The BCS Makes Its Case, And It's Not A Good One

The 2010-2011 Bowl season is now in the bag and we have a BCS Champion, though not an NCAA Champion.  The good news is that Auburn is probably the best team in the country and probably deserves the title.  Though I can't imagine there's anyone outside of Alabama not wondering what Stanford or TCU might do against the Tigers.  

It’s hard to blame the advertisers, school administrators, venues, corporate sponsors or bowl organizers for trying to make a buck while also figuring out a better way to determine a football national champion than we used to have.  And the BCS is better than its predecessor.  What I blame them for is settling for a system that neither maximizes how much money they could make, nor determines a champion in the best way possible.

A playoff would unquestionably be the fairest way to determine a champion.  We see it in every other sport and every other level of college football, and while the best team may not always win a tournament, a tournament winner is always the unquestioned champion.  No campaigning, no geographical or conference bias, no voting, everyone got a fair shot…the last man standing wins. 

The great irony behind the BCS’ motto, “Every game counts,” which also serves as their Twitter and Facebook handle, is that in reality, only one game counts.  But this is only one of the many glaring holes in the pro-BCS argument.  

On their official website are a number of links to articles and statements in which BCS administrators and those making the most money from its existence argue for its continued existence.  These defenses of the BCS are the same ones that we often hear on television and radio, but none of them is actually a good reason to sit pat with what we’ve been dealt. 

So let’s put all the cards out on the table and see what we actually have.  BCS vs. Playoff, once and for all.  Each of these pro-BCS arguments is taken directly from their website or from articles linked from their website. 

BCS: “A 16-team playoff would include guaranteed spots for each of the 11 Division I conferences.   This means that Alabama, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, Oregon and the like would be included.  Also, you would include Central Michigan from the Mid-America Conference and Troy from the Sun Belt.  How much interest would there be in that first round game between Troy and Alabama and likewise, the 2-15 pairing of Central Michigan and Texas?” –Butch Henry, from a BCS’ homepage link to an article published in January 2010 in the Aiken Standard.

Playoff: Exactly.  Each of the power conferences would still get their best horse in the race.  And then the next five best teams would be invited as well.  As for the amount of interest in a Troy vs. Alabama first round game, I’d say it would be considerably higher than a BYU-UTEP New Mexico Bowl.  Or a N. Illinois-Fresno St. Humanitarian Bowl.  Or an Ohio-Troy New Orleans Bowl.  Or a Southern Miss-Louisville Beef O’Brady’s Bowl.  Or than probably any of the 30 non-BCS games, and perhaps more than the Connecticut-Oklahoma Sugar Bowl.

BCS: “There will be no bowls if a playoff system is initiated. Only 16 teams would play postseason. Do you think the Southeastern Conference, which has 10 teams playing in bowl games this year, will support for one second a system in which only two or three teams go to playoffs? How many coaches get fired for not making the playoffs when just two or three get to play? We have more than 60 teams going to bowl games this year. No one will agree to a system that only 16 get to go.” – Henry

Playoff: So make a secondary tournament (like basketball’s NIT) or host bowls for the next 44 teams after the Tournament field is named.  That way we get a legitimate national champion, most of the corporate sponsors still get their names on second tier games, 60+ schools get honored with some postseason play and all those bowl venue communities still cash in. 

BCS: Bowls provide an opportunity for half the schools competing to finish the season as a champion.  A tournament would make 15 out of 16 kids finish as a loser. 

Playoff: True.  If the goal of the bowl system really is to provide a sense of accomplishment to the players, then fine…keep it.  But don’t sell tickets, naming rights, or advertising and play the games behind closed doors.  After all, it’s the kids that matter, not the Title, and not the cash, right?

BCS: “An ESPN The Magazine poll in August showed that when players were asked whether they would rather have a college football career with three bowl trips or one playoff trip, 77 percent favored the bowls and only 23 percent wanted a playoff.” – Bill Hancock, Bowl Championship Series executive director on BCSFootball.org

Playoff: If you asked, “Would you rather have a college football career with two bowl trips and a playoff trip or three bowl trips,” my guess is that the majority would prefer at least one title shot along with a free vacation or two. 

BCS: “Division I-AA, II and III playoffs lose money and must be supported by surplus revenues from the Final Four.” - Henry

Playoff: So does pretty much every bowl but the biggest 10, and they are all supported by the big ones.  Additionally, the amount of national interest in Division I-A is so much higher that the interest in the other divisions, that this parallel doesn’t hold up. 

BCS: “Playoff games would have to be played on college campus sites to ensure a crowd for rounds one through three.” [Paraphrasing:]  “Otherwise, crowd support in early round games would be a concern because teams wouldn’t know where they’re playing until only 6 days before the next round.  The Sugar Bowl teams are given 17,500 tickets to sell and would likely swallow many of them.  Basketball tourney teams are given just 750 tickets in the regional rounds and often struggle to sell them.  Attendance would be a huge problem.” – Henry

Playoff: The bowls are currently played at neutral locations, so that part of the argument is moot.  While one week to get fans to mobilize is tougher than one month, I can’t imagine this would truly be a concern in almost all cases.  Additionally, it is reasonable to expect an increase in attendance by more neutral local fans because the games become relevant to all fans, not just fans of the two schools competing.  Boston College and Nevada played 2 miles from my home last night.  Tickets were on Craigslist for as little as $35.  $50 on the 50-yard line.  I am a huge college football fan and it never occurred to me to go to the game.  Had it been a playoff game, even with the same two underwhelming teams, I would certainly have gone and they would have certainly sold out.  Additionally, the other Division I tournament similar in profile, men’s basketball, is played on neutral sites to massive crowds, sometimes five-times more than normal regular season games or more.  And they only get a week’s notice for those games as well. 

As for the tickets allotted, bowl teams have to buy those 17,500-or-so tickets and the schools take a bath almost every time.  Regardless, I imagine most schools would gladly make that investment to make sure they can get in the building every student and alumnus or alumna who wants to be there.

Furthermore, what would be wrong with schools hosting playoff games?  Basically every other sport does it to no negative consequences.  Don’t top seeds deserve home-field advantage?  Won’t it protect the favorites from the small conference winners who perhaps aren’t on par?  So the road fans would only have 6 days to plan travel, but again, that’s how it is with nearly every other sport and anyway, the higher seed’s fans should get the advantage.  Yes, the stadiums may be smaller in some cases and thus revenue would shrink in those cases, but it would also feel less sterile and corporate and would allow (at least half the teams each week) to attend normal classes.  No neutral site reverie like the bowls provide and no corporate media orgies all week (or two), but isn’t this about the football and the kids, anyway?  And besides, couldn’t all those parties and events be held in college towns just as easily as they could be held outside AT&T Park?

BCS: “Playoffs and plus-one systems sound great to the fan because it gives them a better viewing experience. But college athletics should be viewed more like minor league baseball, a breeding ground for potential pros, not a league in and of itself.” – Krystina Lucido from a link on the BCS’ homepage to an article published in December 2010 in the Press Box Online.

Playoff: This is college athletics, not minor league professional athletics.  If we should not view it as “a league in and of itself,” then why is there a BCS at all?  Why aren’t all games considered scrimmages?  Of course there should be a fairly-determined champion and the viewing experience of the fans (students and alumni, especially) is completely relevant. 

BCS: “Playoffs in December would disrupt the exam process.” – Henry

Playoff: Division I-AA, II and III teams seem to have figured this out.  And the BCS causes conflict for academics, as well.  For instance, Auburn and Oregon played the National Championship game on January 10, 2011 and were in town for the game a week earlier…while classes had already begun for the Spring Semester. 

