Even the BCS Can't Smoke a Cuban

Do you like sports (probably so if you are reading this Pulitzer worthy material)? Do you enjoy following a sport all the way through the end of a season? Do you like to know who the champion of a sport is? Do you like college football? Were I on the radio, this would be the point at which you would hear the giant needle scratch and the music coming to a sudden halt. There is no champion of college football.

Sure, there are bowl games. There are multiple media polls, ranking the top 25 teams in FBS college football at the conclusion of each season. There has been a Bowl Alliance, a Bowl Coalition, and, of course, the ever-so-popular Bowl Championship Series, or BCS. However, there is no NCAA Championship in Football Bowl Subdivision (i.e. major schools) college football. It is a MYTH!

The end result is that politics, relationships, and business heavyweights in media and sports sponsorships ultimately decide who can and cannot have a seat at the dinner table in Club BCS. In 1984, Brigham Young University, quarterbacked by Heisman Trophy finalist Robbie Bosco and coached by the legendary Lavell Edwards, won the mythical consensus National Championship (Associated Press Poll and United Press International Poll). Proponents of the BCS view the arrangement as progress. Yet the 1984 BYU Cougars, under a BCS-like arrangement, may have never had an opportunity to be considered for the BCS Championship because of its membership, at that time, in the non-automatic-qualifying Western Athletic Conference.

Since 1984, schools such as Tulane, Utah, Texas Christian University, Boise State, and Auburn (member of a BCS conference) have posted perfect records (more than once, in some cases) yet never had an opportunity to play in any the mythical championship games. College football fans should consider this to be unacceptable! We watch, we attend games, we follow our schools, many of us follow other schools with compelling stories, and we get shafted with this corporately orchestrated production at the conclusion of each season. We deserve more.

Enter Mark Cuban

I have been an outspoken critic of billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. I perceive him as egotistical, inwardly focused, obnoxious, and megalomaniacal new money, having earned a fortune, and cashing out in time, during the dot com 1990s. I think he gets too involved in the day-to-day basketball operations of his team. I think words come out of his mouth far too often during games while he is seated courtside, instead of in an owner's box. I think that Mark Cuban is EXACTLY what college football fans need.

They should have never given this dude money. 3

For all of my criticism of Cuban, 52, there is little doubt that he is a smart businessman who knows how to take care of the people that work for him and give the fans a superior quality sports entertainment product. He is a visionary. In other words, he knows how to give people what they want for the purpose of achieving his desired ends.

Yesterday, Cuban stated, during a sports radio interview on the Dan Patrick Show, that he would invest his personal fortune into creating a playoff system in NCAA FBS football and eliminating the current BCS system. There is a fine line between madness and brilliance. Getting on nationally syndicated radio and stating that you single handedly plan to dismantle an institution that has controlled college football's postseason with hundreds of billions of payout dollars to conferences for over a decade, in spite of being very unpopular with fans, may sound like madness. When you are a relatively young billionaire with a proven track record of success, often through unconventional means, it may be brilliant.

Show Me The MONEY!!!!

I do not pretend to know the finer details and politics of sporting event financing. I have written, helped produce, and sold media. At the end of the day, the message is always...ALWAYS, "Get the money!" GET THE MONEY. Guess what? Mark Cuban has the money to make more money. The BCS pays out approximately $110 million to athletic conferences and universities for participating in a BCS bowl. 1 

Cuban has guys like this shaking in their boots. 4

Having a net worth of $2.3 billion 2, Cuban has the resources to fund the BCS payouts himself, possibly with his Christmas money. I am also quite confident that Cuban is well acquainted with other super-wealthy individuals. I have little doubt that Cuban, between his own wealth and his contacts, is capable of arranging the financing necessary to lure the six major conferences (SEC, ACC, Big East, Big XII, Pac-12, and Big 10, which also has 12 teams - that's logical) away from the fascist BCS. The mid major conferences need little inducement to follow and its member universities may all award an honorary doctorate to Cuban should he succeed in his mission.   

Cash is King; Television Is It's Prince

Tickets sales and other stadium revenue are an important source of income for universities. However, the power brokers, the conferences, the NCAA, as well as university athletic departments, earn their bread an butter through the media, particularly television. I have read countless estimates of the amount of annual television revenue projected to be generated should college football implement a playoff system, upwards of $1 billion. Cuban and any investors he should choose to embark on his playoff mission need to reduce the risk and increase the profit potential for conferences and television networks.

If you buy into my premise that people want a playoff system in college football and do not like the current BCS system, then it follows that more people will support a playoff system (TV viewing, tickets sales, travel, etc.). If there is greater demand for a playoff system, then advertisers and sponsors will pay more to have placement in the playoff events. If sponsors will pay more for placement, then television networks will pay more for broadcasting rights for a playoff system. If there is more revenue available from broadcasting rights, then Cuban, et. al. can afford to invest more in payout money than the BCS currently offers to its member conferences. The details may be complicated, but the numbers are fairly simple. Cuban can make this happen, financially.

Common sense Always Wins in the Long Run

A true playoff system in college football: the fans want it; the coaches want it; the players want it. So why has it not happened? The decades-long legacy of the fragmented political structure of major college football is a perverse system in which the whole is equal to less than the sum of the parts. What does that mean, exactly? Each of the individual power brokers - the BCS itself, the bowl committees, the athletic conferences, and individual universities - have a good, profitable arrangement in place. To date, not enough of those power brokers have received enough inducements to offset the risk of scrapping the current system. Make no mistake; the BCS, as it is, is a gravy train for the BCS conferences and all of the other stakeholders in the BCS. And the axiom, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is the gospel truth to these entities. It will take cold, hard cash, a bunch of it, to encourage the necessary stakeholders to act.

Cuban has the vision. Cuban can arrange the cash. Cuban has the people that make college football's profitability possible, the fans, on his side. The BCS is on borrowed time. Cuban may emerge as the ultimate "BCS Buster". Good luck, BCS. Because in America, it is very difficult to smoke a Cuban.

Don't forget to vote in today's fan poll!

Getcha popcorn ready! 5

1) Source: collegefootballpoll.com
2) Source Forbes.com: April, 2010
3) Image from cncpal.com
4) Image from orangejuiceblog.com
5) Image from thenextweb.com