The bowl system needs a dose of reality

By guest columnist: Ravi Dasari

This quote from Executive Director of the BCS Bill Hancock falls under the category of “Things that make you go hmmmm:” “Bowl games are immensely popular.”

He said that in last week’s CBS.com story on “Slipping bowl attendance has BCS scrambling for reasons and fixes.” The BCS committee convened last week to figure out the reasons. They probably formed several double-secret task forces and sub-committees and hired a forensics expert to find those hidden reasons.

Let me save them the time: Most people like hardly anything about the current bowl system and that’s why they are not attending or watching the bowl games. Attendance this year at the five BCS Bowls – supposedly the most popular and compelling of the 36 bowl games – was down eight percent from 2005. Television ratings for the 34 bowl games on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, CBS and Fox were down 15% from last year.

If Mr. Hancock and his committee, as well as university presidents, will lift their heads out of the sand for a moment, here are just some of the reasons for the disinterest:

• There are too many bowl games and the product is watered-down. When 72 of the 120 Division 1 programs get to go to a bowl game – 6-7 UCLA went to a bowl game this past year - it’s just not special. Imagine patting your 8th grader on the head and saying “Great job Joey, you’re in the 45th percentile.” You would think smart academicians like university presidents would at least understand the theory of marginal utility.

• When companies sell products, if the benefits to the customer are not the highest priority, the product doesn’t sell as well. The bowl committees have expectations that each school’s ticket allotment is sold out. Yet, the tickets offered to the schools aren’t nearly as good as those that can be bought in the secondary market or even directly from the venue. They are usually located in the corners to around the 30-yard line, and hardly ever at mid-field. Then, there are inflated hotel prices and mandated three-night stays. The BCS games, which used to all be on Jan. 1 are spread out through the first week of the new year, right after people have had their holiday break, requiring them to take vacation time the first business week of the new year.

• It used to be that a program was selected to a bowl game based on merit. Not so anymore. Yes, some BCS bowls have affiliations with conferences to take their champions. Beyond that, it doesn’t matter that one team finishes above another in the standings or beats them head-to-head, or played a more difficult schedule and still ended with a better record. Bowl chairmen and athletic directors make backroom deals about guaranteeing ticket sales, or who knows what else, and suddenly, an at-large Hawaii team goes to the Sugar Bowl despite a weak schedule; an 8-4 Illinois team goes to the Rose Bowl; and every year there is controversy about whether teams who jumped others deserved that bowl.

• The BCS system is a sham. The system supposedly has the integrity to pick the national championship matchup pitting No. 1 and 2 in the BCS rankings. Yet, the same system, which ranks the top 25 teams, becomes invalid for teams No. 3 to No. 10 to play in the other four BCS Bowls. So teams like BCS No. 6 Arkansas or BCS No. 8 Kansas State this year were left out of BCS Bowls in favor of subjective selections of bowl committees.

• Speaking of bowl committees, there is enough evidence to say that some are extremely corrupt. Fiesta Bowl Chairman John Junker, who was making more than $600,000 a year before being fired in 2011, was proven to have exchanged massive kickbacks with university administrators and use bowl money to throw lavish personal birthday parties, etc. The Orange Bowl was found to have given Southern Mississippi Athletic Director Richard Giannani a free Caribbean cruise in 2010. Who knows what would be found if all the bowls were investigated. They get to make their own rules and be overt about it. No telling what they do covertly. Not exactly the way to gain trust and credibility with fans.

• Fans, media and even many athletic administrators and head coaches want a playoff system that exists for every other sport, and for college football at every other level. Yet Hancock and many college presidents say that’s not what people want and the BCS is working just fine.

Denial is not pretty because when reality sets in, as it has with bowl attendance and TV ratings, people have to find reasons and fixes for what they have been denying.

(Editor's note: Mr. Dasari is an alumnus of the University of Missouri and Duke University and has served in a consultative role to Missouri's athletics department.)