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College Football's Fleecing of American Universities

How insiders use the bowl system to loot the colleges that support it.

A A A Comments (20) By Pete Kotz Thursday, Dec 15 2011

ZumaPress

...continued from page 4

Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist likens it to Major League Baseball allowing the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies to decide who makes the playoffs — and guarantee themselves the biggest paydays. So he and 21 other economists filed a complaint last spring urging the Justice Department to investigate the BCS for anti-trust violations.

Despite having access to the country's best mathematicians, many argue, the BCS can't even get its computer rankings right. Famed sports statistician Bill James has said they're based on "nonsense math." Hal Stern, a professor at the University of California-Irvine, has even called for a BCS boycott in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis.

NEWSCOM

Minnesota's 2009 trip to the Insight Bowl didn't break the school's bank -- unless you count all the money administrators left on the table.

NEWSCOM

A visit to Tempe for the Insight Bowl is good for the mascots, but bad for their schools' bottom lines.

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Then there are the university presidents. Faced with continuous funding cuts, at some point they're bound to go looking for new revenue.

Since March Madness generates more than $600 million a year, schools might belatedly realize that a playoff for football, the more popular sport, is sure to bring a torrent of cash. Fortunately, even those short on courage tend to find it when free money's in sight.

Hancock seems to know the end is near, though he won't say it outright. The BCS contract expires in 2014, and Hancock acknowledges that dozens of new proposals are floating around college football.

History says the insiders will try to change as little as possible. They've offered minor concessions every few years since the dawning of the BCS, just enough to keep attorneys general and nosy congressmen at bay. But the bowls' duplicity is so obvious they can't hold on much longer.

"I want what's best for the students," Hancock says.

If he's being honest with himself, he can't help but push reform. After all, he has to know that at the bottom of this insiders' pyramid are those who can afford it least — the kids paying tuition.

"What's really egregious is they shift that burden to their students," Morgan says.

And that's the unholiest part of it all.

With reporting from Tim Elfrink.

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Whitman1 01/11/2012 9:06:00 PM

72 teams went to bowl games this year. There are only 120 teams in Division I or FCS, whatever they are calling it this year. That is basically the beginning of a playoff system. The NCAA basketball tournament begins with 64. However, since the colleges are opposed to a playoff system let's return some sanity to the system. It got so bad they had to pass the six-win rule so teams with losing records couldn't get invitations; if Notre Dame were 3-8 they would still go to a bowl. Many of the teams this year weren't even coached by their head coaches, the coaches either having left for another team or got fired for a bad record (but then they got rewarded with a bowl game). Many teams were putting out minimal effort, refusing to play for assistant coaches and not even having enough pride to play for themselves. Enough.

asu87 01/10/2012 7:03:00 PM

it's just like everything else---follow the money and you find out why something exists. Very interesting article. If a trend shouldn't continue, it won't. I believe that the bowls (as we know them now) won't exist in 10 years...too bad it's going to take that long for people to come to their senses. There is a better way to do this....and this better way will be more interesting, provide more occupied seats in stadiums, provide more hotel rooms and restaurant dollars generated, as well as higher television ratings---all of those things drive the dollars that go toward the universities..... Let's get real and come up with a real plan.

12/21/2011 8:23:00 AM

Well done! Good read on the bowl system http://t.co/5Py4J7Zb

12/21/2011 4:42:00 AM

That may well be the coolest thign I have ever seen dude. www.Total-Privacy dot US

12/20/2011 7:32:00 PM

Really, then who should be #2. Ames Iowa counts too...

Apm74 12/20/2011 5:27:00 AM

Pathetic alumni are those who choose to spend $250 on a sporting event ticket and then do nothing to support the academic mission of their school. I guess according to your logic, Harvard alumni are pretty pathetic since they'd rather increase their university's endowment than pay for an FBS football program.

Mike 12/19/2011 11:34:00 PM

If a school cannot get its alumni behind a national championship bid, then I would say that defines pathetic alumni. Of course the alumni support this endeavor as it would other activities. Unless you went to Devry, I hope your participation with your alma mater is more than using it to pick up dates. We all cannot be Boone Pickens, but we can support minor things like spending $50 for a ticket. How do you get a tournament field without using computers and voters? Isn't that what basketball does? Is the championship awarded based on the final game? Isn't that what basketball does?

