Opinion: BCS is dumb, but it's here to stay
Erica Harbatkin
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The Bowl Championship Series is not working.
When a system produces two national champions in one year, it's not working.
When there are three undefeated teams and only two have the opportunity to play for the National Championship, it's not working.
That said, it's also here to stay.
Even though the BCS has shown over and over again that it is not an effective system to determine a national champion, and fans have spoken out against the BCS from all over the country, the system has stayed the same.
It was a step in the right direction to increase the weight of polls in the equation, but the powers-that-be in college football haven't stepped far enough.
Granted, college football cannot emulate basketball's NCAA tournament, which conceivably gives even the 16-seed a chance to go to the Big Dance. But some form of a playoff system should be possible. A mathematic equation shouldn't determine the national champion.
Advocates to leave the BCS as-is argue that a playoff system would cause the "student-athletes" to miss more class since the season would go longer.
Wrong.
An extra weekend football game or two isn't going to maim these athletes' academic records. It certainly wouldn't hurt academia as much as the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night games that cause players to miss two and three days of classes. But those games are "TV games," games that were scheduled at a given time and day solely to fill a television slot.
Which brings the BCS argument to its roots: Money.
The BCS bowl system isn't changing for the same reason that the weeknight games have become so popular. The four major bowls generate huge sums of money for the bigwigs. Sponsors pay arms, legs and crocodiles to turn the Fiesta Bowl into the TOSTITOS Fiesta Bowl or to turn the Sugar Bowl into the NOKIA Sugar Bowl.
Why wouldn't huge companies delve into their massive piggy banks for a three-hour long commercial for their product?
If college football turns to a playoff system, sponsors won't pay as much to put their names on the games. After all, no one's shelling out millions of dollars to call the first game of the NCAA tournament "The
But as long as there are four major Bowl games, the NCAA can make money from four major sponsors, the television stations can make money from four major sponsors (along with a plethora of smaller sponsors). And, in turn, the NCAA can get bigger and better contracts from the television stations who are making money from the four major sponsors.
It's a rock-solid system for everyone involved.
Well, except maybe the players and the fans.