College presidents are looking to add a fifth bowl game to the Bowl Championship Series to increase access to the prestigious games for teams in those conferences not currently associated with the BCS.

The additional game, along with adjusted revenue distribution and an agreement to broaden the involvement of all Division I-A conferences in the design and administration of the BCS, was proposed as a means of bringing more parity to a system some have criticized as overly restrictive.

The announcement came February 29 in Miami after a meeting with representatives from BCS conferences and those from the Coalition for Athletics Reform.

"There will be the addition of the fifth bowl game if the market supports it," said David Frohnmayer, president of the University of Oregon. "There was no active discussion of a championship playoff. And we are convinced that this set of arrangements will lead to greater participation of a larger number of student-athletes in the BCS bowls and will help all Division I-A institutions."

NCAA President Myles Brand, who has served as a facilitator for the group's meetings, also praised the proposed agreement.

"This agreement is a significant victory for college sports and higher education," he said. "It will benefit the institutions of both groups, and most especially the student-athletes."

Specific details of the arrangement were not immediately available, and Frohnmayer said it is unknown at this time whether the fifth game would be a new bowl or an existing bowl. He added that the group envisioned the bowl being of equal stature to those already in the BCS -- the Rose Bowl, the Nokia Sugar Bowl, the FedEx Orange Bowl and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Representatives from several existing bowls already have expressed interest in the prospect of becoming the fifth major bowl.

The four bowls currently rotate the national-championship game and it's expected this fifth bowl would become part of that rotation. If it receives final approval based on market viability, it could be in place when the new BCS contract takes effect before the 2006 season.

Rankings to determine spots

Frohnmayer said the contracts that make up the BCS are up for negotiation this year, with the first of those being the contract between the Tournament of Roses and ABC, which holds the television rights for all four BCS games. The other contracts, he said, need to be addressed probably no later than September.

Frohnmayer also said that the six current BCS conferences -- the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pacific-10 and Southeastern -- and the University of Notre Dame will continue to have an automatic qualifier. This means there will be, at a minimum, six guaranteed slots for the current BCS members.

Frohnmayer also noted that there are still traditional bowl alignments that would need to be honored -- such as the Big Ten and Pac-10's affiliation with the Rose Bowl.

And even with the fifth game, there is no guarantee a school from a non-BCS conference will have a slot in one of the games, officials said.

Under the current system, of the eight teams selected to participate in the four bowls, two are at-large bids that may be given to a non-BCS school. Since the system was developed in 1998, however, that has never taken place. Under the newly proposed system, the allocation of the at-large spots will be determined by final rankings.

"If you increase the number of bowls, then you increase the number of access points at which institutions can be included," Frohnmayer said. "There is a significant increase, probably doubling the opportunities, perhaps even tripling the opportunities based upon historic performance of institutions that are not in the BCS to participate in a BCS game."

Tulane University President Scott Cowen, one of the most outspoken opponents of the current system, said that if the new rules agreed to at the meeting had been in place throughout the past six years, coalition teams -- those from Conference USA, and the Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Western Athletic Conferences -- would have participated multiple times in the BCS bowls.

"I believe four out of the six years a conference champion from the coalition teams would have played in the BCS bowl," he said. "When we talk about the BCS on a go-forward basis, you should think of that as representing all 117 schools that are Division I-A.

"As far as I'm concerned, the coalition has gone out of business today. And we are all now part of one side, whether we call it the BCS or the ABC or the XYZ, I don't care, but we're part of one system."

Revenue distribution unclear

Officials also did not discuss the specifics of the revenue-distribution arrangements. Currently, conferences with automatic BCS berths receive most of the money generated from the BCS bowls. Those conferences without automatic bids share a small percentage.

Cowen said the improved access should help with this issue.

"As we have always said, if we had improved access, improved revenue distribution, that would help significantly," Cowen said. "So it's not the panacea. We never saw it as the panacea. But it is improvement, a significant improvement from where we are now."

Under the proposed agreement, even if one of the current coalition conference teams does not qualify for one of the BCS bowls, those schools would see an increased share of revenue from what they currently receive.

Frohnmayer also stressed the importance of working together to eliminate any potential stigma based on inadvertent branding. He emphasized broadening the involvement in BCS issues to all institutions. An example, he said, would be evaluations of human polls and computer polls and how those should be weighed.

Presidents and chancellors representing the BCS conferences at the meeting included Frohnmayer; Marye Anne Fox of North Carolina State University; David Hardesty of West Virginia University; Robert Khayat of the University of Mississippi; Harvey Perlman of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and Graham Spanier of Pennsylvania State University. Also present was the Rev. Edward Malloy from the University of Notre Dame.

Representing the coalition were presidents Cowen; Kermit Hall of Utah State University; John Peters of Northern Illinois University; Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University; Stephen Weber of San Diego State University; and John Welty of California State University, Fresno.