Want to make the BCS worse? Add government!

I’ve found very little common ground with President Obama. His policies are statist, his attitude is condescending and his tone is arrogant. Yet I’ve managed to find one area of agreement with the President; I’m no fan of the Bowl Championship Series, either.

Arguments favoring the BCS ring hollow. Will student athletes miss too much class time under a playoff system? Not really. Student/athletes involved in BCS games practice throughout December until their January games anyway. Players wouldn’t miss significant class time even when traveling for Saturday playoff games.

The Football Championship Subdivision has a four-week playoff. If missed classes are the issue, why doesn’t it matter at those schools? What about March Madness and the College World Series? Are academics less important for those athletes than for BCS football players?

Another pro-BCS argument is the bowl system tradition. That’s a laugher if ever there was one. If college football is so dedicated to preserving the tradition and integrity of the bowl games, why isn’t the Cotton Bowl played at the Cotton Bowl? Why aren’t the Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Rose Bowl games played on New Year’s Day? Why isn’t the BCS Championship Game a part of the bowl system, like it was when the BCS began? Why have traditional bowl names been sacrificed to corporate sponsorships?

I’m not against businesses sponsoring bowl games--revenue is revenue--or using the games to promote their brands. Just don’t sell me the Champs Sports Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Capital One Bowl and the PapaJohns.com Bowl and then crow about preserving tradition.

Oh, that’s right. Those aren’t BCS games, are they? Then how about the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, or the FedEx Orange Bowl? Then there’s my favorite “tradition”, the Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi, sponsored in part with bailout dollars no doubt. There’s nothing like “tradition” is there?

There’s much to dislike about the BCS and college football’s attitude toward a playoff system. Even so, there’s more to dislike about government involvement in the matter, especially when it comes to mandating change. Here’s where the President and I part company. Obama favors a government solution to the BCS. And why not? He favors a government solution to everything.

Obama wanted college football to adopt a playoff system even before he took office. He even promised to “throw my weight around” toward that end. Thus the Justice Department is now considering investigating the BCS for antitrust violations. Perhaps antitrust charges have merit. The BCS does seem more interested in preserving the status quo and protecting major conferences than in promoting competition.

However, politicians and bureaucrats are less interested in enforcing antitrust laws than in spewing rhetoric. There are calls for legislation to prompt a championship playoff. Justice Department officials have bandied the idea of a governmental commission to analyze the costs and benefits of a playoff system. This is populist pandering, nothing more.

If there’s any entity that should be held to antitrust laws it’s government. But that’s another topic. To be blunt, I’m aware of no constitutional basis for Congress to force college football to adopt a worthwhile championship system. Furthermore, why trust government to conduct a cost/benefit analysis?

In a 2005 edition of the Economist’s Voice, Edward Glaeser estimated that the federal government would spend enough money on Katrina relief efforts to provide each New Orleans resident with a $200,000 check. The 2010 federal budget will spend $31,000 per US household. Leaving government to conduct cost/benefit analysis is like allowing a fox to determine the value of chickens.

President Obama is right; college football needs a playoff. But he is dead wrong in thinking it’s government’s job to make it happen. Frankly, it doesn’t appear government is up to the challenge anyway.