Bumped from the diaries, and yikes is it thorough. According to a verifying email, new diarist bcsbusters is a former All-Pac-10 baseball player at Oregon State and is currently teaching and coaching in Oregon. He . . . doesn't care for the BCS. I see that he's already posted another diary on the SEC's bashing of the Pac-10, but quite frankly, I haven't read it yet because I'm still only halfway through one of Kyle's prodigious posts and my ration is one post of intimidating length per day. Y'all are wearing me out! You can get still more from the Enemy of the BCS at his blog. Posted by: bcsbusters | 24th Jul, 2007 The History of the BCS Controversy.  When I first broached this subject, nearly four years ago, my view on the subject was very limited as I did not understand all the issues that are at play in college football. On the surface, much like an iceberg, the issues are obvious and plain to see. But if you dive deep beneath the surface, you begin to understand just how complex the issues and dangers can be in recommending an NFL style playoff for college football. This article will expose and attack the issues that have affected college football over a fifty year period, because it goes beyond simply stating "Yes, I think a playoff is needed." As a result, you the reader, will begin to understand the dynamics and parameters that have prevented college football from moving forward, because the issues are multifaceted, complex and constantly changing from season-to-season. So if you can hang with me for a few moments I can dive deep and expose the major hurdles that have truly prevented college football from entering the new century.

The real dilemma facing the BCS and NCAA decision makers regarding a playoff type of system is how to change the system without causing, for lack of a better word, the most change. There are so many things that you would have to change that the project seems massive in scale. There is no doubt the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is in violation of the antitrust laws of the Sherman Act. As a matter of fact, given the history of college football, we have simply managed to exchange one coercive monopolistic barrier for another throughout its history and specifically in the television era.

Within the horizontal agreements between the super-conferences of the BCS, a boycott (monopoly) has been created. Thus, the BCS is an illegal restraint of trade and an illegal conspiracy to monopolize. In short, the BCS prevents over 50 NCAA mid-major Division I-A college football teams from ever competing for a national championship.

Not only is the BCS a limited opportunity for the mid-major non-BCS teams, but the opportunity for programs within the super conferences that are not rich in the historical evolution of college football are limited as well. Schools like Kansas, Missouri, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Duke, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford, California, Baylor, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Texas Tech, Indiana, Northwestern, Mississippi and Mississippi State will continue to face an uphill struggle in the polls to match the biased poll selections afforded to schools like Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Florida State, Florida, Miami, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC and UCLA.

Schools that are laden with the steep, rich, historical backbone of college football are afforded significant advantages under the current BCS arrangement of determining BCS Bowl participants. The real issue at hand for the believer of the game is how do you solve this problem? How do you create a system that is free of the prejudice and bias that is corrupting the current BCS system, and at the same time open up an equal opportunity for all 119 teams to compete for a national championship in NCAA Division I-A football?

To answer this question we need to look at the rich historical traditions and perspectives that make up college football, and the important administrative benchmark events that have played major roles in evolving the game into what it is today.

Many fans of college football today believe the game is all about the money. I would tend to agree to a certain point, but what has been missing among all the on-the-field controversy is the innate factors involving human nature that have existed for the last 50 years in the behind-the-scenes area of college football, which has essentially created the monster known as the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

In order to properly understand the dynamics and parameters of the BCS revolution, we need to gaze into the history of college football to determine how these innate examples of human nature and the intimate relationship between the bowls, networks and the administrations of the elite football powers, as well as the NCAA, are ultimately responsible for the whirlwind of BCS controversy exhibited with routine regularity in modern day. To put it in proper perspective, we need to return back to 1951.

In the month of January, 1951, retired Admiral Thomas J. Hamilton addressed the college sports officials at the NCAA National Convention. The topic of his conversation was aimed at television, and the role it played in providing free tickets for many college football fans, and the drop in attendance revenue that was associated with it. As we are bombarded with a variety of sports channels in today's communications blitz involving modern technology, it is hard to imagine that college administrators back in 1951 were actually afraid that television and the free tickets associated with it, would destroy the great college game.

Two schools back in 1951 actually had the vision and foresight to see the "tree's through the forest" and recognize the value of national recognition attained specifically via televised athletic events. Equally hard to imagine is that one of the schools was an Ivy League school, Pennsylvania, who was a national power with three top twenty teams in the late 1940's. They also averaged over 60,000 fans in attendance throughout the roaring decade. The other school is quite familiar, and has been among a slew of BCS controversies in recent years - The University of Notre Dame.

Back in the day amid an age of perceived innocence for collegiate athletics, the revenue generated from all sports was almost entirely dependent on ticket sales. Television rights at the time were very modest. The two schools, Pennsylvania and Notre Dame, who obviously saw television as a publicity tool as well as an emerging lateral revenue stream, signed with American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and DuMont, who was the most aggressive sports programmer of the day. Pennsylvania signed with ABC for a meager $150,000 by today's standards, and Notre Dame signed with DuMont for $185,000.

The athletic directors and administrators attending the 1951 NCAA Convention were desperately in a state of panic over the impending storm of free tickets and the associated potential for catastrophic losses in revenue. While Notre Dame and Pennsylvania had an inkling that television was well on its way to becoming the most powerful medium ever invented, the other institutions were paralyzed by their feelings of fear and desperation.