BCS: “The average size of players in Divisions I-AA, II and III are far less than those in Division I-A. Their recovery time is far quicker than the size and strength of players in the largest class. Alabama has already played 13 games. What would be left of its team to play four more games over the next four weeks?” – Henry

Playoff: All players would be at the same disadvantage, so there would be no advantage gained by anyone but those teams strong enough to rest stars.  And is a D-IA player’s recovery time really that much longer?  They are bigger on average, yes, but they’re also more athletic and stronger on average as well.  NFL players are bigger, stronger and more athletic that D-IA players, and they play 16 games plus as many as four postseason games.  Should we get rid of the NFL playoffs and just vote for the Super Bowl competitors after Week 11?

BCS: “Even a four-team playoff adds two games to a 12 or 13-game season.  Fourteen games for a student athlete is way too much; this is like a professional schedule” – Mark Even on Bleacher Report

Playoff: Putting the semifinals on January 1 would be best for keeping the New Year’s festival feel.  So the Quarterfinals would be the week before Christmas.  The First Round would be around December 10-15.  Each round could easily be separated by more than a week to allow extra rest.  Currently college football’s regular season generally wraps up by the end of November.  This provides two weeks or more of down time before the playoffs start.  Additionally, schools could cut their regular seasons down to 11 or 12 games, rather than 12 or 13.  Finally, only 8 teams would play more than 1 postseason game.  Four would play more than two.  Two teams would play more than 3.  They are able to handle this at other levels; there is no reason to think they couldn’t do it at D-IA. 

BCS: “A bowl game…is a reward for a team that has had a successful season.”

Playoff: So is a playoff game.  And by successful, do you really mean 7-6?  23 bowls teams were 7-6 or worse in 2010-2011.  8 finished under .500.  It’s one thing for the Seahawks to make the postseason with a sub-.500 record because they won their division.  It would have been another if the Cowboys had been invited because they would have sold a lot of tickets. 

BCS: [Paraphrasing] It would be unfair to take the bowl-swag and per diem money away from athletes. - Henry

Playoff: [Washing vomit out of my mouth after reading that argument] Um, I guess they can still get (illegal) benefits from corporate sponsors for playing in playoff games and, obviously, they would still get per diem.

BCS: “Teams spend five to seven days at the bowl site prior to the game. Practice and meetings take up half the day, and players are free to go to the beach or hit the tourist spots/social gatherings up until a day or so before the game. Then, the coaches put in place the normal game procedures.  If there is a playoff, the players know the coaches will fly the team to the game site on Friday, play the game on Saturday and fly home immediately afterwards.” - Henry

BCS: "Add a playoff and the [AT&T Cotton Bowl] Classic experience becomes nothing more than a short business trip. The Cotton Bowl prides itself on creating life-long memories for the student athletes." - Rick Baker, AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic president on BCSFootball.org

Playoff: So the players will spend more time at home and in class, and the teams spend less money on lodgings.  They are not entitled to trips to the beach or tourist spots.  They can do that on their own time and there is no reason that schools should fund it.  Bowl trip festivities seem to blatantly break NCAA rules against improper benefits given to athletes.  Are other non-athletes afforded the same trips? As for memories, I think the winning team would still look back fondly on the game while the losing team would still blame the refs. 

BCS: "[Some] claim the bowls will survive a playoff, but a playoff would put an end to the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl.” - Tina Kunzer-Murphy, Football Bowl Association chairman and Maaco Las Vegas Bowl executive director on BCSFootball.org

Playoff: Perhaps, but it would also be the beginning of a legitimate NCAA Division IA football championship, which is the point, isn’t it?  The Las Vegas Bowl could continue to choose non-tournament teams if they so chose.  Granted, there would be little interest in that game perhaps, but there already is little interest in it.

BCS: “Almost all bowls donate a portion of the local profits to area charity. There is no charity when the NCAA takes over. There is no incentive for a locality to support the local playing of a game other than tourism.” – Henry

Playoff: No charities besides the non-profit universities that would reap huge financial windfalls, right?  As Henry writes, they don’t all donate to charity anyway, so don’t paint them all with a saintly brush.  A lot of money would be lost by venue-area businesses but the point is to choose a national champion in the fairest way possible, not to pimp our finest athletes out to the highest bidder.  The amount of money brought in the participating schools and their local communities would be huge in relation to what they make now, so the point is basically moot. 

BCS: “Bowl games have a great following on television. This past year, the Alamo Bowl between Missouri and Northwestern had higher ratings on ESPN than Duke-North Carolina basketball.” - Henry

Playoff: I’m guessing that Duke-North Carolina game wasn’t a postseason game, or that stat would have been different.  Football is far more popular than basketball; ratings for regular season college football games routinely out-do ratings for regular season college basketball games.  But NCAA Tourney basketball games routinely out-do bowl games.   That same 2008-2009 Alamo Bowl between Missouri and Northwestern got a 4.60 national television rating.  It was the 8^th highest rated bowl of that year.  The average bowl game (34 games total) that year drew a 3.99.  The average NCAA basketball tournament game (65 games total) in the same year drew a 5.71.  And keep in mind that the Alamo Bowl (like nearly all bowls) was played on either a holiday, a weeknight in primetime or on a weekend.  Almost half of those 65 basketball games were played on a weekday or before primetime.  And they still outperformed the bowls by an average of 143%

BCS: "January 1 has become internationally known as America's New Year Celebration, and a salute to tradition and a love of pageantry that has thrived in Pasadena since 1902. Without a bowl system and structure in place, college football loses its unique appeal and storied traditions. In its place a corporate sporting environment of a playoff would destroy the experience for all those involved: athletes, host communities and fans alike." -Scott McKibben, Tournament of Roses, Rose Bowl Game executive director on BCSFootball.org

Playoff: The loss of January 1 as a College Football Holiday would be too bad.  And there is something to a pageantry of the January 1 Bowls that would be lost, the Rose Bowl in particular.  However, the BBVA Compass Bowl pitted a 7-5 team against a 6-6 team on January 8, 2011.  The godaddy.com Bowl pitted a 6-6 team and a 9-4 team on January 6, 2011.  It seems to me that the sanctity of January 1 is long gone already.  And are we really arguing that a playoff would create more of a corporate structure than a system of corporate-sponsored bowls?  Also, I’m pretty sure that January 1 is everyone’s New Year Celebration, not just America’s.

BCS: “A large amount of the attendees to these games are students. A playoff series, played in multiple areas, is not conducive to the audience. Students can't travel that much and universities cannot supply that much transportation.” – Lucido

Playoff: This is a good point, but I fall back on the fact that the other divisions of football all do it and play in front of sold out (though smaller) stadiums.  If games were played at home-sites, this would be less of a problem, and again, there would be far more casual local fan interest. 

BCS: Won’t the 17^th team complain (probably rightfully) that they deserve a seat at the table just like the 3^rd team does now, or the 69^th team will in basketball this year?

Playoff: Yes they will, but it’s a lot harder to argue that point when you are barely good enough to be on the national title radar at 17^th than when you are 3^rd and possibly undefeated.

BCS: The four BCS Bowl venues would never allow a playoff to happen because they currently get to host two games every four years.  With a playoff, even if they kept their name on the playoff games, they’d only get one game per year.

Playoff: Why are non-school, non-conference, and non-NCAA officials making these decisions in the first place?  Also, this could easily be fixed by having a 3^rd place game the day before the National Championship game and that third place game could rotate among the big four each year.

BCS: If teams want to make the National Championship game, they should take care of business on the field and make sure they make the top two. 

Playoff: Like TCU going 12-0, Stanford (losing only at #2 Oregon), Wisconsin (losing only at #9 Michigan State), Ohio State (losing only at #5 Wisconsin), Boise State (losing only at #15 Nevada in overtime), or Michigan State (losing only at then #18 Iowa) going 11-1?

BCS: Putting aside all the other bowls, in most years since the BCS worked and got the two best teams in the championship game

Playoff: Except the times that it hasn’t worked.  And again, just because the two best teams faced off for the title, doesn’t mean the third (or others) best teams didn’t also deserve a shot.  It seems that every season we all say, “This is the year that finally proves how terrible this system is,” and yet the next year seems to always make a new and even stronger argument for tearing the system down.

