The Bowl Championship Series: The Football Bailout

Friends and assorted others in my orbit routinely complain about the overemphasis on sport issues and on athletics. No group comes in for more criticism for spending time on sports matters than the sport fans we have elected to Congress. Because, of course, sport does not really matter.

The critique I routinely here is this: why does Congress spend taxpayer time on issues that are of little or no relevance to the majority of the American people? And more recently, and especially NOW when the nation is in economic peril, why are some Representatives of the House, specifically members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, recommending legislation to establish a college football playoff system to replace the current Bowl Championship Series? Shouldn't they be spending time on legislation that moves us toward new forms of energy use and alters some of the broken institutions of commerce and the way our financiers bank and do business? In short, it is clear to these critics that the time spent on sport is not only wasted and frivolous, but also morally wrong. Especially at a time when people are suffering.

What can I say? Of course, Congress should be using its power to help alleviating the suffering of people who are have lost their homes, are bankrupt and are now jobless in the economic downturn. Of course, Congress should be spending time creating, debating and offering new policies to help the nation get on its feet again.

Having said that, it is not just Congress. Not only are the legislators alarmed at the failure to have a college football playoff system, our new President -elect, Barack Obama offered his own views in an interview on 60 Minutes over a month ago. To reiterate, he too, favors a playoff system. And I would be very surprised if John McCain, had he been elected, does not have his own opinions on college football too. Indeed, McCain has sponsored more sport legislation than any other member of Congress that I can think of, among the most important the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act.

I claim little great knowledge about the particulars of the current Bowl Championship Series and how it is decided who plays in the championship game, scheduled for this week. And like the late Hunter S. Thompson, sent to report on the Kentucky Derby but who failed to say who was racing and which horse won, I am not really interested in who is playing this year (Because my team is not in it, no doubt.). For information on these topics, please go to the many sport sites where discussion of this topic is never-ending and quite enjoyable. I don't claim a favorite, but think that some of the ideas for change mentioned by fans on the website EspnSportsnation are valuable. (http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation)

What is of interest, however, is whether it is morally wrong for Congress or for the President to spend time on sport, which is a subject that is seemingly trivial and or no consequence.

I don't think so. For two reasons. The first is transparency. Hearings about sport activities and conduct, including its customs, traditions and its business dealings, expose sport and its practices to outsiders and to all citizens. So, for example, the main reason why the Bowl Championship Series is so controversial is that it institutionalizes the economic inequities of college sport, in this case that most inequitable of college sports: football. Because the BCS has "members" from 6 conferences, and guarantees these "members" will play every year, non-BCS conferences have almost no chance of joining the club and becoming members. This is patently unfair. Such practices should be uncovered so that citizens can see for themselves how it is that sports represents itself and how sport institutions operate in this country.

And the second reason is educational. We already know that sport institutions are also business institutions today. The BCS schools get a big payday whether they play in the bowls or not each year. A good illustration was recently cited in a Forbes.com article on September 10, 2008 called, "The Highest-Paid Losers." According to author, Matt Woolsey: "These conferences' champions are guaranteed entrance into the most lucrative bowl games in the BCS and have the largest TV contracts...Despite a two-win season, Big East doormat Syracuse...brought in $14.8M...SE conference dreg Ole Miss won 3 games but cashed in on $17M. One- win University of Minnesota took home $17M while losing big in the Big 10." (These figures are from the 2007 season.)

Just as citizens should know who the winners and losers are in the Treasury Department $700B bailout, so too, citizens should be informed about who wins the bailouts in college football every year.

Yes, you guessed it. The football programs that are too big to fail. Or are becoming too big to fail through the payouts of the current BCS.

The education in all of this? We need to rethink the ethics of "the too big to fail" assumption and philosophy of our government leaders. What better way to do this than to start with college football?