By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress wants to know whether college football's method of choosing a national champion unfairly gives the biggest schools the best shot at the lucrative bowl postseason.
Some schools shut out from the automatic bids in the Bowl Championship Series claim the system amounts to an illegal monopoly.
The House Judiciary Committee planned to hear Thursday from executives such as Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, on how the system is working and whether it should be changed.
But even some of its most vocal opponents want Congress to stay out of the postseason plan.
"Whatever issues may exist, it really should be worked out among the university presidents without the intervention of Congress," said Tulane University President Scott Cowen. He founded an anti-BCS organization designed to get schools such as Tulane a better shot at one of the big year's end bowl games.
Tulane went undefeated in 1998 but was excluded from the BCS bowls because of its 11th place BCS ranking. Cowen has called the system "anticompetitive" and said it has "characteristics of a cartel."
While no one expects legislation to result, both supporters and detractors of the bowl system were hoping to the best public face possible on their arguments.
Cowen's Presidential Coalition for Athletic Reform and BCS representatives are to meet in Chicago on Monday to discuss the series' future. The current BCS contract expires after the end of the 2005 season and the 2006 bowl games.
BCS supporters say the system does not violate antitrust rules because it is open to all schools through two at-large bids.
The BCS was established before the 1998 season to determine the national champion by matching the best teams in either the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl or Fiesta Bowl. Its complex formula uses polls, won-loss record and other factors.
The champions from the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences receive automatic bids. There are also two at-large bids that are open to all Division I-A schools. Teams from non-BCS conferences are guaranteed a bid to one of the four bowl games if they are ranked in the top six.
In the system's five-year history, no team from a non-BCS conference has played in a BCS bowl game.
The projected revenue for the four 2004 BCS games is $90 million, but only about $6 million will go to the non-BCS schools while more than $80 million ends up with the 62 BCS schools, the BCS said.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he does not want to see college sports "divided into economic haves and have-nots, and ever shrinking budgets for athletes and students truly in need of aid."
"This is the very situation the antitrust laws were designed to avoid," Conyers said.
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress wants to know whether college football's method of choosing a national champion unfairly gives the biggest schools the best shot at the lucrative bowl postseason.
Some schools shut out from the automatic bids in the Bowl Championship Series claim the system amounts to an illegal monopoly.
The House Judiciary Committee planned to hear Thursday from executives such as Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, on how the system is working and whether it should be changed.
But even some of its most vocal opponents want Congress to stay out of the postseason plan.
"Whatever issues may exist, it really should be worked out among the university presidents without the intervention of Congress," said Tulane University President Scott Cowen. He founded an anti-BCS organization designed to get schools such as Tulane a better shot at one of the big year's end bowl games.
Tulane went undefeated in 1998 but was excluded from the BCS bowls because of its 11th place BCS ranking. Cowen has called the system "anticompetitive" and said it has "characteristics of a cartel."
While no one expects legislation to result, both supporters and detractors of the bowl system were hoping to the best public face possible on their arguments.
Cowen's Presidential Coalition for Athletic Reform and BCS representatives are to meet in Chicago on Monday to discuss the series' future. The current BCS contract expires after the end of the 2005 season and the 2006 bowl games.
BCS supporters say the system does not violate antitrust rules because it is open to all schools through two at-large bids.
The BCS was established before the 1998 season to determine the national champion by matching the best teams in either the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl or Fiesta Bowl. Its complex formula uses polls, won-loss record and other factors.
The champions from the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences receive automatic bids. There are also two at-large bids that are open to all Division I-A schools. Teams from non-BCS conferences are guaranteed a bid to one of the four bowl games if they are ranked in the top six.
In the system's five-year history, no team from a non-BCS conference has played in a BCS bowl game.
The projected revenue for the four 2004 BCS games is $90 million, but only about $6 million will go to the non-BCS schools while more than $80 million ends up with the 62 BCS schools, the BCS said.
Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he does not want to see college sports "divided into economic haves and have-nots, and ever shrinking budgets for athletes and students truly in need of aid."
"This is the very situation the antitrust laws were designed to avoid," Conyers said.