Failing to look outside the box in forecasting and speculating the future, the over riding tensions among the administrators faced with this unknown medium included paranoia, jealousy and fear. The statistics at the time were ominous, the mood tense, the atmosphere desperate and the future uncertain. It's funny, in 50 years, not much has changed as it sounds eerily similar to many of the current controversies plaguing the BCS!

Between 1949 and 1950, overall football attendance in areas with a large supply of television presence was down nearly six percent. In the Middle Atlantic region, home of the largest saturation of TV sets, ticket sales were down a whopping fifteen percent. The New England area alone dropped a staggering 28.7 percent. Television was the enemy at the time, and arguably still is today, although due to differing circumstances.

As those who presented at the coaches convention in 1951 continued to forecast the potentially catastrophic consequences of the television storm as it was racing towards critical mass, SEC commissioner Bernie Moore stated a unanimously supported belief that "a definite television policy should be established by the NCAA." This created an interesting dilemma, although it wasn't fully recognized at the time. The battle waged in 1951 ultimately stimulated the initial beginnings of the CFA movement, which has now evolved into the BCS revolution, and coincidentally and equally important, major controversy has followed each movement.

While most administrators who governed college football in 1951 failed to comprehend how they were going to overcome the loss of revenue from the reduction in ticket sales, they were equally stressed with the prospects of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame racing too far ahead by dominating the newly developed and poorly understood medium. Their own lack of knowledge in respect to this emerging medium precipitated their own feelings of jealousy, fear and paranoia.

This ethical and philosophical battle has been taking place in every decade since 1951. It's origins in basic human nature. It can be described as the lack of knowledge and fear of consequences continuum. Paralyzed by fear, desperate for answers and not wanting their neighbors to get too far ahead in the process has been at the core of the controversies that have existed since 1951.

Today, we call this penis envy. The issues and mediums have changed, but the root of the problems in relation to this continuum have remained constant. As we consider the initial television resolution, the scholarship and coaching restrictions, the reclassification issues between Division's I, II and III, the erosion of academic standards, facilities and recruiting wars, the cheating and paying of players, as well as access and branding to create opportunities for elite level bowl games, this continuum has continued to race onward.

Jealousy, fear, lack of knowledge and envious elements of human nature have been at the forefront of the controversy and at the very root of the problems. Unknown to all at the time was the empowerment the NCAA would receive as a result of building and developing a television policy dictated by group paranoia.
That same year, Minnesota governor Harold Stassen, who lost the Republican presidential nomination, was named president of the University of Pennsylvania. Acting with a sense of urgency to fulfill the need to upgrade his athletic programs, he quickly hired Francis T. "Franny" Murray.

While sitting at the convention and witnessing the various NCAA proposals for a nationwide ban on unrestricted television, Murray enlightened the group by stating "I think we are being a little shortsighted when we look at a crowded stadium and think that is the saturation point."

Equally damaging was the fact that he raised the specter of such a plan violating the antitrust laws of the Sherman Act, while challenging the group with the threat that "such a ban will not be left just to the athletic director."
Unamused, the collective group of administrators approved the restrictive NCAA Television Plan by a vote of 161-7. This stipulated that all television casting was to cease, except for the NCAA controlled broadcasts.

Enraged and unabashed, Murray returned home and formed an antitrust plan with his new boss Stassen. Believing that their property rights were being seized in anti-American fashion, they vowed to challenge the establishment. Murray further enraged other members of the Ivy League when he raised the possibility of a joint lawsuit on antitrust grounds at a routine conference meeting several weeks later. Ignoring the ban and threats from other conference members, Murray negotiated a $180,000 contract with ABC, granting the network the rights to telecast all the Quakers home games in 1951.

Already at odds with other members of the Ivy League who frowned upon their perceived big-time agenda, the league (who was pressured by the NCAA) announced that Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Princeton would cancel their 1951 scheduled games with Pennsylvania, unless the Quakers canceled their contract and abided by the NCAA controlled television resolution.

In the meantime, Notre Dame - the nations elite and single most national power of the pre and immediate post war era - was watching carefully. Father John J. Cavanaugh, President of Notre Dame, issued a statement further challenging the authority of the NCAA and their use of strong arm tactics via group boycott.

Although the NCAA and collective group of administrators were certainly justified with their concerns for policy and control for television mediums, they failed to consider how their own lack of knowledge regarding the newly emerging television industry lead to a fearful and desperate search for answers, which trampled on the ethical compass of the organization. It failed to address the individual rights and freedoms concerning the athletic property of each institution.

It was simply a problem that had never been addressed before and the rush to judgment superseded a sound resolution. They panicked! Penis envy set in and the seeds of this snowball have now been building for generations.
By attempting to bully Penn with strong arm tactics to surrender its television property, the NCAA and the four Ivy League schools crossed a line that has been continually crossed in the passing decades since.

