First the BCS screws Texas Christian...now it's costing me readers

SI just had a great story on the BCS system last month, detailing how even with the payouts many schools struggle to get much profit out of making the trip...most of the profit goes to the bowls.

 

Unless a lower-tier bowl is close to a school, or there is a significant alumni base in the host city, it's tough for schools to sell their ticket quota.

 

It is the Rose Bowl but TCU a school with an enrollment of 7,000 undergrads and about 80,000 living alums, sold its 20,000 tickets and asked for more and sold those.

 

What was interesting in that story to me is how Ohio State lost money on the Fiesta Bowl. That, to me, is the Big 10's fault for distributing money equally. To me, the largest shares should go to the teams that make bowls and the higher up the "bowl ladder" you are, the bigger your cut should be. I do think that's how many conferences do it. I have read where Boise State gets a high percentage of the WAC bowl money when it makes a BCS game.

Again, I'm not defending the BCS because I agree that it's the dumbest idea in post-season sport. I'm just saying that the non-BCS leagues are not as adamantly against a bowl system as one might think because the potential for relatively easy money. The road for TCU to get the MWC a $9.8 million BCS payout was a lot easier than the road to a similar payoff in the basketball tournament or a potential football tournament.

Just look at history. In the BCS system, there have been a lot more non-BCS teams make a BCS bowl and access BCS money for their conferences than there have been smaller programs in Final Fours or elite 8s, where the really big pay days come in. History tells us it's a lot harder to do what George Mason or Butler did than what Boise, Utah, Hawaii and TCU did.

All this assumes that if there were a playoff system, payouts would be performance based, as they are in the basketball tournament (your conference pay out is based on the number of teams you have in each round. One team in one round is about $250,000 a year for six years. If that team gets to the next round, that's more money for the whole league. But if you get eight teams in, you multiply the $250x8 ($2 million) then you keep adding as teams advance.

 

I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the BCS conferences divide money equally. I know the ACC and Big 12 do, and I'm pretty sure the other leagues do as well. Two years ago, Virginia Tech lost quite a bit on the Orange Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl was a financial Titanic for Connecticut. The schools know they will lose money, but don't care because fans think, "Hey, we're in a bowl game, things are great!"

 

First, I agree many threaten to cancel and never do...

But what I don't get is that people get so upset my a difference in opinion. I look back at the last couple weeks and it's been loaded with Ducks stuff...even today, our other writer put together a fun column about his experience at the bowl that was well done and a happy read for Ducks fans.

Seems like you should be able to read something and say "Well that guys off-base this time." It's okay to disagree.

 

For the life of me, I can't figure out why they'd do it. The SI story pointed out that Michigan made out like bandits because they DID NOT get in a bowl, yet they got an equal share of bowl revenue. and hence had no bowl expenses. So they profited from their failure.

That part, at least, is not the fault of the BCS. My understanding in the NCAA tournament, the splits aren't even. In other words, I do think Duke gets a bigger share than UNC for last season. Correct me if I'm wrong and I could be.

 

Nobody ever said readers were rational. ;-)