Guest 12/19/2011 10:09:00 PM

So the alumni are responsible for subsidizing the college going to the bowl game. What a joke! People don't buy the tickets from the school because they can get them cheaper from other places. It's called free enterprise. Pathetic alumni? Auburn, the national champion, couldn't sell all their tickets. Are their alumni just as pathetic? Playoffs are for people who want to see a true national champion crowned. Not a champion that is based on computers and voters. The other college football divisions seems to hold a playoff, why can't the FBS. And based on your logic, the college basketball tournament should be cancelled. It's nothing more than a month-long playoff.

Mike 12/17/2011 4:43:00 PM

Almost all the schools in bowls have athletic kingdoms that are self supporting. While maybe you could make a case that more money ought to be coming back from the AD instead of spending every dime, the idea that schools are hurting education by going to bowls is unfounded.

Mike 12/17/2011 4:34:00 PM

The author keeps harping on the ticket sales, but that depends on your alumni. Our school simply tells the alumni to buy the tickets and then we donate them to students or military people at nearby bases to the game looking for a nice way to enjoy the holidays. We found you turn potentially empty seats into screaming cheer sections. In fact, we often oversubscribed. The school gets a big check and we have developed a reputation as a second tier Notre Dame, the unbeatable champion in fan support. That Minnesota could only sell 901 tickets says a lot about pathetic alumni. Our school would never make the playoffs. Do we just tell the other 50 plus schools in bowls only the top 8 or 4 get to play. We enjoy going to places like San Diego, Orlando, Birmingham, Charlotte, Memphis to get together with other alumni or supporters and have a day long party. Playoffs kill that experience. Playoffs are for people that do not have a school or cannot get their big, lazy, and getting wider by the day,rear ends off the sofa and support a school.

The Stig 12/16/2011 11:10:00 AM

Only a few can "choose where they want to go". The rest have more limited opportunities and not all are on a full ride. The real question is where is all the money being made going? It certainly isn't going to the universities that pay for the scholarships and pay all the expenses for them to play. Having all these bowl games is silly. It reminds me of pee wee football where "everyone is a winner".

Solesrfr 12/16/2011 3:32:00 AM

Season long championship my foot. If that was the case Alabama would not be in the "championship game". That fact alone proves that not every game counts like the BCS apologists like to shout so loudly.

Gary 12/16/2011 1:52:00 AM

Good article. SI covered some of this last year also. Hancock embarrasses himself with his paid BCS shilll job. Dan Beebee was the previous BCS whore, and for this alone I'm happy he was booted out of the Big 12.

Jedis54 12/15/2011 9:14:00 PM

These bowls are glorified marketing tools for cities. That is all. They have no meaning ever since the creation of the BCS and the BCS Championship game. I figured this out a long time ago when Boise, ID created a bowl game. Who in the hell wants to go to Boise in December? Its all about tourism and teams that "travel" well.

12/15/2011 6:49:00 PM

Evasion, misdirection and obfuscation ... all necessary for a successful con ...

12/15/2011 6:33:00 PM

The gen pop wants to tune in right at the end and have teams organized in a pretty clean bracket and crown a champion, it requires less dedication as a fan and makes that water cooler talk accessible for even the biggest idiots. See: Superbowl & March Madness

12/15/2011 6:28:00 PM

Great, another pro-playoff article to be swallowed up by the masses. The basis "lost" money is crap, thats why there are conferences.The big dogs help the small dogs, a subsidy for filling out the schedule every year with common geographical opponents in the spirit of competition. $17 or $34M million for two BCS bowls will support lots of trips for Minnesota. College football is a season long championship not a lets play just good enough to make the playoffs and then see what happens. Besides that if you have a playoff of say 16 teams I can tell you right now the 10-12 teams that will be in it every year on name brand alone, because thats fair too right !

Hender328 12/15/2011 5:55:00 PM

I think another reason that the bowl system is popular is because this allows 35 teams to end the season on a win. It also allows another 10-12 teams that went to bowl and lost to feel goood about the direction in which their program is going .

Fritz 12/15/2011 3:46:00 PM

Gee...slaves on a plantation...did you make that up yourself? They choose where they want to go. School is paid for, all the food they can eat at the training table, roof over their head, free clothes, travel etc, and who knows what they get behind the scenes. Yep-sure sounds like slavery.

The Stig 12/15/2011 6:25:00 AM

This scam has been going on for a long time. The insiders, athletic directors and coaches, are pushing their teams into different conferences simply out of personal greed and in the process destroying historic rivalries. The players are slaves on the university plantation. States and universities need to reign this is in and get back to a university's primary mission, educating future tax payers. If the coaches and athletic directors throw a fit like you know they will, then take your ego and hit the F---ing road jack.

College Football's Fleecing of American Universities

How insiders use the bowl system to loot the colleges that support it.

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