A top official of the Bowl Championship Series says there are more important things for Congress to worry about than pressing for a playoff system for college football.
But lawmakers were taking a crack at it anyway Wednesday. A House panel was to consider a proposal to ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff.
Like the BCS or hate it, does Congress have any business getting involved? The congressman who's pushing this, a Republican, says that college football is a business like any other.
You can't simultaneously support this and wonder why the Tea Parties are so popular; the first begets the second.
Congressman, you're an idiot. And if this is what we can expect from our legislature, it might be time to "refresh" Jefferson's tree of liberty.
I wouldn't be so quick to criticize, for the Senate has presented a legitimate argument that the NCAA is in a precarious position with its "non-profit" status based on its "educational mission."
ReplyDeleteThere are billions of dollars at stake here by a conglomerate of interests who can basically gouge taxpayers while making multi-billion dollar deals with ESPN.
In exchange for their "non-profit" status, the NCAA agrees to regulation. And, thus, they should answer for their current system that has a bias which can cost numerous schools billions in revenue.
While I can accept that argument, it's foolish to carry it so far that the law would dictate whether or not a college football "championship" game is the result of a "playoff" or not.
ReplyDeleteThe "law" is designed to protect the rights of individuals, and when monopolistic practices inhibit a person's right to participate in the free market, especially when millions in TV revenue are at stake, then it is exactly appropriate that government steps in. The government should, and is intended to, step in when the free market violates the rights of the individual, and the individual has no other recourse. That is clearly the case here.
ReplyDeleteClearly? Not from where I sit. I cannot, for the life of me, see how individual rights are being trampled by not having a college football playoff game.
ReplyDeleteBut please, whatever it is you're spiking the punch with, send some my way! :-)
mazenko - give me a break. The idiots in Congress as simply proving they're idiots. They have no business involving themselves in college football play offs. Their are no rights of individuals being violated. You're arguing for a police state.
ReplyDeleteLet's see, record unemployment, disastrous healthcare bill, dangerous cap and trade on the horizon-so let's worry about the BCS. I must say that TCU and Boise State got shafted. There's no way that it was an accident that they play each other. Heaven forbid that they beat someone in the sacred six conferences thus dissolving the myth of their natural superiority. It's a sham. And a shame.
ReplyDeletea)the BCS is a sham
ReplyDeleteb) the NCAA has proven itself unwilling to do anything about it
c) any time Congress spends on this is time they don't spend doing thing s that are more idiotic.
I say, go for it.
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(c) is the only *possible* reason to support this kind of legislation.
ReplyDelete