Too many bowls? Blame ESPN

There is a debate currently raging on talk radio, social media and internet message boards over the number of college football bowl games being played. Some say that the nearly non-stop schedule of 35 games played between December 15, 2012 and January 7, 2013 devalue the significance of postseason play. The other side contends that any college football is better than no college football at all, and the number of opportunities for postseason play is a good thing for the sport and the players who suit up for the games.

Whichever side of this argument you fall on, you have to acknowledge that the reason we have all of these games is because ESPN wanted the inventory and made sure the Worldwide Leader got the rights to most of the games. ESPN owns seven bowls outright—Gildan New Mexico, Beef O’Brady’s, MAACO, Sheraton Hawai’i, Meineke Car Care, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces and BBVA Compass. The parent network ABC and the three primary ESPN channels broadcast all but two—the Hyundai Sun and the AT&T Cotton.

It’s a saturated market, according to one report from the Birmingham News’ Jon Solomon, who explains that the 2011-12 season saw the lowest average TV ratings since the 1998 peak of the BCS era and another report on attendance shows declining average attendance.

These reports can be taken two ways. The first is that a saturated market means fewer people going to and watching each of the lesser bowl games. But the other is that with more bowl games to choose from, more people than ever are watching and going to bowls.

I touched on this back in January. While the average attendance is down, total attendance is historically high. I don’t have ready access to historical TV ratings data, but if there’s any correlation between bowl attendance and TV viewers (I’m betting that there is), there are more people watching bowl games now than ever before. The last two to three years have indeed seen a leveling off and/or a slight decline in attendance and viewership, but the long term trend shows that ESPN was business smart. They sensed an unmet demand for college postseason games. Of the 12 bowl games added to the slate since 2002, ESPN either bought or founded seven of them and now has an iron grip on the TV rights.

During the off-season, a few conference commissioners floated the idea of increasing the number of wins for bowl eligibility from six to seven. The matter never came up for a vote. When the commissioners went back to their conference member schools, they found little support for a move that would certainly have killed off several of the smaller bowls.

College football is the second most popular sport, trailing only the NFL in fan following and TV marketability. While there have been some serious ho-hummers between 6-6 teams in tiny no-name bowls, it's still a valuable inventory and the real powers that be--the presidents and chancellors--understand that.

When you have a valuable inventory that you know people will buy, you don’t remove it from the marketplace. You package it and sell it for the best price you can get for it while giving your players an opportunity to play a team they rarely face, in a venue they may never get to play in again.

The USAToday.com story linked in the January post uses fuzzy math to suggest that the inventory isn’t valuable. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe it was just sloppy journalism. But the fact remains that using average bowl attendance and viewership figures to argue that the total level of interest is the lowest in history is simply wrong.

The argument for or against the current bowl schedule then becomes qualitative rather than quantitative. You can make a strong case that a lot of the teams playing in bowls this season don’t really deserve to be there. You can argue that East Popcorn State against Northeastern State West is bad football. But you can’t argue that people aren’t interested in the college football postseason. If they weren’t, ESPN wouldn’t be showing so many games and those presidents and chancellors would have let a bunch of them go dark.

The four team playoff that arrives for the 2014 season may change the landscape dramatically. Those who want fewer bowl games may get their wish when the market reevaluates the postseason slate. No one yet knows exactly how the playoff will affect games like GoDaddy.com and BBVA Compass Bowls. But if ESPN and the powers that be have their way, the change will be incremental rather than monumental.

Here’s a change that makes sense from a free market perspective: Forbid any bowl game from requiring schools to purchase a set amount of tickets, hotel rooms at ridiculous rates and seats at pricey banquets. Let these games sink or swim on their own and watch what happens. Schools shouldn’t lose money on bowl games that can’t sell their own tickets or generate tourism revenue on their own. If Presidents just say no to ticket, travel and entertainment allotments, the market will take care of the bowls that don’t belong.

