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New legal threat hovers over BCS
By The Associated Press
If the leaders of the Bowl Championship Series don't come to a resolution
with the system's critics at a meeting today in New Orleans, Utah's attorney
general might call for an antitrust investigation.
Mark Shurtleff sent a letter Thursday to New York's attorney general,
Elliott Spitzer, the chairman of the Antitrust Committee of the National
Association of Attorneys General, criticizing the postseason system in major
college football.
Leaders from the six conferences that started the BCS in 1998 will meet
Sunday in New Orleans with representatives of the five Division I-A
conferences that are trying to improve their access to the nation's most
lucrative bowl games.
"I am glad to see that both the presidents of the BCS and non-BCS schools
are committed to resolving this situation fairly. I look forward to the
outcome of the presidents' meeting," Shurtleff wrote in the letter, obtained
by The Associated Press.
"If a resolution does not emerge from that meeting, I will consider formally
requesting that the Antitrust Committee ... open an investigation to examine
whether or not competition is restrained and consumers are harmed under the
current BCS arrangement."
Details of the letter were first reported Saturday by The New York Times.
Members of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee were not immediately
available for comment, but in the past have said that the system does not
violate antitrust laws because it is open to all Division I-A school through
two at-large berths.
Shurtleff represents a state that is home to three schools - BYU, Utah and
Utah State - that are on the outside of the BCS. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a
BYU graduate, was outspoken in his criticism of the system at a Senate
hearing last month.
Questions about access to the BCS have been a big issue in college football
since the summer, when Tulane president Scott Cowen started the Coalition
for Athletics Reform in an effort to change the system.
The two sides met in September in Chicago and are expected to exchange ideas
Sunday. The current BCS contract expires after the 2006 bowls and
negotiations will begin next year on a new system.
Created in 1998 by the six most powerful conferences, the BCS guarantees the
champions of those leagues -- the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and
Pac-10 -- will play in one of the four most lucrative postseason bowl games,
leaving only two at-large berths.
One of those bowls pits the top two teams in the BCS standings in a
championship game, which will be the Sugar Bowl this season. The Orange,
Fiesta and Rose bowls host the other games.
Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win
the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting
disadvantage.
The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big
conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.
In the 20 years before the BCS started, only one school other than
independent Notre Dame that's not currently in the six conferences played in
one of those four bowls. Louisville defeated Alabama in the 1990 Fiesta Bowl
to finish 10-1-1.
Brigham Young also departed from the old script in 1984, as far as the
national championship is concerned. BYU steamrolled to a perfect 13-0 record
to win the title � at least in the eyes of the voters in the AP and UPI
polls � though the Cougars' crowning win over Michigan did not come in one
of today's BCS bowls, but in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.
�2003 The Associated Press. Bonesville.net contributed to this report. All rights reserved.
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02.23.07 11:02 AM
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