Everybody wants a college football tournament. Well, maybe not everybody, but the vast majortiy of college football fans want an eight team or sixteen team college football tournament to determine a true national college football champion.
That is not going to happen, though. At least not until 2007. In what appears to be one of the ultimate sports examples of the lure of money over the desire of the public, the major college bowls have smartly formed a cartel that ensures their survival for another half decade. Even with constant hand wringing about ticket sales and high payouts, bowl games are tremendous money makers for all parties involved except, of course, the actual players who put the fannies in seats.
A dissection of the crooked nature of big time college sports and how they detract financially and academically from universities is a topic for another time, though. The topic at hand here is: given that a tournament is unlikely, is college football better off having switched from the traditional bowl format to the BCS?
As a survival tool, the BCS has been essential. It seemed that the NCAA and the major bowls were under so much pressure from fans to match up number 1 and number 2 at season's end that the BCS has been successful in at least staving off a tournament for a few years.
As a vehicle for the betterment of college football as a whole, however, the value of the BCS is questionable.
How happy was Florida when they received their Sugar Bowl bid last year? Surely the money it brought into the SEC was nice and the intrastate matchup with Miami was intriguing, but was there any real satisfaction from Florida fans? The goal at the start of the season was the Orange Bowl and a shot at the national championship. Florida won arguably the most popular conference in the country, yet their fate was a birth in a second rate bowl as a lamb to Miami's slaughter.
Alabama befell a similar fate in 1999, as did Texas A & M in 1998. Those teams produced excellent regular seasons with conference championship wins, yet they played in random bowl games with little national attention.
You see, the bowl system still exists, but only in name. The reality of the BCS is that when the money and hype are set aside, fans are left with a one game tournament for the national championship. A single game, no more no less.
The Rose Bowl has been fortunate in that the Big Ten-Pac Ten matchup tradition has not been broken to date, but the sad reality is that even the four BCS bowls have been reduced to window dressing 75% of the time.
January 1st and the bowl season that preceeded it used to be special, but no more. It is an inarguable point that the BCS has crippled most, if not all, unaffiliated bowls. Though many bowls still enjoy solid attendance and passable TV ratings, those numbers now depend more on a team's travelling power than any widespread interest.
By creating a one game tournament, all other bowls, even BCS bowls, have taken a hit. Before the BCS, the bowl placements were simple. SEC champ for the Sugar, Big XII champ to the Orange, Big Ten and Pac Ten to the Rose, and way back before FSU made them a power, ACC champ to the Citrus. To the average television viewer, this was a sometimes maddening situation. If teams from two of the aforementioned conferences finished a season undefeated, that dream matchup went by the wayside. The problem with this is that the anger of these missed dream matchups has produced a vastly flawed system.
After the 1994 season in which Nebraska and Penn State split the national championship, the Bowl Alliance effectively ended any specific conference ties to the Orange and Sugar Bowls (the ACC had dropped the Citrus before that). In 1995, the Bowl Alliance was a rousing success, as undefeated teams Florida and Nebraska, who formerly would have been kept from playing each other by representing the Sugar and Orange Bowls, respectively, were placed in the Fiesta Bowl for a national championship game. In short, the Bowl Alliance (which begat the BCS) worked in 1995. In the five years since, it simply hasn't.
In 1996, Florida State played Florida, a situation which produced a national champion when Arizona State fell to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. That Florida vs. Florida St. matchup would have happened anyway under the old system of SEC Champ to the Sugar and ACC champ at large.
In 1997, Nebraska played Tennessee, with Nebraska splitting the national championship with Michigan. 1998 saw Florida State and Tennessee play in the Sugar Bowl, a situation which would have happened anyway under the old system, except it would have been in the Sugar. 1999 saw a similar scenario of what would have been a Fiesta matchup (FSU vs. Va Tech) played in the Sugar. 2000, of course, saw the Orange once again host the Big XII champ, this time for the title against at large ACC Champ FSU.