BCS: “College football is the one sport where the regular season counts.” - Henry

Playoff: That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is perfectly accurate to say that it is the one sport where the postseason doesn’t count.

Put plainly, there is simply no good reason for universities to remain in the BCS system.  It clearly does not determine a champion in the best way possible and it doesn’t make them the most money possible.  Austin Murphy and Dan Wetzel wrote a cover story for Sports Illustrated that pointed out the massive amounts of money that universities pay out in order to cover their bowl trips.  From unsold tickets to travel to hotels to meals to media campaigns and events, schools break their banks to get into bowls that don’t wind up earning them any money or get them any closer to a national title.  But bowl organizers reap fortunes from the games, even paying annual salaries over $1 million just for a few days of events.  Their stark picture of the bowl system and the BCS clearly shows that it is the bowl committees making all the money, not the universities or conferences.  And while they are entitled to their entrepreneurial ventures, that simply has nothing to do with football, with schools or with kids. 

And I’ve not even gotten into the ridiculously unfair conference tie-ins that placed unranked Connecticut in a BCS bowl and forced #10 Boise State to play before Christmas.  Nor did I get into the recruiting power that smaller conference schools would gain, thus leveling the playing field, and making it unnecessary for schools to destroy smaller conferences and rivalries by jumping ship in chasing football money.

The bowl organizers say it would ruin them to have a playoff.  Perhaps.  But it should be the schools getting rich, not the party planners.  And while ultimately, college football is extraordinarily popular even with this corrupt and broken system, if you had a car that everyone liked the look of but it didn’t run properly, you’d go get it fixed.  

2010-2011 NCAA Division I-A Football Playoff Bracket

Sweet 16
Chick-fil-A Bowl: 1 Auburn Tigers vs. 16 Troy Trojans
Champs Sports Bowl: 8 Arkansas Razorbacks vs. 9 Michigan State Spartans
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl: 5 Wisconsin Badgers vs. 12 Nevada Wolfpack
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: 4 Stanford Cardinal vs. 13 Central Florida Golden Knights
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: 2 Oregon Ducks vs. 15 Miami Redhawks
AT&T Cotton Bowl: 7 Oklahoma Sooners vs. 10 Boise State Broncos
Meineke Car Care Bowl: 6 Ohio State Buckeyes vs. 11 Virginia Tech Hokies
Outback Bowl: 3 Texas Christian Horned Frogs vs. 14 Connecticut Huskies

Elite 8 (National Quarterfinals)
Allstate Sugar Bowl: 1 Auburn/16 Troy vs. 8 Arkansas/9 Michigan State
Valero Alamo Bowl: 4 Stanford/13 Central Florida vs. 5 Wisconsin/12 Nevada
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: 2 Oregon/15 Miami vs. 7 Oklahoma/10 Boise State
Capital One Bowl: 3 TCU/14 Connecticut vs. 6 Ohio State/11 Virginia Tech

Final Four (National Semifinals)
Discover Orange Bowl: 1/8/9/16 vs. 4/5/12/13
Rose Bowl Game Presented by VIZIO: 2/7/10/15 vs. 3/6/11/14

National Finals
Tostitos National Championship Game

Seedings and Bowl Selections
1 Auburn (SEC Champion, BCS #1), 13-0
2 Oregon (Pac-10 Champion, BCS #2), 12-0
3 TCU (MWC Champion, BCS #3), 12-0
4 Stanford (at large, BCS #4), 11-1
5 Wisconsin (Big Ten Champion, BCS #5), 11-1
6 Ohio State (at large, BCS #6), 11-1
7 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champion, BCS #7), 11-2
8 Arkansas (at large, BCS #8), 10-2
9 Michigan State (at large, BCS #9), 11-1
10 Boise State (at large, BCS #10), 11-1
11 Virginia Tech (ACC Champion, BCS #13), 11-2
12 Nevada (WAC Champion, BCS #15), 12-1
13 Central Florida (C-USA Champion, BCS #25), 10-3
14 Connecticut (Big East Champion, unranked), 8-4
15 Miami (Mid-American Champion, unranked), 9-4
16 Troy (Sun Belt Champion, unranked), 6-6

Because there were four conference champions not ranked among the top 16 at the end of the season, four teams who were ranked in the top 16 were bumped out of the playoffs: 11 LSU (3rd in the SEC, 10-2), 12 Missouri (3rd in the Big 12, 10-2), 14 Oklahoma State (4th in the Big 12, 10-2), and Alabama (5th in the SEC, 9-3).

The Fiesta Bowl is next in the BCS rotation and will host the national championship game.
The Orange Bowl won the lottery and chose to host the potential 1 vs. 4 semifinal game.
The Rose Bowl was next and will host the potential 2 vs. 3 seminal game.
The Sugar Bowl chose to host the potential 1 vs. 8 quarterfinal game.
The Fiesta Bowl chose to host the potential 2 vs. 7 quarterfinal game.
The Capital One Bowl had the highest non-BCS TV rating in 2009-10 and chose to host the potential 3 vs. 6 quarterfinal game.
The Alamo Bowl was next and will host the potential 4 vs. 5 quarterfinal game.
The Fight Hunger Bowl (formerly the Emerald Bowl) was next and chose to host 4 Stanford vs. 13 Central Florida.
The Meineke Car Care Bowl was next and chose to host 6 Ohio State vs. 11 Virginia Tech.
The Cotton Bowl was next and chose to host 7 Oklahoma vs. 10 Boise State.
The Champs Sports Bowl was next and chose to host 8 Arkansas vs. 9 Michigan State.
The Chick-fil-A Bowl was next and chose to host 1 Auburn vs. 16 Troy.
The Liberty Bowl was next and chose to host 2 Oregon vs. 15 Miami.
The Holiday Bowl was next and chose to host 5 Wisconsin vs. 12 Nevada.
The Outback Bowl was next and will host 3 TCU vs. 14 Connecticut.

Read here for information on how this tournament came to replace the BCS.

UPDATE: As noted in this article, the "final" BCS rankings released last week were incorrect.  Apparently no one really checks the data before it is released each week and since their mathematical system for determining the rankings is not made public, no one really can.  It was later discovered that a I-AA playoff game was omitted from the mathematical morass, probably because someone figured a game between two I-AA schools doesn't matter.  Turns out it does because they also played against I-A schools this year, so their records affect strength of schedule for a whole web of I-A schools.  Long story short, LSU and Boise State were incorrectly ranked 10th and 11th, respectively, but they should have been flipped.  In this bracket, I had initially placed LSU at #10 and in the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma in the first round.  I have since fixed this error and replaced LSU with Boise State.   The Cotton Bowl would likely still choose this matchup because Oklahoma is so close to Dallas and Boise State's presence creates a big national buzz.

NCAA Division I-A Playoff Guidelines

The 2010-11 Playoff Bracket is posted here, but before we proceed, a few notes on the new playoff system:

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system has been dismantled because it became clear that the best interests of neither the sport nor of the student-athletes were in mind.  Further, as will be shown is another post, the BCS was not the ratings-grabbing money-maker that it was purported to be, and it was determined that not only could a playoff do a better job of determining a national champion, but it could also make more money for the schools, conferences, the NCAA, the networks, and the corporate sponsors, while not interfering with the student-athletes' educational interests.

Since we have switched to a playoff system for the "Football Bowl Series" or "FBS", that name no longer applies.  Therefore we are switching back to the traditional "I-A" and "I-AA" instead of "FBS" and "FCS."  The NCAA apologizes for this as one of many, many embarrassing and ridiculous errors during the BCS-era.

Many bowl games are still under contract with corporate sponsors, and fans enjoy the "bowl atmosphere", so we have decided to maintain the names of the bowls within the playoff format.  The four BCS bowl games were given prominent spots in the lineup.

In the BCS system, the national championship game rotated through the four BCS-bowl sites on a four-year cycle, so every four years, each of those four sites actually got to host two bowls: their own plus the national championship game.   This system will continue, with the Fiesta Bowl keeping its spot for 2010-11.