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Sugar Bowl caught in HBO Real Sports investigation

Tonight, HBO airs a new episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and presents its investigative report into the finances of the Allstate Sugar Bowl, where the Bowl Championship Series will crown the 2011 BCS National Champion on January 9, 2012.

Among the findings of the investigative report, the Sugar Bowl was shown to have made a total of $5,000 to the election campaign of former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat. Two other donations totaling $89.90 were made to a Political Action Committee.

Organized as a non-profit, 501(c)(3) charitable organization, the Sugar Bowl is prohibited from making such political contributions and appears to have violated federal elections law in doing so.

Here’s a segment from the show, where correspondent Bernie Goldberg interviews Football Bowl Association Spokesman Bruce Bernstien:

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Transcript:

Goldberg: According to the IRS laws regarding charities like the Bowls, are they allowed to give money to politicians and political candidates?
Bernstien: No.
Goldberg: No--period?
Bernstien: No, period.
Goldberg: The Fiesta Bowl, as you know, was caught laundering money to political candidates. And by "laundering money," I mean the Bowl didn't give money to political candidates, employees did and then the employees were reimbursed.
Bernstien: It's not a good thing, but it's an isolated incident. I have never heard of another instance of where a Bowl Organization made a political contribution.  And I ask you, Bernie, have you heard of that? Because if someone was foolish enough to do that...
Goldberg: The answer is "yes."  Let me interrupt you--the answer is "yes." Louisiana state campaign finance records show several contributions from the Sugar Bowl to the Governor of Louisiana.... You asked me a question...
Bernstien: I'm not familiar with that. But if the organization was foolish enough to have done that, it will get reported and obviously now there are two situations that have been reported.

If there was any good news in the report, it was that the Real Sports investigative team didn’t turn up anything like evidence of a $1,200 strip joint tab, tens of thousands in bogus bonuses paid to employees who funneled the money to political campaigns, a lavish birthday party for the bowl’s CEO, gold coins, cars and other bling thrown around by the Fiesta Bowl. CEO John Junker was fired and the bowl was slapped on the wrist by the BCS.

At first blush, the Sugar Bowl transgressions don’t even carry the Fiesta’s jock strap. The last political contribution shown in the records was $50 to the PAC in 2008. Former Governor Blanco decided not to run for reelection in 2007, and current Republican Governor Bobby Jindal is not shown as a beneficiary of the bowl’s political largesse.

Given the Fiesta’s slap on the wrist last Spring, you can rest assured that the BCS will thank the Sugar Bowl for not going big time.   

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How capitalism produced the BCS

This is not intended to weigh in on either side of the BCS vs Playoff debate. Nor is it a knock on the capitalist economic model, which is the greatest system of allocating scarce resources and meeting demand in the history of mankind. All I’d like you to do is understand that the BCS is the result of a predictable approach to filling a void left in the marketplace by a bureaucratic failure.

First, a little history.  After the end of World War II, the major conferences began committing their championship team to a particular bowl. The first such alliance came In 1947, when the Big Ten and Pac-10 (then the Pacific Coast conference) agreed to an exclusive arrangement to commit their champions to the Rose Bowl every year. This agreement remains in place today unless one of the two is selected to play in the BCS Championship Game.  Other conferences followed suit, with the Sugar, Orange, Cotton and eventually Fiesta each inking deals with major conferences. Naturally, the system increased probabilities that the two top-ranked teams in the country would not play each other in a bowl game.

At the time, this likelihood didn’t matter, as the major wire services (Associated Press, United Press International, et al) awarded their national championship designation at the end of the regular season, a practice that remained unchanged until the late 1960’s. Since then, the two top-ranked teams from the final regular-season AP Poll had only played each other in a bowl game six times since the AP began releasing its final poll after the bowl games in 1968.

Following the 1991 season, the University of Miami and the University of Washington were the consensus #1 and #2 teams in the country. Miami went to the Orange Bowl. Washington went to the Rose. Both kicked ass and shared the national championship. Miami won the AP designation while Washington took top honors in the Coaches Poll.