In summary, the last six years of the Bowl Alliance/BCS have produced four years with two undefeated teams from major conferences at season's end. Twice in those four years, the Big Ten and Pac Ten were not a part of the Bowl Alliance/BCS, and therefore the one game playoff had only one of the two undefeated teams. In the other two occasions; where the two undefeated teams did in fact play each other for the title, one of those games would have happened anyway under the old system and one of those games would have been impossible under the old system.
In looking at those six years, clearly the BCS has helped eliminate any obstacles to a one game playoff at season's end. That is the known positive of the BCS. In three of the six years, the current BCS system would have produced a national championship game that would have been impossible with the SEC, Big XII, Big Ten and Pac Ten Champions tied up in their traditional bowls.
From the perspective of the fans, that is the positive of the BCS. From the perspecitve of the bowl games, the positive of the BCS is maintaining the bowl system rather than a playoff. That much is known.
The negative of the BCS to fans is the abandonment of traditional conference-bowl alliances. When an SEC team used to make it to the Sugar Bowl, it was a special occasion. Ditto with the Big XII and the Orange or the Pac Ten/Big Ten and the Rose. Now, entrance to those bowls (unless they hold the championship game) often carries some disappointment. In addition, bowl travel has become more haphazard. Fans of teams from those four conferences knew their destinations before the season. Now, who the heck knows? Going to the Fiesta, Orange or Sugar is a nice treat for a team from the Big Ten or Pac Ten, but its lacks the panache and tradition of the Rose Bowl. This year, unless they are ranked number one or two at season's end, the champions of those conferences will be left with inferior bowls.
The negatives of the BCS from the bowl games' perspecitive is that the one game tournament has overshadowed every other bowl. Even BCS bowls sometimes struggle for attendance and ratings are falling. Bowls must now be more concerened with picking the best travelling fans rather than the best team because no bowl is a guaranteed sell out anymore except that one game playoff.
To me, the main reason that I disappove of the BCS is that it clashes the intrinsic natures of the Bowl System and a Tournament System. The BCS is essentially a one game tournament with a bowl system surrounding it.
The nature of a tournament is to invite a number of qualified participants to determine the best of a wide sample of entrants. Having a single game to a tournament defeats the basic purpose of a tournament. One can point to the example of baseball and the world series as a two team, one series tournament, but that followed a 162 game season with 16 (I think) teams. College football is an 11 game season with about 63 eligible teams (6 conferences & Notre Dame). The short season and wide sampling of teams makes a one game tournament unfair on many levels.
Combined with the one game tournament is the bowl system. The bowl system was created to allow top teams from different conferences to play each other in warm weather sites where their fans could travel to during the cold winter. Though polls have been around for a long time, the reason for creating bowl games was not to determine a concrete national champion, but rather to reward players and fans and create matchups that would not normally be seen in the short regular season.
If college football is going to stick to the bowl system rather than a tournament system, fine. Do it. But don't try to combine the two because it has become a half assed system for both. The bowl system is hurt because fan interest is weighed too heavily toward the one game tournament and away from the other bowls. The tournament system is hurt because not enough teams are invited.
I don't mind the bowl system. In fact, I like it. It gave conference champions a specific reward and it made fan travel to bowl games much more accessible and enjoyable. Remember that at the heart of college football is the university. College athletics don't give any financial or educational benefit to universities so in the broad picture giving players and coaches from 40+ schools a one game sendoff to a season is a far greater prospect than putting eight or sixteen schools under a harsh glare for up to three or four weeks during a tournament.
A tournament does have the advantage of finally crowning a true national champion in the most popular college sport. But what we have now is just a half assed, one game tournament. I say, give the fans back the bowl system. If the NCAA ever wants to step in and form a true college football championship tournament, fine. Most fans would absolutely love it. But as long as the bowl games wield power with major conferences, that power would be better served by returning to the old bowl system of conference-bowl affiliations rather than the current system where all but one bowl are rendered meaningless.
Personally, I liked the old system better than the current BCS. It was not able to produce the matchup in some years when there were two undefeated teams, but it made every bowl a little more special. What do you guys think? BCS or the old bowl system and why?