There will then be a lottery among the other three bowls to determine which games they host.  The winner will host a national semifinal game (Final Four) and gets to choose which side of the bracket they want (the 1 vs. 4 side or the 2 vs. 3 side).  The next winner gets the other national semifinal (Final Four).  The third team will host a national quarterfinal game (Elite Eight) and gets to choose which game (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, or 4 vs. 5).  The national championship host then gets to choose which national quarterfinal (Elite Eight) they will host as well.

The remaining playoff games (two Elite Eight games and eight Sweet 16 games) will be hosted by the next 10 most-prominent bowls based on last year's television ratings.  Beginning in 2011-12, all other bowl contracts will be voided and these 10 games will be up for sponsorship and will simply go to the highest bidder.  The same will hold for all 15 games' television rights.  2010-11 contracts will hold but all networks will have open bidding for all games starting in 2011-12.

This only allows for 15 playoff-bowl games, but 35 bowls had been scheduled for 2010-11.  After the 16-team playoff field is selected, those other 20 bowls may invite any bowl-eligible teams they choose.  In subsequent years, an N.I.T.-type secondary tournament is likely to arise, replacing (or absorbing) many of these lower-tier bowls.

Team Selection:  One automatic playoff bid will be awarded to the champion of each of the 11 I-A conferences.  At-large bids will be presented to the next five highest ranked teams.  Conferences will determine their own champions (based on regular season standings, a conference title game or ranking system).  The five at-large schools will be determined by the final BCS rankings.  Generally speaking, the BCS' ranking system is effective.  Each year it will be reviewed to fix any problems that arise, but for the time being, it will remain the official ranking system that determines the seeding.

The 11 conferences with automatic bids are the Southeastern, Pacific 10, Mountain West, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Western Athletic, Conference-USA, Big East, Mid-American and Sun Belt conferences.  The inclusion of each of them will hopefully prevent the concentration of football powers in 3-4 leagues.  Since schools will be have good opportunities to make the playoffs from any conference, they will be more likely to stay in the conferences that suit their entire athletic departments and universities, not just one of the 3-4 "major" conferences from the current BCS system.

This automatic-bid system will preclude some possibly-deserving schools from making the playoffs and include some seemingly undeserving schools.  For instance, Boise State will be left out of the 2010-11 playoffs, but Troy will be included.  This is unfortunate, but no matter what the system, there will always be someone left out.  It is more fair to have the #11 team left out than the #3 team, which occurs currently in the BCS system.  There will be no minimum eligibility requirements for being playoff eligible besides winning a conference championship.

Commissioner of Sports: November Decrees

Ah, November Baseball

On the NFL's new tackling controversy:

Many NFL players and alumni were upset recently when Commissioner Goodell said that helmet-to-helmet and other illegal hits would result in increased fines and even suspensions.  The common defense of these hits was that "football is a violent game," "that's how we've been taught to tackle since pee-wee football," and "they're interfering with my ability to do my job." 

Each of these points is stupid because the hits that Goodell is cracking down on were already illegal.  Yes, it is a violent game, but there is no need to intentionally inflict injury, and James Harrison infamously said is his intent when he hits someone.  Intentionally attacking someone physically is a crime and as we have seen in the NHL, especially cheap shots on the field can be prosecuted off of it.  No pee-wee football player was taught to dive into another player headfirst - you are taught to keep your head up so you can see if the guy makes a move and you are taught to wrap him up with your arms, not bounce off and hope you hit him hard enough to knock him down. 

On the MLB schedule and playoff expansion:
Major League Baseball's season is unnecessarily long, causing the World Series to tumble in November.  There are two reasons why this has never been remedied: cutting games means cutting revenue and would destroy baseball sacred statistics.  Both are reasonable.  But not enough.

MLB should change to a 140 game schedule, cutting interleague out of the regular season schedule.  The season could start later and this would also allow more time for the World Baseball Classic and the Olympics.  The shorter season would still provide ample time to determine the best playoff teams.  The risk is that owners would raise ticket prices fractionally to make up for the 11-lost home games, but I will address that later. 

Additionally, the playoffs should not be expanded beyond the current 8-team format.  If after 162 (or 140) games, you still can't get yourself into a better position than third place, you are clearly not the best team and shouldn't get to be in the playoffs.  And no World Series game should ever be scheduled to be played in November.  The divisional series should be expanded to best-of-7 series, which will require a tightening of the playoff schedule.  This year teams played 162 games in 182 days (including a 3 day break for the All-Star game).  That means they play a game every 27 hours for six months - 20 rest days.  If a team had played all 19 scheduled playoff games (5+7+7), they would have played a game every 35 hours - 9 rest days.  There is no need for so much time off.  One travel day could be eliminated from each of the three playoff rounds (still leaving two rainout makeup days per round), two games could be added to the LDS round, and the whole 21-game tournament could be completed in fewer days than the current system is - and in October, where it belongs. 

On ticket prices at sporting events:
On one level, sports is a business and business owners have the right to charge whatever they want for their products.  If the price is too high, consumers won't buy and they'll have to drop prices.  Hurray America.  But as any sports fan will tell you, sports is not just a business.  When a deli has a good month, the owner takes home a little extra cash.  That's a business.  When a sports franchise has a good month, millions of fans are taken along for the ride.  When a business succeeds in some huge way, there's a blip on the ticker on your TV.  When a sports teams succeeds in a huge way, there are parades through downtown. 

So since sports is more than a business, it is a part of people's families, it cannot only be controlled by the free market.  From season to season, ticket prices cannot be raised beyond the rise in inflation plus a percentage increase equal to the increase in value for the seats (new HD jumbotron?  That's worth a percentage per seat per game).  Additionally, while it is reasonable to have premier pricing for premier opponents, it is not reasonable to increase pricing based on expected weather or other factors that the team cannot control. 

The San Francisco Giants charge more for a Dodgers series than a Marlins series.  That's reasonable.  But they and others have reportedly considered having pricing increase based on other factors, such as weather forecasts and specific player matchups.  That's not reasonable because they cannot guarantee the thing they are charging more for.  If my seat is in the shade and I am a little cool, I might want a refund.  Or it is too sunny and I get a sunburn.  Or it's a little windier in my section.  Or the forecast is wrong completely.  Or on gameday Roy Halladay decides his shoulder is sore and he wants a few days to rest it.  Or the manager decides to give Albert Pujols the day off.  Or Pujols gets hurt in the first and comes out of the game.  Or he goes 0-4.  In any of these (very reasonable) situations, the fans aren't getting what they paid for and should be entitled to a refund.

On college sports rankings:
Is there anyone left who still thinks the BCS is a good idea or that it is working properly?  During its reign, how many times has it come up with a #1 vs. #2 matchup that was unassailable?  Once?  Twice?  The previous system did not work either, of course, which is what necessitated the change in the first place.  But we now have a pretty good sample size and this experiment doesn't work.  You know what does work for basically every other league at every level of basically every sport in the world?  Playoffs.  Bad for business?  I don't think so.  Will you watch the BCS title game this year?  Sure.  How many of the next best 15 bowls will you watch?  Three?  Four?  How many of the 15 games would you watch in a 16-team tournament?  Twelve?  Thirteen?  Tell advertisers that viewership will be roughly 3-4 times what it is currently and see how bad for business a playoff would be.

The AP recently named their preseason All-America team and for the first time in a long time, the men's team included a freshman.  That sound you hear is the death-knell of such pre-season voting.  I officially bad pre-season All-Conference and All-American voting.  This is even more of a complete guess than Mel Kiper's 2011 Mock Draft that he published in April of 2010.  At least Kiper had seen the kids play before.

On the NFL's various expansion plans:

No American sports league shall expand to include European-based teams until travel from the west coast of North America takes as long to get to the eastern edge of Europe as it does to get to the east coast of North America today, and until the world stops using time zones.  So don't hold your breath. 

