BCS Hearings and Antitrust Implications

The Voluntary Trade Council's web site ran an interesting story last week on a theoretical antitrust challenge to the Bowl Championship Series. As a longtime college football playoff proponent, I'm always devising scenarios by which we can destroy the BCS and institute an eight- or even sixteen-team playoff as a replacement (if Chad Henne from Michigan doesn't complete that last pass to beat Penn State, think of the public outrage of Joe Paterno and the undefeated Nittany Lions locked out of a USC-Texas title game). Unfortunately, I've believed for a couple of years now that it would be difficult for any potential plaintiff to show standing in an antitrust challenge following the 2004 agreement between the six BCS conferences and the Coalition for Athletics Reform, which designated criteria by which non-major conference schools can automatically qualify for a BCS berth. Now that any Division I-A football program has a means by which to play in a BCS bowl, an antitrust challenge by an NCAA member institution seems unlikely. One interesting point made within the VTC story is that in such a challenge, the BCS-related defendants could argue that is actually pro-competitive, rather than anti-competitive, in that the bowl system allows for increased participation/output versus a playoff system as there are 28 bowls currently.

That being said, I can't help but envision what an eight-team playoff might look like. Using the current BCS standings, picture the following matchups being played over Christmas weekend at various bowl sites: #1 USC vs. #8 Miami, #2 Texas vs. #7 Georgia, #3 Penn State vs. #6 Notre Dame, and #4 Ohio State vs. #5 Oregon (automatic conference champion berths ignored here for simplicity's sake). The semifinalists could play New Year's weekend at other bowl sites with the championship game the following weekend in primetime at a rotating venue.

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