by Mark Schwartz

Created on: June 29, 2009   Last Updated: July 03, 2009

The conflict between the BCS and the NCAA football championship comes down to a single word: money. Even in a sport played by amateur college athletes who don't receive a cash paycheck, money is very important. The games that colleges schedule are mostly motivated by money, the salaries for coaches are based on a coach's ability to bring in money, TV contracts that conferences forge with different networks are designed to increase revenue, and the post season bowl system in college football is also designed around its financial impact on the teams and host cities.

The college presidents who agreed to the BCS, and the conference commissioners who have served as its head, formed their alliance in order to guarantee certain things, the chief of which is money for the major conferences and their schools. The process of picking teams to play in BCS bowls favors the six major conferences and their teams. The most obvious advantage is that the winners of each of the six major conferences are guaranteed spots in BCS bowls. In addition, the selection of at-large teams to play in the bowls is made by the bowls themselves, whose interest is largely in getting the best match up between teams who will provide financial benefit to the bowl and its host city. In short, the BCS as a whole, and the BCS bowls individually, are acting on their own self-interest, which is to provide money for the schools.

The NCAA obviously wants their schools to do well, but their main goal in a post season format is to give it legitimacy in crowning a true champion, and providing competitive and exciting second-tier games for the fans to watch. Their self-interest is not so much on money as it is on competitiveness and excitement. This is in some ways in direct conflict with the self-interests of the BCS, and even the schools. Many schools would rather play in a financially lucrative game than in a lower-level game against a more competitive opponent. This fundamental difference is what drives this conflict.

How did the NCAA get itself into this mess? Many believe that these conflicting self-interests can work together to help both entities. When college football is popular and the games are competitive, everyone wins: the BCS and its schools make money, and the popularity of college football thrives. For years, the bowls acted individually, and the best match up to determine the national champion wasn't always guaranteed, even if it were possible. Then the Bowl Alliance and Bowl Coalition began the process of getting the bowls to agree together on how to get a 1 vs 2 match up at the end of each season. The process was tweaked a bit, and eventually the BCS ended up being the officially-sanctioned process. For the purpose of matching up 1 vs 2, the system worked well. However, the process of matching up 1 vs 2 revealed the increasing layers of complexity in deciding which teams were 1 and 2. Rather than fixing the problem, this seemed to highlight even more of a problem. While the system is better, it's still not perfect, and that's what many fans want a clear-cut system for deciding the national champion. This may not even be possible in a sport like college football.

As long as college football is popular, the money will keep flowing in, and even the desire for competitiveness is not likely to overcome the desire for money. The conflict between these two interests will likely continue for a while, especially since college football is a popular as ever, despite the conflict.

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