Currently the NFL absurdly forces two teams to play one game per season in London.  The schedule is set so that these teams have their bye week after the trip.  How would it work if we had teams playing in Europe regularly?  Byes would have to be scheduled throughout the season for such travel.  And European teams would have to have multiple byes to make up for all the games they have to travel to America for. 

Another thought is that the NFL would have a third conference based in Europe.  Not only would this not eliminate the constant travel problems, it also creates a talent-pool problem.  Teams in the current NFC and AFC play inter-conference games each week.  Would they continue to play these while the 16 new European teams only play one another all season?  Certainly that would be a competitive imbalance, not to mention that adding many more teams would destroy the talent level in the league as whole. 

Additionally, the NFL tried this before.  NFL-Europe failed miserably.  Why would this do any better?

Finally, the NFL will not expand to an 18-game regular season.  Goodell parades around with a stern look on his face and a quick trigger for suspensions and fines when it comes to issues of player safety, but if he had to choose between player safety and more revenue, he'd double the ticket prices and have players play without pads and allow each team to have a sniper on the sidelines.

Yes, players could get injured in Week 1 just as likely as in Week 18, but that's not a good argument.  Russian roulette is dangerous.  Maybe you'll find the bullet on the first try, or maybe on the sixth.  But why not negotiate for more chances to pull the trigger?  By the end of an NFL season, teams are quite lucky to have the key players in tact.  So lucky that the top seeds are even given an extra week just to try and recover a little.  So why make them all beat themselves up for two more weeks when they already barely make it out standing up?

On professional sports labor standoffs:
Basically every time a labor agreement is set to end in any professional sport, both sides accuse the other of unfair negotiation tactics.  Often there is a lockout or strike.  And neither side really needs to budge because they're all millionaires (or billionaires) anyway.  But the fans get screwed.  We miss out on games, playoffs, and even entire seasons.  So from now on, if the two sides cannot negotiate a new deal by the time the current one expires, all the issues being haggled over will be posted on the league's website.  Each side will be given a paragraph per issue to make their case.  Fan will then vote.  The options will be A: Players get their way. B: 50/50. D: Owners get their way.  No other options to confuse it.  Find some fancy way to prevent ballot stuffing and post it online. 

The NCAA Tournament: An Egalitarian Wonderland!

Of all of the NCAA's championship events, I think it is pretty safe to say the the men's basketball tournament is the best.  It is no more or less fair than all the other sports' tournaments; it is right on par with them.  But what takes it over the top is, of course, the television coverage and massive fan appeal (and you can have a chicken vs. egg argument between those two).  And today they made the tournament even better.  They expanded to 68 teams and this is a look at the arguments for and against the expansion and why the NCAA proved its superior administrative wisdom, once again.

"Why not 96 teams?  Erase the bubble, reward 31 more teams, make 31 more games-worth the money."
It's unecessary.  Who would those extra 31 teams be?  All the conferences already have automatic bids, so they'd all be at large schools.  Assuming that 15 or 16 of the auto-bid schools are not among the 96 best in the country, that still means that around the top 80 teams in the country would get invites.  Do we really need to see if the 76th best team deserves a national championship?  I am all for Cindarellas, but don't the schools that prove their worth all year deserve better than to have 60-70 sub-par teams taking shots at them?  And wouldn't there still be a bubble, but it would just include much crappier teams?  We'd be very likely to see entire conferences get bids, with multiple sub-.500 teams. 

"Then why expand at all?"
Expansion is necessary because every year there are 2-3 schools that likely deserved an invitation but were left out.  This will eliminate that 66th-team-bubble and allow all the qualified teams a chance to play.  Not to mention that it rewards three more teams and provides 3 more games-worth of revenue.

"Isn't that that answer the exact same as the question that you answered 'unnecessary' to for a 96 team expansion?"
No, that was 96.  This is 68.  They're different numbers.  Plus, the 80th best team in the country doesn't have a prayer and doesn't belong.

"I agree that the 80th best team doesn't belong.  But does the 50th really belong?  Likely a 13 or 14 seed, do they deserve a chance and are they genuine contenders?  A 12-seed, Missouri 2002, is the worst seed to even even make the Elite 8, so do we really need more 13+ calibre teams?"
Yes.  There is no downside to allowing more teams to compete, be they are top 10 schools or top 50 (but let's not get carried away and allow the top 80).  Plus, the Tournament has a long history of periodic expansion and of having additional play-in games.  Since 1950, this will be the 10th expansion, and the fourth tournament make-up that included play-in games. 

As you said earlier, 'I am all for Cindarellas, but don't the schools that prove their worth all year deserve better than to have 60-70 sub-par teams taking shots at them?'  Doesn't the same already ring true currently with 40-50 sub-par teams?  So why allow three more in?  Clearly it isn't for fairness but money...so again, why didn't you just expand to 200 teams?
Generally all the university presidents, conference commissioners, and NCAA and television executives want to expand exponentially.  Fans don't.  And we feel it is important to listen to the fans.  Whether in includes 65, 68, or 96 teams, the tournament is fair, so why not keep the fans happy.  After all, they pay their hard earned money to keep us afloat.

So basically, even though no one watches the current play-in game, you can make more money by having 3 more.  And those three games don't affect the integrity of the title, so you feel that it is reasonable to cash in, give more kids a shot at the title, and appease your fanbase.  I think I am alright with that.
Good.  I'm glad we understand each other. 

In other words, it can't hurt anything so the 66th, 67th and 68th best basketball teams in the country deserve a chance to play for the title, but the 3rd best football team can kiss your ass.
No comment.

The Britt List (9/22/09)

My friend Jim asked me last week, "Isn't it about time you write a blog about the latest antics of spoiled sports figures." And he carries a gun to work every day, so Jim gets what Jim wants (Go Seahawks, by the way).

I should probably find some sort of common thread that I could use to string all of these stories and non sequitors together into some sort of cohesive commentary. But that's much harder and I am not getting paid for this. Plus it's been a while since I've really written much and the "notes" section of my phone is getting really long and really need to just empty it out, so here goes...

1. How can I start a list of spoiled sports figures anywhere other than with Serena Williams? Two week ago she got smoked by eventual U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters for 1 set, 5 games, and 2 points. Then two points from the end, she was called for a foot fault on her serve (that is, she stepped on the line while serving...probably a bad call). The penalty for this is the loss of that point. So that makes it match point.

But that little mistake isn't why she heads up this list. No, her out-of-control, profanity-laden, physical-harm-threatening breakdown that got her a 1-point penalty, which cost her the match because it was match point, is what got her on this list. It was definitely one of the most great freak-out's I've ever seen in sports, not up there with George Brett or the minor league baseball manager who pretended to be in a foxhole and toss a grenade of course, but it's impressive. It starts at about :46 in this video and peaks at about 5:20.

Serena later tried to be her normal disingenuously adorable self and said that it's just because she's so passionate and competitive and it got the better of her this time. That explains it; other athletes who get hosed on calls are just not competitive and that's why they act with grace and decorum. I've often felt that Serena Williams (and to a slightly lesser extent, Venus Williams) has been protected by the sports media with the same umbrella that they used to protect Roger Clemens for such a long time. "He's a fiery competitor." Or, "It's her intensity that makes her a champion." No, he was a 'roid raging egomaniac and she is a spoiled bully. I'd like to think that the press has finally turned on her and decided to finally write her off as the poor-sport that she is, but I think Kanye West might have distracted everyone too much with his blowup last week. (Seriously, is the jury still out on Kanye? So the guy sings a song every now and then about praying, and he cried on Leno, that doesn't mean he isn't just a huge asshole.) (And as a second side note, why is the adjectival form of "fire"not "firey?" I mean why suddenly move the "e" inside the "r"?)

2. Robert Henson of the Washington Redskins wrote the following on his Twitter page after some home fans booed the 'Skins in a home loss on Sunday: "All you fake half hearted Skins fans can...I won't go there but I dislike you very strongly, don't come to Fed Ex to boo dim wits!...The question is who are you to say you know what's best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at McDonalds."

