The Most Accepted Monopoly In America: The BCS

Teams in the BCS are chosen by conference, and those that are the ‘elite’ conferences are preferred to those that aren’t. This is not merit, but power based. The selection process has less to do with football than it has to do with money. The teams that are chosen may be very good, but they are also very rich because of the system, which is a big contributing factor to why they are very good. The BCS eliminates the possibility of a very good football team who is not in the ‘elite’ from competing because even if they have had unbeaten seasons, the system values a more ‘elite’ school with a worse record—and withholds the kinds of funds that a BCS conference team would get to maintain the high level of performance. It is in the nature of these BCS conferences to put their self-interest above the integrity of the game, with results that hurt others and help them—which sadly is all they really care about.

The amount of money non-BCS bowls games give to the schools and athletic departments of a non-BCS conference is dwarfed when compared to those in the BCS—even teams who never see a BCS game but are in the same conference as teas that do. The numbers are staggering. The idea that this only affects things on the field is one of the BCS’s biggest lies and its biggest violation of basic American values. Money from the games helps fund the institutions of learning that the football team represents. This directly influences the resources that schools have to better prepare their students for the real world. If you take the blindfold of sports away, a organization that strikes a deal with other organizations to limit the competition in order to suppress the chance of smaller—and often better institutions in merit—is criminal and un-American in its ideals. It truly takes away from the idea let the best man win and replaces it with: let those in power keep the best man at bay. The nature of the system is elitist and suppressive.

The BCS may work on a superficial level—good teams end up in the best games. There hasn’t been a year where all the BCS games had terrible teams in them—that is for sure. But maybe that’s not an indicator of how the system works to put the best teams together, but rather a indicator of how the system determines gets the chance to be seen as good and who can be seen as not so good. People believe Alabama to be better than Boise State because the system tells them to believe it, not necessarily because it is true. The ‘best teams’ are those teams rich enough to belong to the club, and good enough to do well in their conference. The ‘mid-majors’ are those teams good enough to compete with the elite, but refused to be given a chance to. Favoritism and Tyranny at its finest.

If the BCS can be dethroned, then let it happen. But what really should change are the qualifications for BCS births. You don’t necessarily have to have a playoff to keep things fair and equal. You just have to give all teams and equal opportunity to compete on the highest level and let their results speak for themselves. If that involves a playoff, great. If that involves giving more mid-major teams a shot based on merit and not on conference, great. But something must be done to keep American Collegiate football in the roots of the American ideal of equality and fairness, and the rejection of elitism and monopolies. The fact that the BCS system has lasted as long as it has, shows us that it’s in human nature to protect your interests at the expense of others and at the expense of fairness and equality; the fact that it might be changing soon shows us it’s in our human nature to push against the ‘man’ for more justice, fairness and equality.