Dave's 1st Tirade

Today in Washington, your highly esteemed elected officials spent the day confronting one of the most critical issues facing our nation. The continuing downward spiral of the world economy? The second coming of the Bubonic plague? American troops fighting two wars on foreign soil? Rising unemployment, plunging housing market, health care reform, the collapse of social security, global warming, Somali pirates?????

No sir. A college football playoff system.

Thanks congressmen. I’m glad our priorities are in line.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a sports FANATIC. I believe the BCS is often a beauty contest and a great big fraud. But is this really what we want the leaders of our country to be spending their time on?

In the words of Rep Gene Green of Texas (who btw proudly displayed a University of Houston helmet in front of him during the hearings) “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.” Ok then. But can you ride a unicycle across a tight rope while juggling live hand grenades, hula hooping, and providing a proof for the quadratic equation? I guess that’s why we have 435 of you to distribute the work load.

And yes, in this time of global recession, the millions of dollars that a bowl game is capable of bringing to the local economy is surely of some significance. But even if Congress is able to break the Power Conference commissioners and bowl game CEOs, I can’t imagine them instituting a system that doesn’t incorporate the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls. So that money is not moving anywhere. Where it would come into play, is bringing some of the revenue to smaller schools that have been shut out of the championship game to date – schools like Boise St., Utah, and Hawaii who have had legitimate claims to at least a chance at a national title. Those schools are publicly funded institutions, so I suppose the tax payers in those (less than populous) states will be appreciative.

We can debate the relative merits of a playoff system vs. the current BCS championship game, and the impact it would have on the meaningfulness of the regular season. Do I want a playoff system? Of course, but I also believe that crowning an undisputed champion on the field of play would actually be detrimental to college football by taking away the hours of debate on ESPN, radio talk shows, and internet message boards that the current system creates. But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m thinking about today is congress’s involvement.

Do we really want the federal government stepping in and governing sports in this manner? Previous attempts by similar committees have after days of testimony concluded that “Congress Won’t Legislate after BCS Hearings.” Is this anything more than a photo op, so that a few representatives can show their football loving constituents how they’ve got their backs? At least this has some impact on the lives of Americans – unlike the cluster of steroids related hearings, which you know I couldn’t honestly give a damn if some grown men decided to inject their asses with chemicals in order to hit a few more four-baggers. If they want to risk liver damage and shrunken testicles to put on a show at the homerun derby and turn the record books into a sham thus invalidating their entire era, go right ahead. And don’t give me the 14 year olds are going to emulate their heroes argument – any 14 year old who is driven enough to want that and dumb enough to not do a little research, gets what they deserve. Ok, I’m way off topic at this point. I guess the point is that MLB should’ve taken care of the mess that they created when they looked the other way during the summer of McGwire/Sosa love. The BCS system is not likely to be changed without an outside force compelling the current powers that be (Div I presidents, conference commissioners, bowl game presidents, the CEOs of All State, Tostitos, Fed Ex, etc…) to make a change. College football is big business. The BCS bowl games are big business. $125 million per year for the TV rights for four games starting in 2011. It just seems like the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee could be doing more good – like looking into how CEO’s that run their corporations into the ground, (and worse helped to create a worldwide recession) walk away with severance packages worth more than I will ever see in my lifetime. Because, honestly, whether Florida deserved to be crowned the mythical national champion last year over Texas, Utah, or USC, probably doesn’t matter very much today to 39,000 Chrysler employees or the over 500,000 employees of auto parts suppliers wondering how long before the trickle down effect might shut down their plant.