There is no way I can write anything here that remotely compares to the sentiment and emotion expressed by Mike Greenberg of ESPN, so I won't bother. And there is nothing to add to Greeny's rant, so I won't. Except this: is it possible that this is all a grammatical misunderstanding? I mean, look at what he wrote: "Don't come to Fed Ex to boo dim wits!" Isn't Henson saying that he and the other players and coaches are "dim wits" and telling fans not to come and boo them? Yeah, probably not. He's just too dim witted to know what the comma is for.

3. Phillip Rivers seems like the perfect example of a kid who was always a really good athlete, so he just never really got put in his place on the field and was never disciplined by his parents, teachers, or coaches. Once again last week he took a penalty for taunting - he leaned over and yelled in the face of an opposing player who had fallen down next to Rivers. The problem is, he is still a really good athlete and won't be getting put in his place any time soon. And he's clearly too immature and/or stupid to realize that he'll never win a Super Bowl with this kind of leadership style, talent be damned.

4. It took Terrell Owens exactly one game to throw his new quarterback under the bus, saying that Trent Edwards showed poor judgement and missed plays where Owens was open. I know, I'm shocked too.

5. Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver came out after the team's Week 1 loss and said that he was hoping to draft Tim Tebow for next season. Tebow is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and BCS Champion quarterback from Florida, which is in Jacksonville and is far more popular than the Jags. That's good. Way to piss on the millions of dollars spent by fans on tickets and TV packages for this season, let alone on your current players, by already writing the season off within hours of its start. But hey, the good news is that they're gonna get totally hosed if they don't get the #1 draft pick because if they want to move up to get Tebow, the price just went way up when Weaver tipped his hand 8 months before the draft. Whoops.

6. The Cowboys apparently sold something like 30,000 standing-room only tickets (called "Party Passes") to their opening night game against the Giants on Sunday (the Giants won because Tony Romo sucks). The goal was to set the record for the largest regular season crowd in football history, which they did (105,121). Sadly most of those folks who shelled out $29 to stand on a huge balcony facing but far away from the field couldn't actually see the field at all, and some were not allowed into the stadium. It nearly caused a riot and the extra fans couldn't help lift the Cowboys to a win anyway, but the only part of this paragraph that Jerry Jones is probably capable of comprehending is, "Cowboys...set the record for the largest regular season crowd in football history...face...lift...Jerry Jones."

7. Flozell Adams is a very, very fat former great NFL offensive lineman who now just resorts to cheating in order to stop players from exposing the staggeringly large weaknesses in his game. He has led the league in penalties in each of the past 3 seasons. This week the Giants' Justin Tuck apparently told him there was a gigantic plate of ribs over his left shoulder and when Adams went left to look, Tuck bolted the other way to go sack Tony Romo. Adams became angry that there weren't actually any ribs and rather than shift into position and block Tuck, he instead illegally stuck his hippopotamus-sized leg out and tripped him, causing Tuck to fall awkwardly, injure his shoulder and miss the rest of the game. Adams later blamed Tuck saying, "Tell him to stay up." Adams then leaned back over and continued eating from his trough.

8. We always hear what a genius Pete Carroll is, so it must be true. So when he disgracefully shunned his golden boy, Mark Sanchez, last spring when Sanchez chose to enter the NFL, some wondered why Carroll the Genius did it. Why go on record on the biggest day of Sanchez' career, a celebratory day marking his graduation from USC football, not just USC academics, and say the kid isn't ready for the NFL and he has stats that show that Sanchez will fail? Granted, it's only two games into his pro career, but Sanchez seems to pretty pretty damned ready for the NFL. I guess Carroll was wrong on that one.

Once Matt Barkley got the USC starting quarterback job, every time you heard Carroll talk about him you got a kinda creepy, borderline-inappropriate, "I want to carry his babies"-kind of feeling. Though you know Carroll is faking it since he had already named Aaron Corp his starter until Corp got hurt in preseason workouts. And having seen Corp play last weekend in Washington, we now see that Corp getting hurt and forcing Carroll to start Barkley was the best coaching move he'll make this year.

You might wonder why Carroll was singing the praises of Barkley so loudly, besides that the kid is pretty good. But you have to remember that this is Division I-A college football. The title game participants are chosen as much through the politics in the press room as they are through play on the field. USC couldn't afford to start the season ranked in the teens because that makes one-loss a season-ender. So Carroll had to convince voters in that first poll that Barkley is the best quarterback that had ever come through his program so they'd keep USC from tumbling out of the preseason top 5. Now they've lost a game and dropped to 12th, but can still climb back into the conversation. Had they started at 12th and lost, dropping to 20th or below, the season would be over. Maybe he is a genius.

The good news for USC fans is that we've already seen that they don't need to win, let alone play in, the BCS Championship Game to call themselves National Champions at USC. So the polliticking is all kind of a waste anyway, I guess.

9. This one isn't directly at any particular stupid/spoiled sports figure, but rather all the national reporters covering the Giants. Why is everyone so shocked at the skills and performance of Steve Smith? He came from a major college program (USC) where he was a star. He was a high draft pick (2nd round). He led the team in receptions last season (his first as a regular player, though he was still considered the third receiver). And as if all of that wasn't enough to gain him the notoriety he deserves, as a rookie Smith made the most skilled reception and play on that Super Bowl winning drive, saving the Giants' hopes. He is the victim of circumstance, it seems. No one remembers his play on the big drive because it was sandwiched between David Tyree's helmet catch and Plaxico Burress' touchdown. No one recognizes his name because when he came into the league, there already was a star-receiver named Steve Smith. No one remembers his 2008 success because it was overshadowed by the Burress-gun debacle. But it doesn't seem to bother Smith or Mario Manningham or any of the Giants' other younger receivers that they are considered the team's weakness. It just makes it easier to embarrass seemingly unsuspecting and overconfident secondaries (we're looking at you Terrence Newman, Orlando Scandrick, Keith Hamlin, Mike Jenkins...).

10. Who do I pick for the last one?

-LeGarrette Blount of Oregon for kissing his senior season (and draft status) goodbye when he punched a Boise State player and attacked BSU fans after their season opening loss.

-Whoever at Boise State thinks it is a good idea to have a blue field and blue uniforms that make their players invisible on TV, thus making their games unwatchable.

-Whoever at ESPN still think Lou Holtz should be a commentator? I mean he's knowledgeable, and you just wanna cuddle in his lap (with an umbrella) and hear stories about the olden days, but you can't understand a shingle thing that comesh out of hish mouth.

-Kick returners who call fair catches at the 5 yard-line or take kicks out from 8-yards deep in the endzone?

-Whoever at Yahoo! Fantasy Sports ranked LaDainian Tomlinson as highly as he did causing me to get a completely wasted first round draft pick because we've known for two years that LDT was toast?

-Whoever started calling Tomlinson, "LT," despite that there was already a better player in the same sport with the same nickname and you just don't do that?

-Whoever at ABC wrote the stat-list for Pete Carroll for Saturday's game that said he was a two-time National Champion with USC even though the team has only won the National Championship game once in his tenure. Either we have two polls, and its the same split-champion situation that the BCS was created to avoid, or not. But we can't have both. If only there was such a thing as an event where various teams met and played against one another in elimination games to determine the last team standing.

-Milton Bradley who is getting run out of yet-another baseball town after being suspended for the remainder of the season by the Cubs for being a surly prick all the time. If your playing the Milton Bradley home edition, the winning cards this season were: Bump an Ump: Get suspended two game, Throw a Ball Into the Stands With Only Two Outs: Move two baserunners up two bases each, Freak Out After a Flyout, Again: Get sent home during the game, and later get in a fight with the manager in the clubhouse, Say You Hate Coming to Wrigley Field Because The Fans Are Racist: Turn your last remaining supporters against you, and finally for a bonus... Rip the Fans and Local Media For Expecting You To Play Well for the $10,000,000 They're Paying You: Get suspended for the season.