By this time, major college football was BIG business. Television contracts between conferences and broadcast networks had started their relentless march upwards as fans demanded more opportunities to watch their favorites play. The number of post-season bowls also grew parabolically, as did corporate sponsorships of both major and minor bowls. Conferences made deals with bowls to send not only their regular season champs to bowls, but their #2, #3, #4 and so forth. Conferences, schools and the networks raked in the cash and the major college presidents were happy.

The fans however, were not satisfied. In every other major sport, the national championship is decided on the field or court. Except Division I football. This is where the bureaucratic screwup occurred—with all the money being poured out through the bowl system, the college administrators wanted no part of a playoff system that even scratched the surface of reducing bowl revenues.

In capitalist economic theory, this is what’s known as a market failure. The fans want the championship decided on the field, and express a willingness to pay for the opportunity to get that satisfaction by demonstrating that they will buy tickets or tune in to watch. But the system in place didn’t provide that opportunity. It had failed to allocate resources to meet an existing demand.

Capitalism is a naturalistic economic system. And capitalism, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Entrepreneurs that can identify an unmet demand and develop a product that satisfies at least some of it will be rewarded handsomely for taking the risk to produce it. But capitalism is also intensely competitive and entrepreneurs also want to ensure that there are significant barriers to keep competitors from invading their new market and eroding their profit margins. It’s business in America, baby. You build stuff, you sell it to willing consumers and you protect your brand. No one but Apple makes an IPhone, right?

Ok, back to the history lesson.

Following the 1991 split title, a group of conference commissioners and Notre Dame created the Bowl Coalition in the hopes of reshuffling the conference-bowl alliances to improve the chance that #1 played #2 for the national title. The Rose Bowl did not participate. Following the 1992 season, Miami, then ranked #1, agreed to forego the Orange Bowl and met then #2 Alabama in the 1993 Sugar Bowl. Alabama beat Miami for the first consensus National Championship of the BC/BCS Era.

The system later morphed into the Bowl Alliance and only included the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta, and excluded all conferences not affiliated with the bowls in the alliance. There’s your brand protection scheme—keep competing conferences out of the market and your major conferences and schools rake in the cash. 

The modern day BCS—which now includes the Rose Bowl and six major conferences—ACC, Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, SEC and Big East—plus Notre Dame, came into being in 1998. The addition of a fifth game—BCS Championship Game—came in the 2006 season. Additional tweaks to the system have allowed non-BCS conferences a path to play in a BCS bowl, but significant barriers to access still exist and that is by design. The system isn’t perfect by any stretch. It’s either hated or tolerated and entire books have been written highlighting the system’s flaws and calling for its death.

Recent news of the Department of Justice taking interest have some suggesting that the BCS’ future may be in peril. We won’t get into the debate over whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. But it’s worth pointing out that just because an arrangement restricts access to competitors doesn’t make it illegal, and no court can order college football to institute a playoff system. It also bears noting that, failing the college presidents opting to create an NCAA-run football playoff system, the death of the BCS would result in a new vacuum in the marketplace. We would likely return to the pre-1991 system of strict conference-bowl relationships, at least for a while.

That is, until some entrepreneurs figure out a way to eventually get #1 against #2 in a post-season bowl worth tens of millions to media networks, conferences and colleges. Perhaps that takes place outside the purview of the NCAA, where the major conferences break off from the league and form their own college football system that incorporates an end-of-season playoff. Perhaps it’s as simple as revamped Bowl Coalition that includes the Rose Bowl and its two conference affiliates but ends any chance of a non-AQ school reaching one of the marquee bowls.

But one way or another, getting rid of the BCS will create an opportunity for someone, and you can rest assured that in our capitalist system, that opportunity will be exploited.

Will it be an improvement over what we’ve got now, or could it be even worse?

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The Most Dangerous Program in the SEC West (BUMP)

Remember what I wrote on August 11?

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Let it be known that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Bama fan.  Hell, I even named my blog based on my love of the Alabama Crimson Tide.  But I'm also a realist, and I recognize a threat when I see one.  Auburn University is absolutely the most dangerous program in the SEC West for the 2010 football season. 

