This article was first published on RealClearSports.com on January 9, 2010. It is reprinted here with the original publisher’s permission.
Ohio State president Gordon Gee has offered colorful quotes over the years about college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS). He once declared, in Charlton Heston-like fashion, that he would cling to the BCS status quo until playoff supporters wrenched it from his "cold, dead hands." Weeks ago, he provided another memorable line in a Toledo Blade interview: "[E]veryone is being rewarded in this [BCS] system, plus there's a mystery to it. I love the elegance of the mystery."
For Mr. Gee and other men of mystery, there's much to love about the BCS.
Consider the BCS's opaque finances. Those must be a Gee favorite. The BCS controls an enormous amount of money - its members signed a four-year contract with broadcaster ESPN rumored to be worth $500 million, a $180 million increase over its previous deal. Despite the fact that its revenues impact public education budgets, the BCS has never revealed its total income or revenue distribution scheme under this new, larger contract. And precious little information is available about the group's spending.
For example, the ever-controversial BCS recently bulked up its PR operation. This hiring binge wasn't cheap. New BCS consultants include Ari Fleischer, former Bush White House Press Secretary. This raises questions. Where is the BCS getting money for this self-preservation effort? Did BCS officials divert funds that would otherwise go to cash-strapped schools? Do they have an outside funder? If so, will the BCS disclose these outside funding sources so the public can evaluate potential conflicts of interest? Only those on the BCS payroll know.
Mr. Gee must also enjoy the BCS's ranking system and bowl-selection process. Despite the fact that bowl and championship opportunities affect schools' funding, scholarship programs, capital projects, alumni networks, and admission applications, the process for awarding these benefits remains closely held and controlled by few. Bowl berths are awarded at closed-door meetings. And proprietary computer formulas help determine teams' rankings, without any independent review when they produce counterintuitive results. Why did the computers rank undefeated Boise State lower than a two-loss Oregon team it beat earlier in the season? Only the programmers know.
Lastly, no discussion of BCS mysteries would be complete without mentioning the process for awarding "automatic qualifying" ("AQ") status to conferences. AQ status is significant. The BCS doled out $430 million more to the six AQ conferences than to the five non-AQ conferences from 2005 to 2009 - a period when four non-AQ teams played in BCS bowls.
The BCS has issued "standards for future BCS automatic qualification" to give the appearance that AQ status is awarded objectively. But actual weighting formulas and conference rankings are hush-hush. BCS rules don't exclude other factors from consideration. And the "standards" are not binding, which means that selecting conferences for AQ status is ultimately a subjective decision for a BCS board comprised mostly of AQs. What ultimately shapes the BCS board's decision? Only the AQ commissioners know.
Mr. Gee's embrace of the BCS' mysterious side looks curiously to me like an overt attempt to pitch a flaw as a feature. Secrecy somehow seems less enamoring when it leaves the realm of fiction and affects public education budgets and taxpayer-subsidized institutions.
Now that college football's season is over and on-the-field events no longer demand our attention, focus should return to the BCS' off-the-field problems and harms. Many questions remain about the BCS structure. Given the BCS' real-world impact on schools, the public deserves full and forthright answers from the BCS during this off-season. Gordon Gee will just have to find another mystery to love.