The House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Prepared Statement of The Honorable Cliff Stearns

Determining a Champion on the Field: A Comprehensive Review of the BCS and Postseason College Football

Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
December 7, 2005

Good morning. I am pleased to welcome all of you to the Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee's hearing on the current state of post-season college football and, in particular, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Like many of my fellow Americans, I look forward to this time of the year to spend quality time with family and friends and celebrate the Christmas and New Year holidays. But I also enjoy the distinctly American pleasure of gathering around the television to cheer for our alma maters or adopted college favorites as they participate in the annual post season bowl games. College football is an American institution and the Bowls are the sacred pageants of that grand tradition. And yes, I'll definitely be tuned into the Gators in the Outback Bowl like many other folks from my home in Florida. . The Bowls are the culmination of the thrills and excitement every fall brings the college football fan and the Bowl Championship Series, created in 1998, attempts to ensure that we all can agree on who is number at the end of that thrilling fall season. As many have pointed out, and history has shown, the process of determining a Division IA college football champion is a lot harder than it looks. Just ask USC or Auburn, who each had perfect records in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, respectively, but were denied berths in the championship game. The system simply doesn't account for more than two qualified teams.

Since its inception, the BCS has been surrounded by controversy. Computer rankings, coach's polls, conference schedules, and simple wins and losses all are part of the calculus of picking the match-up for the national championship game. That new math gets a bit fuzzy when the system produces the two "perfect" teams based on all that data but most observers recognize the teams ranked 3, 4, or even 5 are equally deserving. Many, including the Chairman of the Full Committee, suggest that history has shown that finding the right two teams, or only two teams, might be a bit too difficult and create as much controversy as existed before the BCS was formed. Opening the post-season to more teams so that the champion can be determined by its on-field performance rather than fuzzy math might be a better model, and certainly more fair to the athletes. The traditionalists, on the other hand, continue to believe that bowl games should be part of the character of the conference and its distinct history rather than a product of supercomputers and other hocus pocus, as they might say. And I'd add, the television networks, media outlets, and local communities that support the bowls also have strong opinions along with the millions invested in this long-standing and now very lucrative tradition.

The hearing today is an attempt to allow members of the Committee an opportunity to learn more about how the bowls, the BCS, and the rankings systems operate and the process that takes all the ingredients and data and determines the two most qualified teams in college football without a playoff elimination structure. Being invited to a Bowl game, particularly one of the four Bowls that are under contract with the BCS, not only is a great honor but it also translates into millions of dollars of additional revenue for the schools whose teams participate as well as the conferences they represent. The issue of big-time sports and big-time money is one this Committee has examined and continues to have an interest in. More importantly, this Committee, as well as all Americans, wants to be certain that sports are fair, especially to every student athlete who works so hard and sacrifices a great deal of the traditional college experience in pursuit of athletic excellence. I also believe we must always keep in mind that Division 1A college football is high stakes, big business, but should remain at its core a component of an academic system that sponsors athletics, not the mini-NFL and the road to the collegiate Super Bowl.

With that in mind, a number of BCS alternatives and variations have been advanced. Most approaches focus on better ways to allow more teams to compete for the title and enabling those "title" games to be a function of prior wins not rankings. One of the most discussed, the so-called BCS+1 approach, would have the four top ranked teams play each other and then have the two winners play a championship game the following week. Another option is the mini-NFL playoff system that would use the existing Bowl games as part of a playoff process.

Finding the "perfect" system to determine a true champion will not be without obstacles. But, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about how they plan to deal with future challenges, such as avoiding another situation that denies athletes an opportunity to play for a national championship as was the case with Auburn or USC the past two years. I am also interested in hearing how we can facilitate smaller conferences' participation in the bowls given the extraordinary revenue disparity that exists under the current system and will only exacerbate the differences between the conferences. Most importantly, I want to know how any system does not further compromise the academic integrity of these student athletes and their institutions and balance that mission with the forces of big money and big-time sports.

I welcome the witnesses today and look forward to their testimony. Thank you.