep the system the way it is? The BCS should also stay the way it is because the teams who are making it to the bowl championships are the teams that deserve to be there because of stats and points. By creating a playoff system, the audience’s favorite team may not make it to the national championships, and ratings will go down. By keeping the system, we are not only making revenue, but we are also promoting to our youth that physical activity, especially in sports is one of the best ways to stay fit and healthy.
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