That is not going to happen, though. At least not until 2007. In what appears to be one of the ultimate sports examples of the lure of money over the desire of the public, the major college bowls have smartly formed a cartel that ensures their survival for another half decade. Even with constant hand wringing about ticket sales and high payouts, bowl games are tremendous money makers for all parties involved except, of course, the actual players who put the fannies in seats.
A dissection of the crooked nature of big time college sports and how they detract financially and academically from universities is a topic for another time, though. The topic at hand here is: given that a tournament is unlikely, is college football better off having switched from the traditional bowl format to the BCS?
As a survival tool, the BCS has been essential. It seemed that the NCAA and the major bowls were under so much pressure from fans to match up number 1 and number 2 at season's end that the BCS has been successful in at least staving off a tournament for a few years.
As a vehicle for the betterment of college football as a whole, however, the value of the BCS is questionable.
How happy was Florida when they received their Sugar Bowl bid last year? Surely the money it brought into the SEC was nice and the intrastate matchup with Miami was intriguing, but was there any real satisfaction from Florida fans? The goal at the start of the season was the Orange Bowl and a shot at the national championship. Florida won arguably the most popular conference in the country, yet their fate was a birth in a second rate bowl as a lamb to Miami's slaughter.
Alabama befell a similar fate in 1999, as did Texas A & M in 1998. Those teams produced excellent regular seasons with conference championship wins, yet they played in random bowl games with little national attention.
You see, the bowl system still exists, but only in name. The reality of the BCS is that when the money and hype are set aside, fans are left with a one game tournament for the national championship. A single game, no more no less.
The Rose Bowl has been fortunate in that the Big Ten-Pac Ten matchup tradition has not been broken to date, but the sad reality is that even the four BCS bowls have been reduced to window dressing 75% of the time.
January 1st and the bowl season that preceeded it used to be special, but no more. It is an inarguable point that the BCS has crippled most, if not all, unaffiliated bowls. Though many bowls still enjoy solid attendance and passable TV ratings, those numbers now depend more on a team's travelling power than any widespread interest.
By creating a one game tournament, all other bowls, even BCS bowls, have taken a hit. Before the BCS, the bowl placements were simple. SEC champ for the Sugar, Big XII champ to the Orange, Big Ten and Pac Ten to the Rose, and way back before FSU made them a power, ACC champ to the Citrus. To the average television viewer, this was a sometimes maddening situation. If teams from two of the aforementioned conferences finished a season undefeated, that dream matchup went by the wayside. The problem with this is that the anger of these missed dream matchups has produced a vastly flawed system.
After the 1994 season in which Nebraska and Penn State split the national championship, the Bowl Alliance effectively ended any specific conference ties to the Orange and Sugar Bowls (the ACC had dropped the Citrus before that). In 1995, the Bowl Alliance was a rousing success, as undefeated teams Florida and Nebraska, who formerly would have been kept from playing each other by representing the Sugar and Orange Bowls, respectively, were placed in the Fiesta Bowl for a national championship game. In short, the Bowl Alliance (which begat the BCS) worked in 1995. In the five years since, it simply hasn't.
In 1996, Florida State played Florida, a situation which produced a national champion when Arizona State fell to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. That Florida vs. Florida St. matchup would have happened anyway under the old system of SEC Champ to the Sugar and ACC champ at large.
In 1997, Nebraska played Tennessee, with Nebraska splitting the national championship with Michigan. 1998 saw Florida State and Tennessee play in the Sugar Bowl, a situation which would have happened anyway under the old system, except it would have been in the Sugar. 1999 saw a similar scenario of what would have been a Fiesta matchup (FSU vs. Va Tech) played in the Sugar. 2000, of course, saw the Orange once again host the Big XII champ, this time for the title against at large ACC Champ FSU.
