Washington — Perhaps emboldened by the knowledge that the new president favors a playoff system in college football, members of Congress took aim today at the Bowl Championship Series and — at least for the football-crazy Texans among them — appeared to relish the opportunity to criticize it in person.

“It’s like Communism — you can’t fix it,” Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, said of the BCS system.

Or maybe not, since Mr. Barton’s main gripe with the BCS is that the distribution of its very hefty revenue is unfair. Each of the six athletics conferences that automatically qualify to send a team to a game in the championship series receives about $18-million in BCS revenue, while the five other conferences in Division I-A receive much smaller payouts.

“How is this fair?” asked Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois and the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, which held today’s hearing. “How can we justify this system during tough economic times, when states are slashing their budgets and cutting spending on education?”

Mr. Barton, the top Republican on the subcommittee, has introduced a bill that would prevent the advertising of a postseason football game as a national championship unless the game were the result of a playoff system.

Turnout for the session was sparse — Friday-morning hearings are a rarity on Capitol Hill — with only Mr. Rush, Mr. Barton, and Rep. Gene Green, a Democrat from Texas, in attendance. (Mr. Green, an alumnus of the University of Houston, questioned the hearing’s four witnesses with a red-and-white football helmet from his alma mater on the table in front of him.)

The congressmen spent most of the two and a half hours grilling John Swofford, commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference and coordinator of the BCS. Speaking in a calm North Carolina drawl, Mr. Swofford was unruffled by the repeated questioning.

“It’s not a perfect system,” he said agreeably. “We understand that.”

As the hearing drew to a close, Mr. Barton engaged in some tough talk with Mr. Swofford. Say his bill became law, he said. Would Mr. Swofford still go ahead with BCS games?

“I don’t know the answer to that,” the BCS coordinator said. “It would have to be discussed.”

“I would encourage you to discuss it,” warned the congressman from Texas. “There’s going to be some action.” —Libby Sander