BCS football is bad for business

It is difficult to finesse in writing the difference between good business badly done, and bad business expertly performed. Lost still is the goal – good business, well done. Such are the options in discussing NCAA Division I Football and its quest for a national champion.

First let’s agree that Division I football is a business. It is too big not to be and too commercialized. Neither is a criticism, it is my second favorite spectator sport, immediately following the NFL. But pure and simple major college football makes and spends money, big money, as do the equipment suppliers and peripherals, and of course big media.

But as a business, it is a bad sort. It thinks its member football teams are publicly traded stocks and ranks them as such. Just as stock value is not the physical value of a company, nor is the ranking of football teams an actual portrayal of who is best. It is a beauty contest begun with such absurdity as pre-season rankings – confidence rankings if you will.

Yet the worst of this bad business is how they exclude their own members from the spoils. As the season progresses and like great sellers teams begin to bring home the bacon, the BCS ranks them based not upon their sales quota of “wins” but also on the degree of difficulty assumed in their sales territory.

Some teams with perfect records aren’t invited to the annual awards convention while others who sold (won) less are. That is unsupportable, and in fact bad business. But remember that category I mentioned early on – bad business expertly performed – this is it. The NCAA and BCS have perfected the means to ensure their favorite teams participate in the awards convention that is the so-called national championship, or Bowl Championship Series.

Exactly where is the “Series?” The very name promises a series of games via the Bowl system that would lead us to a champion. Can a fan follow a team through the “Series” until it is actually crowned as national champion? No such luck. The name of the process is as fraudulent as the crowning of the champion, with no disrespect intended to the team who wins. The fault is not theirs but rather those who run the college football sporting business while not believing in competition on the field.

In any other endeavor the expert discrimination and exclusion of perfect sellers (teams) would not be allowed. It harkens back to days when male executives would pass on a woman or person of color because they didn’t “look” like executives. Today it’s Utah, Ball State, Boise State who don’t look to the owners as “championship” material, and thus will not be. Regardless if they remain undefeated on the field of play.

Truthfully I do not believe Ball can beat Florida, Utah could beat Alabama, or BSU could stay with the Sooners….oh, wait. I didn’t believe that before either and the players decided it on the field of play. That is how it should be done. All else is just talk.

The BCS has honed its selection of favorites and expertly practices its favoritism, but it is a bad business and one whose lessons do not serve us well. It should not be allowed.