Sudden Parity has a Long Explanation

[HUSKER 37]

Sudden Parity has a Long Explanation

 

Old article, but just came across it..Interesting read.

 

 

Sudden Parity has a Long Explanation

Sunday, October 21, 2007, 6:22 pm

 

During the first week of the football season, I saw the melee in the rankings and thought, geez...this is strange.... Once or twice, and I could see it as being a couple of flukes that chance causes to take place in the same time frame. However, it is now approaching the realm of lunacy.

During the first week of the football season, I saw the melee in the rankings and thought, geez...this is strange. I could attribute the Michigan loss to Appalachian State as an aberration--a superior team overlooking a highly motivated team for whom the ball bounced properly. However, now that we are 8 weeks into the season, I have a harder time buying into that explanation. We have seen wholesale blood-letting in the rankings week after week, and confusion has run rampant as to who is better than who. Each week the newly crowned teams to beat seem to be beaten. Once or twice, and I could see it as being a couple of flukes that chance causes to take place in the same time frame. However, it is now approaching the realm of lunacy.

 

We have seen USF emerge from the backwaters of Florida to be the #2 team in the nation. Then they fell at another enigmatic team in Rutgers. LSU is stunned by a suddenly stout Kentucky squad. Kansas is not only suddenly relevant, but undefeated at 7-0. Former doormats Wake Forest and South Carolina are forces in their respective conferences.

 

As shocking as the upsets are the teams who have fallen into oblivion. Notre Dame has been exposed for what we suspected they might be. Florida St. now boasts the weakest talent in the ACC, where it used to be a breeding ground for NFL drafts. Former national powerhouses Tennessee, Nebraska and Washington are finding themselves in the unfamiliar territory of irrelevancy.

 

What has brought about this seismic churning in the college football landscape? As much as I hate to credit them with anything positive, I think credit is due to the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

 

Beginning in 1998, the BCS replaced the much maligned Bowl Coalition as an alliance of four New Year's Day bowl games and what were considered the top five D-IA football conferences. Each conference champion would be guaranteed a position in one of the bowls, and the bowls could select the remaining 3 teams from those conferences. Since then, the BCS has expanded to 5 bowl games and added the Big East conference. Threats of Congressional anti-trust action forced revisions to invitation policies and allow the participation of non-BCS affiliated football teams.

 

What has not changed however, is the fact that the BCS has been pouring money into the pockets of college football programs since 1998. The BCS was revolutionary in it's ability to leverage television coverage. NCAA football has become the second most watched sport in America, and it is no coincidence that one of the guiding forces in the formation of the BCS was none other than the new ABC/Disney/ESPN media conglomerate. The BCS changed the New Year's Day game schedule so that the member bowls no longer competed with each other. Viewers were no longer split, but could watch all four (now five) games. Some games have even been moved to other dates after the first. By guaranteeing marquee match-ups between top teams, the BCS has subtley pushed other New Year's Day Bowl games to be labeled 2nd -tier bowl games. Former heavyweight such as the Cotton Bowl, Holiday Bowl, and Peach Bowl are now only slightly better than the Motor City Bowl, or the Meinike Car Care Bowl.

 

By so leveraging television coverage, the BCS has been able to generate inordinate cash flows. Each team in the BCS conferences receives at least $1.4 million annually, regardless of participation. That cashflow has inadvertently allowed the once-doormats of the BCS conferences to build themselves into contenders. It used to be that only the powerhouse programs could build big stadiums, state-of-the-art practice facilities and plush locker rooms. Only the historic program could generate enough exposure to lure the big name coaches. The BCS leveled the playing field.

 

Take South Florida, for example. In 1996, there was no USF football program. In 2005 the 8 year old program left C-USA for the greener pastures of the BCS affiliated Big East. With the sudden guaranteed $1.4 million in revenue, the school immediately built an $18 million athletic complex. They could afford to do so as they played their games at the local NFL stadium. Suddenly, South Florida became a player in the recruiting process. They boasted the finest facilities on the East Coast, games in an NFL stadium, and the Florida lifestyle. Suddenly, schools like Nebraska begin to look less desirable with their smaller stadiums, cold weather, and absence of beaches. Money begins to trump tradition.

 

The schools that used to practice in aging, second-rate facilities are now out-doing the traditional powers. Schools like UNC, Kentucky, Louisville and Cincinnati are now building state-of-the-art facilities and spending chunks of money to hire new coaches with new philosophies, or successful coaches from the stagnant non-BCS and BCS programs alike.

 

The old powers are adjusting slowly. Notre Dame is revamping their facilities to appeal to the Madden generation. The question is, are they too late? In a time where the most relevant question is "what have you done for me lately?", how many athletes and coaches are going to choose the Nebraskas and Washingtons of the world when they can go to the USFs? Maybe half, but half only means the playing field is level. That is what we are seeing.

 

It is of note that the sudden parity in the BCS conferences has largely passed by the non-BCS conferences. In the MWC, BYU stands on top. TCU, and Utah are down, but they have recently been on top, and there is no reason to doubt they will not return to the top shortly. In C-USA, Houston, UTEP and Tulsa are once again at the top, and in the WAC, the usual powers Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada sit atop the rest. The conferences without the steady dole of the BCS have been largely unaffected, as the financial inequities have not changed significantly.

 

College football is a business, and businesses are run by revenue and performance. It used to be that your performance dictated your revenue, which contributed to your future performance. The BCS altered that balance, and what we have seen thus far in the 2007 NCAA FBS season could very well be just the beginning of a world of parity in the BCS conferences. When money is equal and money dictates performance, we should not be suprised to see performance becoming more equal.

 

So for all you BCS-haters (myself included) next Saturday, when you sit down to watch the next upset or the shocking climb of a once-cupcake. Remember to thank the BCS for making Saturdays more enjoyable.