-Bud Selig for lowering the four-game suspensions of Jorge Posada and Jesse Carlson to three-games after the two agreed not to appeal the suspension. So what are we saying here, that they always deserved a three-game suspension but you were gonna make it four for no good reason? Or that saying "I won't appeal," is just as effective as actually appealing?

Or maybe all of them will just tie for 10th. Yeah, that'll work.

Last* Word On Some Overcooked Stories

I have been gone all week, with the only sports channel available being ESPN Deportes ("deportes" apparently means "only soccer" in Spanish), and came home to find that really not a damned thing happened. But some of the sports world's favorite re-tread stories were apparently back in the news this week, and I didn't have my chance to add my rant to the cacophony of morons screaming about them...till now.

Alex Rodriguez is a cheater and lied about when he cheated. So you're telling me a guy that ballooned up like...well, like a guy on steroids, was using steroids? And he lied about it too? Did anyone believe that he had only used drugs on those random days when they happened to test him as he said? Did anyone really believe that he only used in Texas because the pressure was so great on him, but that the pressure of a larger contract on the largest stage (New York) made him go clean? Did anyone really believe anything he said on the issue after he'd already been caught lying and fessed up because he was caught? Guess what, the dude is a lair and cheater. Move on.

Brett Favre wants to unretire. I never thought I would say or write these words, but screw you, Brett Favre. First you blew your chance to ride off into the sunset with your legacy in tact and after a season for the ages. Then you whined like...well, like a professional athlete that you weren't getting what you wanted and shouldn't have to be held to the contract your signed. So then you got what you wanted, had some laughs (7 TD's in a game), but generally were a bad quarterback and had the chance to ride off into the sunset with most of your legacy in tact (since the Jets wear green, most people would have forgotten that you weren't a Packer forever). Now you allegedly want to come back and to play in Minnesota. This whole things makes me sad. (Thanks to Cory Hollenhorst for the above image. Google "Favre Vikings" images...some people are reall good at Photoshop.)

The U.S. Congress is taking time out of their busy pre-campaign campaign schedules to hear a bunch of jackasses argue about the validity of the BCS in college football. Let's not mince words here, the BCS is a money-making scheme that works really, really well. The bowls are too. And while many of us fans like to say we love the bowls and would be sad to see them go, we'd forget that within 2 years of a tournament-style championship. And they could still call the tourney games bowls anyway, so everyone gets his or her way regardless. If the NCAA wants to crown a champion for each of its sports instead of all-but-one, they need a tourney. If they want cash, they keep the BCS. And even that is stupid because let's face it, a football sweet 16 game would get far better ratings than the Holiday Bowl does, which would mean more TV ad dollars, which means more naming-rights dollars and more stadium ad dollars as well. I watched 3-4 bowl games beginning to end this year and I wouldn't miss a playoff game. As for the argument that a playoff would invalidate the regular season, I have two points: who cares how good your regular season is if your postseason is more a pageant than a sporting event, and if you lost 2 regular season games, your chances of making an 8-team playoff would nearly vanish. So how is that different that now?

The San Jose Sharks blew a great season and left the postseason with their potential unfulfilled. And the sun rose in the east this morning.

NBA teams had great playoff games with really exciting 4th quarter finishes. Unfortunately, they had to play the first three quarters first. Plus the Lakers and Cavs are sitting at home waiting for all of their toughest foes to beat one other to death to find out out who will be swept next.

The NFL and Comcast are still fighting about whether the billions of Americans who do not want the NFL Network should have to pay for it on their basic cable bill. Or if the millions of Americans who do want it for about 10-12 hours a year should. Or if the 10's of Americans who want it year round should get it on a premier sports-tier. Why was this so easy for MLB to make happen when supposedly no one in America likes baseball anymore but everyone likes football? And why is the NFL trying to say they're fighting for the right of the people to watch their games when they signed an exclusive deal with DirecTV to charge $11,000,000** a year for the season pass, rather than having such a deal on all TV providers.

**-approximate

The NFL Draft happened. Lots of guys I have never heard of or can't remember made a lot of money and I will never hear of, nor remember most of them. But the Giants got a dude that made the craziest catch in college football history, so that's cool. I will do a draft post-mortem at some point, which will allow me to make fun of people who made mock drafts, so that will be fun.

There are probably more but I am sick of thinking of stories that I am already sick of. This will be the last time I address them. Until next time.

The Commissioner Of Sports Gets A Promotion

Earlier this week on Monday Night Football, Chris Berman asked both presidential candidates what they would do first in the sports world if they were elected president. Both predictably took pretty easy, populist choices. John McCain said he would get rid of performance enhancing drugs (a novel idea!) and Barack Obama said he would institute a playoff system in Division IA, thus eliminating the bowl championship system.

This got me thinking what I would do for sports if I was elected President. Earlier this year I wrote a column as the World's Commissioner of Sports and have re-posted that below. I still hold that these things would make sports better and in fact, at least one of them (instant replay in baseball) has been instituted in real-life. One thing I realize about that list, and about the new additions I will be adding to it now, is that I tend to be pretty anti-business. That is to say, many of the suggestions I make are to fight off the intrusion of money into the purity of the sports. So without further ado, as President of the United States of Sports, I hereby enact the following Constitution and Bill of Sports into law:

Article I: The NBA preseason will begin January 1. Teams may play as many preseason games as they wish. The regular season shall begin the day after the Super Bowl, and the opening game each year will be a rematch of the previous year's NBA finals. The regular season will consist of 30 games, and the playoff make-up will change slightly- the top eight teams from each conference, seeded by record, home court given to the team with the better record. There is no bonus invitation or home-court given to division winners.

The reasons for this change are many. For one, despite its current renaissance, the NBA still blows. The season is three to five games old and it is already clear which teams will make the playoffs. They will also tread water until February, when they will start jockeying for playoff position. To combat the utter boredom that is the first three months of the season, they will be eliminated. This will make the regular season games far more important and therefore they will be far more interesting. Currently only the fourth quarter seems to be relevant, but if they only have thirty games to get in and get home court, that intensity will be ramped up from the opening tip.

Article II: Any reporter or commentator who argues that Major League Baseball is out of touch and is a dieing sport shall be fined $500 for each incident, with the money going the the charity of his or her choice.

This past World Series was the lowest rated ever. This past NBA Finals was one of the highest rated ever. And only in that perfect storm of ratings did the NBA Finals out-rate the World Series. That had not happened previously since the ultra-popular Michael Jordan's Bulls were in the NBA Finals. The team with the lowest attendance in the Major League baseball in 2008 was the Florida Marlins, with 16,688 per game over 81 games. A full one-third of the NBA could not get that many people at only 41 games in 2007.

Article III: All divisions of college football shall have 16-team playoffs to determine their champion. In the case of Division IA, the first round will be played at the higher seeded team's home field. The quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game will be called "Bowls" and may keep their corporate sponsorships. The National Championship game and semifinals will rotate annually among the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. The names FCS and BCS will be eliminated and replaced once again with IAA and IA, respectively.

The major pro-BCS argument is that a playoff would generate less interest and less money than the Bowls do, and it would be bad for the student-athletes because they'd miss more class with a playoff system. Currently, there are five major divisions in college football (BCS, FCS, II III, NAIA), all but the BCS has a playoff with no negative consequences. Also, by allowing the playoff games to be called Bowls, the games keep their sponsorships and keep making money hand over fist. And if anyone really thinks that a college football playoff would not generate interest, they shall be deported. As for the argument that this only allows 16-teams to compete in postseason and eliminates many current sponsorship deals, any school not part of the tourney can play in any other postseason tournament (think NIT) or unaffiliated bowl of their choosing. This system allows for a far more fair way of choosing a champion and eliminates the problem of a team like USC this year losing once in September and being out of the running for a title despite clearly being among the top 5 (if not top 2) in the country. It also allows for smaller conferences to be represented in the field.

