Goodness Gracious?

Ugh. Seriously? The Feds are investigating why a loose affiliation of college athletic programs chose an unorthodox post-season system?

This is America. That’s not how we do things here. If you want a playoff, just send SEAL Team 6 into Bill Hancock’s secret lair and then toss his body off of an aircraft carrier.

Shouldn’t they waterboard some University Presidents to get the location first?

I suggest James Milliken he looks like he’d break pretty fast.

That’s funny. H’s right and the BCS sucks.

That is a good question. How do they football teams stay out of NCAA Championships? I guess it’s voluntary but if the money is so big why don’t they pull out for the March Madness stuff too?

I nominate Norman to stand in for Gitmo.

Why go to the trouble of waterboarding them when you can just check the location of their iPhone?

I’m not a shyster but eh, I know people. And things. And I discuss those things with people. Or maybe I just remember what they write on the Internet somewheres.

The NCAA is subject to the Sherman Act, so all Justice has to prove is that the BCS is, on balance, clearly more anti-competitive than pro-competitive. Problem for the playoff-seekers is that the selection process for the Championship Game isn’t discriminatory amongst competitors; if any school finishes #1 or #2 in the final BCS rankings, regardless of conference, they’re in. The antitrust problem for the BCS would be selection for the big four BCS bowls; if you’re from a non-BCS school, you have to be in the top 12 to get selected, whereas BCS conference champs are automatically in even if they suck balls. That’s arguably, perhaps obviously, anti-competitive. But one could make the argument that it’s not a clear violation since non-BCS schools can get automatic bids, too (by being in the top 4). Plus, there are slippery-slope arguments that could apply; would conference tie-ins to other bowls, for example, be disallowed under antitrust law? Would conference scheduling be considered an anti-competitive advantage for BCS schools? And so on.

Since the automatic bids are the whole reason the BCS conferences want the BCS to stick around, an antitrust ruling against the current system could force their hand. They may not prefer a BCS where conference champs could be excluded over a playoff; in neither case would they be allowed to use automatic bids and the playoff TV money would presumably be better.

And…I dunno if it’s too late for this, but can I nominate Thayer Evans to stand in for the Uighurs?

Found the link I couldn’t find earlier, it basically just says what I said:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/the-problem-utahs-bcs-antitrust-claim

dagga and ripley:

I’m a shyster in training, and Dagga, this part:

The NCAA is subject to the Sherman Act, so all Justice has to prove is that the BCS is, on balance, clearly more anti-competitive than pro-competitive.

is 100% wrong.

Because the very nature of intercollegiate football requires competitors to cooperate, that analysis doesn’t hold water. It’s called the “per se” analysis, and you can bet your ass that SCOTUS won’t buy applying it here. When restraints on competition are essential if the product is to be available at all, per se rules of illegality are inapplicable, and instead the restraint must be judged according to the flexible Rule of Reason.

You tell me. Do we need to limit competition? Should Auburn be allowed to pay $200k for Cam Newton? How do you feel about street agents? Can teams just play whatever schedule they want? No, on all counts. You must have order and structure, and that requires restrictions on competition. So, let’s move on to how we look at this.

In short, the restriction on competition must be “unreasonable”. It must be determined whether, under all the circumstances, the challenged practice imposes an unreasonable restraint on competition. Relevant circumstances can include such diverse factors as the defendants’ intent and purpose in adopting the restriction; the structure of and competitive conditions within the affected market; the relative competitive positions and market power of the defendants; the presence of economic or legal barriers inhibiting the ability of competitors to respond and offset the challenged practice; and apparent justifications for the restriction such as enhanced efficiencies, protection of product or service goodwill, and inducing dealer loyalty. No single such factor is decisive. Rather, the jury weighs all of the circumstances in deciding whether the challenged practice is, on balance, competitively unreasonable.

Boys and girls, this is saber rattling. Pure and simple. If Holder tries to take this before SCOTUS, he’s getting his ass handed to him on a platter.

There is no barrier to those covetous schools/conferences creating new bowl games. They realize that their brand is unpopular, so they want the major conferences to re-allocate their markets, to bundle their product, and give them a share of the revenue.

This reeks of “waste-of-time-and-money” by Justice. First off, good luck defeating “rule of reason” analysis, which prohibits only unreasonable restraints on trade. Anti-competitive results do not equal anti-trust violations, which is why, for example, you can get Pepsi but not Coke at Taco Bell, and Coke but not Pepsi at McDonald’s, and why the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL have effective monopolies on their respective sports. If the BCS can be shown to be a reasonable method to increase revenue without intending to unreasonably restrain trade then it will be fine. There also exists the argument that it doesn’t even involve trade due to the non-professional nature of the athletes!

