NCAA News Archive - 2010

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    BCS tells senators to leave college football to educators

    May 21, 2010 9:10:17 AM


    The NCAA News

     

    Bowl Championship Series Executive Director Bill Hancock said in a recent letter to U.S. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) that decisions about college football should be left to people in higher education. 

    In a response to a letter the two senators sent earlier this year, Hancock discussed how the BCS has created new revenues for all Football Bowl Subdivision colleges and universities, and specifically for schools in the conferences that do not have automatic qualification. This year, the non-AQ conferences received a record $24 million from the 2010 BCS games for their schools.

    Hatch and Max Baucus wrote to Hancock in March asking for information pertaining to how television revenue is distributed, the legal standing of the organization and how it ranks teams.

    Hancock addressed the issue of revenue distribution by illustrating how Utah and the Mountain West Conference have specifically benefited from their voluntary participation in the BCS arrangement.

    "For example, if the University of Utah qualifies for a BCS game in the 2010-11 season, it will earn for its conference approximately $24.7 million, which, under the agreement among the Mountain West and the other four non-AQ conferences, would then be divided among the five conferences," Hancock wrote. "The Mountain West certainly could keep all $24.7 million within the conference, or Utah could keep it all. The decision to share the revenue – and how to allocate it – was made, not by the full group of 11 BCS conferences, or by the six conferences that have earned annual automatic qualification, but by the five non-AQ conferences." 

    Hancock said that if the BCS had not existed, Utah probably would have played in the Las Vegas Bowl in the 2008-09 season.

    "Because of the BCS, the Utes played in the Allstate Sugar Bowl instead," he wrote. "The payment from the Las Vegas Bowl was approximately $900,000; for participating in the Sugar Bowl, the Mountain West's share – after the five conferences divided the revenue – was $9 million. Obviously, the difference is significant."

    For more information, see www.bcsfootball.org. The Hancock letter is attached.