In summary, the last six years of the Bowl Alliance/BCS have produced four years with two undefeated teams from major conferences at season's end. Twice in those four years, the Big Ten and Pac Ten were not a part of the Bowl Alliance/BCS, and therefore the one game playoff had only one of the two undefeated teams. In the other two occasions; where the two undefeated teams did in fact play each other for the title, one of those games would have happened anyway under the old system and one of those games would have been impossible under the old system.
In looking at those six years, clearly the BCS has helped eliminate any obstacles to a one game playoff at season's end. That is the known positive of the BCS. In three of the six years, the current BCS system would have produced a national championship game that would have been impossible with the SEC, Big XII, Big Ten and Pac Ten Champions tied up in their traditional bowls.
From the perspective of the fans, that is the positive of the BCS. From the perspecitve of the bowl games, the positive of the BCS is maintaining the bowl system rather than a playoff. That much is known.
The negative of the BCS to fans is the abandonment of traditional conference-bowl alliances. When an SEC team used to make it to the Sugar Bowl, it was a special occasion. Ditto with the Big XII and the Orange or the Pac Ten/Big Ten and the Rose. Now, entrance to those bowls (unless they hold the championship game) often carries some disappointment. In addition, bowl travel has become more haphazard. Fans of teams from those four conferences knew their destinations before the season. Now, who the heck knows? Going to the Fiesta, Orange or Sugar is a nice treat for a team from the Big Ten or Pac Ten, but its lacks the panache and tradition of the Rose Bowl. This year, unless they are ranked number one or two at season's end, the champions of those conferences will be left with inferior bowls.
The negatives of the BCS from the bowl games' perspecitive is that the one game tournament has overshadowed every other bowl. Even BCS bowls sometimes struggle for attendance and ratings are falling. Bowls must now be more concerened with picking the best travelling fans rather than the best team because no bowl is a guaranteed sell out anymore except that one game playoff.
To me, the main reason that I disappove of the BCS is that it clashes the intrinsic natures of the Bowl System and a Tournament System. The BCS is essentially a one game tournament with a bowl system surrounding it.
The nature of a tournament is to invite a number of qualified participants to determine the best of a wide sample of entrants. Having a single game to a tournament defeats the basic purpose of a tournament. One can point to the example of baseball and the world series as a two team, one series tournament, but that followed a 162 game season with 16 (I think) teams. College football is an 11 game season with about 63 eligible teams (6 conferences & Notre Dame). The short season and wide sampling of teams makes a one game tournament unfair on many levels.
Combined with the one game tournament is the bowl system. The bowl system was created to allow top teams from different conferences to play each other in warm weather sites where their fans could travel to during the cold winter. Though polls have been around for a long time, the reason for creating bowl games was not to determine a concrete national champion, but rather to reward players and fans and create matchups that would not normally be seen in the short regular season.
If college football is going to stick to the bowl system rather than a tournament system, fine. Do it. But don't try to combine the two because it has become a half assed system for both. The bowl system is hurt because fan interest is weighed too heavily toward the one game tournament and away from the other bowls. The tournament system is hurt because not enough teams are invited.
I don't mind the bowl system. In fact, I like it. It gave conference champions a specific reward and it made fan travel to bowl games much more accessible and enjoyable. Remember that at the heart of college football is the university. College athletics don't give any financial or educational benefit to universities so in the broad picture giving players and coaches from 40+ schools a one game sendoff to a season is a far greater prospect than putting eight or sixteen schools under a harsh glare for up to three or four weeks during a tournament.
A tournament does have the advantage of finally crowning a true national champion in the most popular college sport. But what we have now is just a half assed, one game tournament. I say, give the fans back the bowl system. If the NCAA ever wants to step in and form a true college football championship tournament, fine. Most fans would absolutely love it. But as long as the bowl games wield power with major conferences, that power would be better served by returning to the old bowl system of conference-bowl affiliations rather than the current system where all but one bowl are rendered meaningless.
Personally, I liked the old system better than the current BCS. It was not able to produce the matchup in some years when there were two undefeated teams, but it made every bowl a little more special. What do you guys think? BCS or the old bowl system and why?