In the words of Keith Dunnavant, found within his book "The Fifty Year Seduction - How Television Manipulated College Football, from the Birth of the Modern NCAA to the Creation of the BCS," "Without offering to compensate Penn for its losses, the association just picked the school's pocket and dared the Quakers to do something about it, hiding behind majority will, allowing the organization to be overtaken by a mob mentality that betrayed the members honorable history of decency and fair-mindedness. It was the sports equivalent of a third-world dictator nationalizing a foreign corporation's assets, and such socialistic robbery violated the foundations of American Justice and economic liberty."

Faced with a difficult decision, Penn and Notre Dame folded their cards and did not challenge the establishment. This was a tremendous bluff by the NCAA as they would have most likely lost in antitrust court if Penn and Notre Dame had challenged the bluff. Dr. Scott Cowan, who today is the President of Tulane University and the chief orchestrator of the Athletic Reform Movement, is facing similar circumstances. His movement has been very outspoken against the BCS, and he would most certainly win on antitrust grounds but the power and threat of a group boycott would be catastrophic to the already struggling non-BCS factor which is scurrying to create an identity in today's BCS marketplace.

Due to the fact that Penn was taking a monstrous beating in the press as it was viewed as a greedy anarchist unwilling to conform to majority rule, they folded in large part due to the fear of the unknown regarding the implications and possibilities of negative publicity. The NCAA, although holding a weak hand, succeeded in strong arming Penn and Notre Dame via the power of group boycott and majority rule.

This catapulted the NCAA into the bureaucratic giant that they have become today. This fight for television revenue and the power for those who control it has morphed the game into the current Bowl Championship Series sham we are currently witnessing. Ultimately, greed, power, and prestige would win over as it would take nearly 25 years for an elite group of power schools, known as the College Football Association (CFA-1976), to challenge the NCAA and its authority to govern and control television in college football.

Equally significant, this battle is still occurring today as many elements of the BCS model wreak with antitrust violations, group coercion and monopolistic barriers. We have simply traded one monopolistic cartel for another through out the history of college football as the balance of power has shifted back and forth from the NCAA, CFA, BCS and the networks. The BCS is nothing more than the maturing evolution of the CFA Movement as many of the goals, objectives and ideals of the CFA are presently operating within the BCS model.

Most importantly, as the CFA movement evolved and matured, a silent but significant line was drawn in terms of which association you supported. As the current BCS controversy continues to grow, many people have not connected the unionized CFA line in the sand with the California-Texas BCS Controversy of 2004, the intent behind the newly created Harris Poll, or the continual bashing of the PAC-10 Conference and other non-BCS West Coast teams.

It has been five decades since the television medium placed its footprint on college football and we are still fighting the same battle. This is a collective group, which includes the NCAA, conference commissioners and individual athletic directors as well as the networks, who are motivated largely by the emotions of fear and jealousy, as they relate to money and power, rather than logic, reason, ethics, and fair minded, inclusive, equal opportunities for all.

So the next time we watch a BCS administrator dressed in a cheesy yellow blazer defend and announce the worthiness of the BCS selections for the lucrative BCS bowl games, you need to understand the pedigree of such a person.

This will be an elderly college administrator, or network analyst, with southern sensibilities and direct working relationships with significant and traditionally elite college football programs, most likely with ties to the east coast television markets, who will smile a toothy grin (gold tooth included, tainted with a smidgen of tobacco between his teeth and gum) and announce in complete confidence how a one, two, three and even four loss traditional college football power is more deserving of the rich financial spoils and opportunities of a BCS championship event, when in direct comparison with an undefeated or one loss program which lacks a significant 30-year history or name brand tradition with the television markets.

Those supporting him will be a good Ol' boy collection of generals to include an army of football coaches and administrators who developed a southern-fried fraternity called the College Football Association nearly 30 years ago. As they stand together and united at present, their chief mission of the past was to corner the college football market for the elite super-powers of the eastern and southern sector, and control the financial spoils via a cold war mentality against the west and its legion of teams, who in the eyes of television are lesser and insignificant.

This will be achieved largely through a 30-year process (beginning in 1976, which had initial seeds of development back in 1951) of political coercion strategies, media manipulation, slander, propaganda, poll and ranking speculation, and most importantly and equally damaging, illegal trade restraining monopolies which limit the championship aspirations for all but 15-to-20 elite "Southern Fried - CFA" football programs.

After the heartless announcement, this collective group will shake hands and embrace - "touting the BCS got it right", while rewarding each other for a job well done after secretly, knowingly and willingly violating the basic ideals and university standards which they are required (and paid) to represent. Equally damaging, they will talk as if college football is a "Sacred Cow," meaning every game is a playoff in itself and how their incomprehensible formula works like a charm.

The television resolution in 1952, and the damage inflicted to the personal relationships between the athletic administrators across the country over the next 25 years created the College Football Association Movement, which in reality has fed the Bowl Championship Series flame of greed and controversy in modern day.

Poll

What is the percentage of the Original Members of the CFA (College Football Association) have played in BCS Bowl Games

22%

10%

2 votes

0%

25%

0 votes

11%

55%

1 votes

11%

75%

1 votes

11%

85%

1 votes

11%

95%

1 votes

33%

100%

3 votes

9 votes | Poll has closed