There was a
very interesting article in the Nov 15 issue of
Sports Illustrated … which has now been posted on the SI.com web site at
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1177192/index.htm
The authors are Austin Murphy and Dan Wetzel. I recommend reading the entire article, but here are some key excerpts.
Murphy and Wetzel said:
Refresh our memory, BCS acolytes: Why must college football never have a playoff?
Oh, yes, that’s right. Because a postseason tournament would devalue the sport’s singularly meaningful regular season.
…
But for a playoff to exist, it would mean that those now presiding over the bowl system – some (not all) of the BCS conference commissioners; some (not all) of the ADs and university presidents … – would have to release their grip on the sport’s levers of power. And that, quite frankly, isn’t going to happen, short of a successful antitrust action by the U.S. Department of Justice.
They then discuss some of the impediments that block the FBS have-nots – minus a playoff system – from having any meaningful chance to play for a national title.
Murphy and Wetzel said:
As with many seemingly intractable problems, there is a commonsense solution to this one: a playoff, in which such matters are settled on the field (and as has been done for decades in Divisions I-AA, II and III). And as with most unimplemented common-sense solutions, there is a group of people who have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are because they are profiting from the problem.
…
10 bowl representatives … Working for bowls is a great gig, if you can get it. You’re not exactly planning a moon shot. You’re putting on one game a year. Yet the money is excellent, even for such inconsequential games as the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, whose executive director, Gary Cavalli, is unlikely to go hungry, having pocketed $377,475 in 2009. Cavalli, of course, is a bargain compared with Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan, who made $607,500 in fiscal 2007. Coming in just behind Hoolahan is John Junker, who is president and CEO of the Fiesta and Insight.com bowls. Junker’s salary is nearly $600,000 …
Not to worry about the bowls, they can afford to pay those salaries and perks. The Sugar Bowl finished 2007 with $37 million in assets and turned an $11.6 million profit. What’s more, the Sugar Bowl accepted $3 million from the Louisiana state government – this a year before it was announced that the state was running a $341 million shortfall in its budget.
I highlighted that last sentence. The legislature probably considered the $3 mill an “investment” to attract tourists. But that windfall provided over a quarter of the profit made by the bowl organization: Why subsidize an activity that makes such a healthy (excessive?) profit? Especially when you already have a budget deficit.
The authors then address some of the ways the bowls stroke BCS official, coaches, and AD to keep them happy with the system as it stands.
Then:
Murphy and Wetzel said:
Of the 120 athletic departments that play I-A football, 106 lost money in 2009, according to an NCAA report. Budget shortfalls forced the University of California in September to cut five sports. Virginia hit up students for $11.9 million in fees for the 2008--09 school year to offset athletic department operating expenses. Cincinnati reached two consecutive BCS bowls and still found itself $24 million in debt.
… [Yet] Not only are the I-A presidents leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by forgoing a playoff, but by outsourcing their most lucrative product (postseason football), they’re also handing over more than half the profits – money that could replace tax dollars in the balancing of public schools’ athletic department budgets.
And the bowls find ways to extract every penny, and then some, from the schools and their fans.
Murphy and Wetzel said:
Ask Iowa. Halftime entertainment at the Jan. 1, 2009, Outback Bowl was provided by the Hawkeye Marching Band. And how did the Tampa Bay Bowl Association, which runs the game, thank the band for that gratis performance? By charging the university $65 a head for each of the 346 band members.
According to university records submitted to the NCAA, the school was forced to purchase face-value tickets totaling $22,490 for the band, even though the game wasn’t sold out.
Very few bowls do, in fact, sell out. Aware of this, their directors require a ticket commitment, which obligates the purchase of thousands of tickets at face value. Schools must then resell those tickets or risk losses that can run into seven figures.
They then note that in 2009 big programs like Virginia Tech and Ohio State ate $1.77 million and $1.01 million, respectively, in unsold face-value ticket costs!
Murphy and Wetzel said:
Why do the schools put up with this? Why are universities so willing to engage in what WAC commissioner Karl Benson deemed “bad business deals?”
Because it works out nicely for coaches, who land tidy bonuses for even minor-bowl glory. ADs, too, reap a windfall for a bowl invite. The going rate: one month’s extra salary for an appearance in even the lowliest game. Oregon’s Rob Mullens receives $50,000 if the Ducks go bowling. Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart collects $30,000.
…
The truth is that the lower-tier bowls exist because athletic directors are willing to prop them up … and because most conferences pool all their bowl payouts, using the bigger-money BCS games to cover the losses incurred in the smaller games. … Bowl directors privately admit that fewer than half the bowls could survive without the financial support from the schools.
[My emphasis there at the end.]
Personally, I think here the authors are too narrow in assigning blame to just the coaches and AD. I would not at all give a pass the the school Presidents and their administrations … and the state governments (we’re talking almost exclusively about public institutions here) and alumni that allow the system to happen despite the cost.
Why? Because they like the glamor of having their football teams appear in bowl games and, hopefully, on national TV. They kid themselves that it helps recruit students – and perhaps it does, to some extent. For most of them, it’s pretty damned expensive advertising.
Read the whole article. It’s worth a few minutes.
