The Wall Street Journal reported this evening that the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is “gearing up for a vote as soon as next week on a bill aimed at forcing a national college-football playoff.”
Already, the BCS has started pounding its all-too-predictable talking points. The WSJ article closes with BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock declaring “With everything going on in the country right now, doesn’t Congress have more important things to do?” As one of our favorite sports blogs, Everyday Should Be Saturday, put it: “That’s the kind of argument someone guilty of embezzling makes, as in ‘Hey aren’t there arsonists you should be worrying about, or serial killers or some other criminals out there?’”
Surely this can’t be the BCS’s best shot. Playoff PAC now wonders—is Mr. Hancock’s Outlook out-of-office auto-reply message “Congress has more important things to worry about”? Is he actually an automaton, programmed to respond to all events, developments, and questions with “Congress should worry about problems other than college football?"
Playoff PAC has refuted this knee-jerk reaction before. But since this will likely be the topic of discussion in the lead-up to the Subcommittee vote, we will do so once again.
First of all, it’s astoundingly arrogant of the BCS to suggest that Congress has no business asking questions or examining its operation. Students across the country are protesting tuition hikes. Public universities are operating in the red. The BCS is holding an enormous pot of school-bound money and they refuse to tell anyone how much they have, how much they spend, and how they’ll distribute funds in the coming years. Right now is the perfect time to ask hard questions about the BCS’s opaque finances and processes, which affect public education budgets and taxpayer-subsidized institutions. For example, we all know that the BCS recently bulked up its PR operation, hiring a number of new high-priced consultants, including former Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. This hiring binge wasn’t cheap. The public has a right to know whether the BCS diverted school-bound for this self-preservation effort during a difficult economic period. And if the BCS didn’t divert school monies, the public has a right to know the identities of any outside funders so they can evaluate potential conflicts of interest. That’s what the congressional inquirires are all about.
Second, it doesn’t happen often, but Playoff PAC agrees with Mr. Hancock on this point. Congress does have more important things to do. Only a truly delusional college football fan would say that fixing a sport’s post-season is more important than fighting our nation’s wars and rebooting America’s economy. We’ve stated from the outset that college football reform is not the weightiest issue on Congress’ plate. But we also agree with President Obama, who pointed out during the 2008 election that public officials “have to deal with more than one thing at a time.” We should expect our representatives to simultaneously walk and chew gum. Just because Congressman Barton or Senator Hatch spend a few minutes debating college football reform doesn’t mean they're abandoning the debate on Afghanistan, health care, or immigration.
In other words, Mr. Hancock’s statement is beside the point. He told us only why college football reform should consume less of our elected officials’ time than the economy and national security. Issues don’t need to have global implications to merit attention from our elected representatives.
And finally, Mr. Hancock can’t credibly tell us that college football reform is wholly unworthy of modest legislative attention because college football’s reach extends past the playing field in at least three ways:
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College football is a billion-dollar enterprise. Its revenues can fund schools’ athletic departments, academic programs, and capital projects. There are off-the-field consequences when the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) distributes bowl proceeds in an anti-competitive manner.
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Football success may help schools earn national publicity, strengthen alumni networks, and boost admissions applications. There are off-the-field consequences when the BCS hands out championship and bowl invitations in a way that’s often divorced from merit.
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College football is culturally important. References to the game are ubiquitous, and Americans spend resources to study, discuss, and watch football players, coaches, and teams. There are off-the-field consequences when a cultural icon is cheapened by backroom deals and legacy entitlements.
To be clear, Playoff PAC is not advocating that government meddle in the inner workings of a private game. Federal bureaucrats won’t be running college football’s post-season. No one is asking Congress to legislate narrower uprights or mandate a fifth down. But there are real-world problems that result from the arbitrary and anti-competitive status quo. They need fixing. In an ideal world, the BCS would reform itself. BCS officials have unfortunately demonstrated their unwillingness to respond to overwhelming public sentiment. Regrettably, the BCS will listen only when addressed by a powerful voice: the people speaking through their elected representatives.