Article IV: The NFL and College Basketball can keep doing what they're doing.

Article V: Major League Baseball shall eliminate Interleague play and thus shorten the season by 15 games and approximately two-and-a-half weeks. The World Series shall continue to be played at the home stadiums of the two teams involved, but the All Star game shall not determine home field advantage, it will alternate every other year between Leagues. In addition to the replay rules listed below by the Commissioner of Sports, if both managers agree before the game, managers shall have one challenge per game on any play. They shall receive another after successful challenges. Post season games shall begin no later than 7 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Interleague play does provide a level of intrigue to the season, but it is inherently unfair. For instance, as part of the Interleague system, teams play local/natural rivals every season as well as one other full division. So if a team has a local/natural that is good every year, they will automatically play a harder schedule than teams in their own division that have weaker local/natural rivals. For instance, the N.L. East and A.L. east play one another next season. So the Mets play their rivals, the Yankees once and then they play the entire A.L. East as well. The Nationals play the entire A.L. East and then play the Orioles.

Additionally, eliminating Interleague fixes the problem of the season running too long. There has been debate about how the 2008 World Series was ruined by bad weather and the World Series should therefore be played at a more temperate, neutral venue. The fact that there was a rain-suspension for the first time in the 105-year history of the event does not mean the event is flawed; it means it rained this year. However, next season the World Series will potentially in the second week of November. This invites the weather to cause more problems (especially for fans) and also hurts the hallowed tradition of October being synonymous with the World Series.

A second baseman for a fourth place team having a bad inning in July should obviously not determine something as significant as the home field advantage for the World Series. Considering how advanced our television technology has gotten, it seems silly that it cannot be used to determine the correctness of calls on the field. When the managers exchange line-up cards before a game, they should also decide whether they will be allowed their challenge that day.

No doubt, there will be an Article VI and as both President and Commissioner of the United States of Sports, I hereby claim the to amend this Constitution at any time.

The Greatest Upset In Sports History?

Working on the Tennis Channel's Wimbledon Primetime show, I have not had too many chances to watch any sports, let alone write about them (besides tennis), so it has been a quiet week on this site. But for anyone who has checked in to see if there were updates, at least you got to see a picture of Marisa Miller on the top of the page each time.

Last weekend Turkey beat Croatia in one of the more excruciating endings I have seen in a long time, and this game highlights many of the reasons that soccer is the stupidest sport on the planet. Croatia led 1-0 in this European Championship Soccer Tourney and in gave up a slop goal with no time left on the clock...or in overtime. You see, the clock in soccer is really only a suggestion. They play 90 minutes and the freaking clock counts up, and the goal was scored at about 90:30 or so. The game was later won in penalty kicks.

Let us count the ways in which soccer is stupid: While it provides some spectacular highlights each game, these account for approximately 5-15 seconds of the game. The other 89 minutes and 55 seconds are painfully dreary, uneventful, and annoying, full of flopping and whining and even the goal celebrations are obnoxious. The clock is an approximation of what the referees keep on the field. Really? We can land people on the moon, but we can't figure out a way to have the ref's clock send a signal to the stadium clock? Penalty kicks decide games, which is the equivalent of a basketball game being decided by dueling half-court shots rather than actual game play.

Steve Hartman was screaming in his normal radio voice today about how dreamy Dodger Stadium is, particularly the parking situation. I will give you that the parking is better than last year as the new policies seem to be finally taking hold (because they repainted the traffic lane lines to match the new system instead of last year: new system - old lanes). However, it still stinks. Hartman's example was last night's game against the White Sox. He said he stayed for the whole game, and when they left he expected a madhouse, but instead was pleasantly surprised.

Has he ever been to a Los Angeles sporting event before? Everyone knows that in order to miss the traffic you leave when it's over! The only time LA fans have stayed till the end consistently is when Eric Gagne was on his hot streak (and I am not only referring to the streaks on his forearms at the time). Not to mention that the game last night was a blowout loss so there were probably 5000 fans left at the stadium at the end.

While Hartman was blathering on about this, Vic the Brick Jacobs was screaming "If there is a problem, the McCourts fix it," "they fix it" like he had some form of non-obscene Tourettes syndrome. Apparently Vic was not referring to the roster.

Marat Safin decided to show up this morning at Wimbledon and absolutely destroyed the world's #3 Novak Djovovic. If Safin plays the rest of the tourney like he played today, that semi vs. Roger Federer will be wonderful. Speaking of Federer, perhaps Djokovic should have thought twice before offending the tennis gods by saying last week that Federer's six losses in 2008 prove he is ripe for a downfall.

You should have heard the director and producers of Wimbledon Primetime on the headsets as #1 Ana Ivanovic faced two match points against her. Let's just say that the general consensus is that Ivanovic is good for ratings. Her reaction after her shot hit the net and dribbled over on the second match point and then her kiss of the net after she won the match an hour and a half later made my crush on her deepen considerably. How nice to have the best player in the world also smile and laugh and seem to enjoy herself, but also handle herself with class! We've been spoiled with Federer, Justine Henin and now Ivanovich. I hope another Serena Williams doesn't rise through the ranks.

With the NBA draft coming up tomorrow, the sports talk radio shows in L.A. are all buzzing about the Clippers trading Elton Brand and the#7 to the Heat for Shawn Marion, Shawn Marion's contract, and the #2. I hope they don't because I'd rather have a good guy who is a great player and a possibly great pick than a jerk who is a great player and a possibly great pick. I can't imagine that the Clippers are really looking into a trade with Miami (unless Brand is not involved or Dwyane Wade is), but they have done dumb things in the past so I won't rule it out.

The other big talk is of the Lakers trading up to get Miami's pick (or someone else's). Supposedly they would unload Lamar Odom. Right, I am sure there are a lot of G.M.'s calling the Lakers clamouring to get their hands on Odom after his NBA Finals series. No doubt Miami wants him back, right?

I saw a headline online for Chad Ford's NBA Mock Draft Version 6.0. Seriously? 6? How many times can you openly admit that you were totally wrong and still be considered publishable, let alone an expert?

Remember the loudmouthed trainer who guaranteed the Triple Crown and openly used steroids on that horse as well as many of his others? I won't bother writing his name because you won't remember him, but here's a shocker: he was just suspended because one of his horses tested positive for twice the legal limit of a blood doping drug. This makes eight consecutive years he has been fined or suspended for many, many violations. Here's hoping he gets another shot at glory. Everyone deserves a 20th chance.

Finally, Fresno State's comeback victory yesterday, facing elimination in the Final round of the College World Series against of the best teams in the country, could go down in history as the penultimate crowning achievement in the greatest upset story in Sports history. Yes, that was a lot of hyperbole, but think it through:

Putting their seed in college basketball terms (since most people are more familiar with that 64-team tourney than this one), they would likely be a 15 seed. They would not have made the tourney had they not won their conference (an upset, by the way). In the first round of the tournament, beat the #7 team in the country twice (my USD Toreros) as well as the #22 team on the road (Long Beach State). Then after losing game 1 in the second round, they beat the #4 team in the country on the road twice in a row to eliminate them. In the next round they beat the #6 and #2 team (twice). And now they face the #8 team for a final game to decide the whole thing (after having split with them in the last two games).

An unranked team has beaten nine top 25 teams in the NCAA Tournament. Villanova was an eight-seed when they beat Georgetown and probably faces 2 or three ranked schools in the tourney. North Carolina State over Phi Slamma Jamma was the same. At least the 1980 U.S. Hockey team was made up of the best players in their own country - Fresno State was not top 10 in their state. The Giants-Patriots or Jets-Colts are not remotely close to that. Miracle Mets? Fresno State doesn't have Tom Seaver. If the "Under-Dogs" win today, it is the greatest upset story in Sports History. Don't miss it - 4 p.m. Pacific time on ESPN.

This is all a reminder of how insane the BCS is. In what other league in any sport in the world are the two finalists selected at the end of the regular season?