Consider the following:

1. Coach Gene Chizik came from Iowa State with a losing record as a head coach, but promptly assembled an impressive staff and went 8-5 in his first year of coaching in the SEC.
2. Gus Malzahn is an innovative play-caller and made great strides last year in matching his offense's strengths against his opponent's defenses.  It is no freak of nature that Auburn had Alabama on the ropes until the end of the game. 
3. Chizik has put together two very good recruiting classes, with the 2010 class being one of the best since the Pat Dye years.  Easily the best since the 2001-2002 classes Tommy Tuberville assembled with an asterisk (Bama was in the throes of probation, basically giving Tubs the pick of in-state talent).
4. JUCO transfer Quarterback Cameron Newton is the real deal. The coaches say he has both the physical and mental skills to play in the SEC.
5. The offensive line returns at least three of five starters from last year.
6. Auburn's defensive line is smallish and young, but Chizik is a defensive coach and Tracy Rocker is as good a defensive assistant as they come.
7. Momentum.  Auburn had a decent year last year, but the real momentum comes from the sense of confidence down on the Plains.  The program has closed the door on the Tuberville malaise.  They think things are looking up, and a program with the fan support, facilities, coaching staff and talent of Auburn is dangerous when they think they can win.

Prediction:  The winner of the Iron Bowl plays Florida for the SEC Title.

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With Auburn now sitting at #4 in the BCS Standings, the Tigers may have surprised a few people, but not this wizened old football fan.  They are the real deal, and Saturday’s marquee matchup between Auburn and LSU is SEC football sweetness. You. Will. Watch.

But what’s up in the SEC East?  Florida is as lost without Tim Tebow as the Israelites would have been without Moses.  Georgia has lost faith in its coach, and South Carolina can’t win on the road.  Even Vanderbilt is mathematically alive.  Vandy?

I still think the winner of the Iron Bowl plays someone for the SEC Title.  I just don’t know who that someone is gonna be.

BCS Standings Prediction UPDATE: Oklahoma?

The first Bowl Championship Series standings will be released later tonight on ESPN.

Here’s my prediction for the Top 10, based on the Coaches’ and Harris Polls and an educated guess on the computer model runs.

1) Boise State Broncos
2) Oregon Ducks
3) TCU Horned Frogs
4) Oklahoma Sooners
5) Auburn Tigers
6) LSU Tigers
7) Michigan State Spartans
8) Alabama Crimson Tide
9) Ohio State Buckeyes
10) Nebraska Cornhuskers

Among the projected Top 10, I see three weak sisters:  TCU, LSU and Michigan State.  I don’t see either LSU or Michigan State winning out and TCU’s strength of schedule will continue to be a drag. 

Boise State, Oklahoma, Auburn, LSU and Alabama all control their own destiny, but Alabama’s loss to South Carolina puts them in elimination mode.  Lose one more, and you’re done.  Oklahoma and Auburn could both lose one and still make it to Tempe.  Boise is a one-and-done team.

We’ll see how I did when the BCS standings come out later tonight.

UPDATE: Boy, I didn’t see that coming.  The official BCS standings:

1) Oklahoma Sooners
2) Oregon Ducks
3) Boise State Broncos
4) Auburn Tigers
5) TCU Horney Toads
6) LSU Tigers
7) Michigan State Spartans
8) Alabama Crimson Tide
9) Utah Utes
10) Ohio State Buckeyes

At least I got #2, #7 and #8 right.

I can hear the whining from Idaho all the way here in Alabama.  The computers obviously don’t like their schedule.  They do like Auburn’s schedule though, and this sets up a HUGE game on the Plains, when LSU visits Auburn on Saturday.

I meant to mention earlier that I think Oklahoma has the easiest path of any #1 team in my recent memory.  Texas was their biggest challengem and  #11 Mizzou and #14 Okie State are the only ranked teams left on their schedule.