Category Archives: BCS

June 21, 2012, 1:00 am

BCS Commissioners Will Recommend ‘Final Four of Football’

A major-college football playoff moved closer to reality on Wednesday, as BCS commissioners endorsed a seeded four-team playoff model that would begin with the 2014 season.

The commissioners’ recommendation would do away with the current BCS system, which has been in place since 1998. The proposed model–which would feature the best four teams, as chosen by a selection committee–must be approved by the BCS presidential oversight committee, which meets next week in Washington.

April 27, 2012, 5:00 am

BCS Changes Could Threaten Conference Shakeups

By Brad Wolverton

As leaders of the Bowl Championship Series inched closer toward establishing a playoff for college football, they made another less-publicized but also significant move this week, scrapping the controversial automatic entry that wealthy conferences get into the most lucrative bowls. That change has the potential to affect recent shifts in conference alignment.

According to ESPN, BCS commissioners and athletic directors have agreed to eliminate the practice of designating conferences as “AQ” and “non-AQ” leagues, a policy that gives the wealthiest conferences favored entry into BCS bowls.

Under current BCS rules, champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC receive an automatic spot in one of the five BCS bowl games. Champions of Conference USA, the Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and Western Athletic conferences have to meet other criteria to qualify for…

April 25, 2012, 5:00 am

Bowl Extravagance? How About $182,830 for the Band’s Seats

By Brad Wolverton

As college football’s power brokers meet this week to consider the fate of the Bowl Championship Series, new evidence of extravagant revenues in the biggest bowls could help squeeze those bowls out of the most lucrative part of future postseason play.

According to a Yahoo! Sports report, the Sugar Bowl charged LSU more than $500,000 for ticket requests to this season’s national championship game. Game officials demanded $350 a seat from everyone from the president ($700 for two tickets) to players’ family members ($254,800) to every member of the band ($182,830 for 529 seats, including one just to hold the tuba).

It’s all part of what Yahoo! describes as a “cutthroat capitalism that has made these games and the people that run them rich.” And as athletic directors and conference commissioners decide what role bowls should play in a reconfigured postseason, there appears to be an in…