MLB has an anti-trust exemption but none of the other professional leagues do. It hasn’t really mattered. A league is, by definition, an exclusive entity. That doesn’t make it illegal. There is nothing preventing the other school (non-BCS) from banding together to form their own entity — like the USFL — except the fact that no one cares enough. No one cares enough does not meet the legal standard.

This is political grand-standing, nothing more.

Nate – I understand your explanation. But I don’t understand how it makes mine 100% wrong. In fact, it sounds to me like you’re saying the same thing.

If something is “illegal per se”, that means it’s inherently illegal. You don’t balance the pro- and anti-competitive effects in that case; the net effects are irrelevant because the restraint itself is inherently illegal. Price fixing is an anti-competitive behavior that typically meets this standard.

That’s not what I – or I should say, Josh Patashnick, the law correspondent for The New Republic – are trying to assert about the case against the BCS. We’re saying the Court must balance considerations. Under the rule of reason standard, it’s perfectly legit for the Court to consider the restraints of the BCS system and form a judgment about the competitive significance of those restraints. Specifically, are the anti-competitive effects of the BCS on non-BCS schools a reasonable price to pay compared to the cost of alternative systems that don’t have those effects? Or can the BCS only be explained as a way for the Big Six conferences to minimize competition from non-BCS schools, with no other redeeming values within reason? Answering these questions does in fact involve all the questions you’ve brought up at the end of your comment and probably more.

I don’t think it will be hard for Justice to make a case that the BCS has significant anti-competitive effects. I’m a bit less sure that the BCS folks will make a convincing case that it’s reasonable to think that the sport would suffer enough without the BCS to balance out those anti-competitive effects. They probably will, but they might not. It’s an easy case to make in a press statement, but a bit harder when you’re being cross-examined. I don’t think Justice would win outright, mind you, at least not if they try to go the whole hog and declare the entire BCS system bunk. But I’m intrigued by the possibility that the court may split the difference and narrowly decide that the automatic bid structure for the BCS bowls in particular is anti-competitive and lacking positive economic net value. That’s where the force of the complaint lies, and that also happens to be the lynchpin to creating a playoff.

I know that historically, per se rulings tend to knock down trusts and the rule of reason tends to let them continue. But there have been some significant exceptions, especially concerning restraints among competitors, and I don’t think the Court adopting the rule of reason standard (and we both agree it will) necessarily makes this a open-and-shut case.

But we’ll know before long anyways. If Justice actually takes steps beyond writing mean letters about it, then it’s time to pay attention. They won’t go any further than letter-writing unless they think they have a real chance to win something in the SCOTUS.

This is the only way we’re going to get a playoff.

The BCS screws things up every time they try to fix something – so my hope is they go to court and provide the same BS they’ve been stating publicly for years.

Hey, just wanted to say fuck these new State Farm pop-up ads that start playing some obnoxious asshole as soon as I click to a page. I don’t have AdBlocker on for BC but I’ll gladly put it on if this shit keeps up.

“Boys and girls, this is saber rattling. Pure and simple. If Holder tries to take this before SCOTUS, he’s getting his ass handed to him on a platter.”

As a shyster-in-training you should realize that the threat of discovery is not saber rattling. I suspect that the last thing in the world the NCAA/BCS wants is the justice department sifting through e-mails between college presidents of BCS schools.

If not criminal, I’m sure it would get very embarrassing very quickly.

I suspect the justice department has no intention of taking this all the way to trial.

TXinDC – That’s the ad server people (OpenX). I’ll let the engineers know some noisy ads made it through. They aren’t supposed to be able to.

Also, this is funny:

http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2011/5/5/2155337/if-mark-emmert-actually-sent-this-back-to-the-justice-department-we

why certainly there is restriction on competition in the bcs system.

if you assume that the ncaa/bcs program gets it right and the top two teams on the list are undoubtedly the best two in the land, then competition is served. problem is the algorithm for determining placement on the list is bogus.

all you need to do is look at nearly any playoff in any sport in any year to find a lowly considered team to be far better than believed and make it deep into the playoffs. almost never is the title game between the top two seeds. the truth is you can’t look at an elephant and a boxcar and decide which is heavier. you have to measure them competitively, and that’s what is not happening in the ncaa.

way too few consequential cross-conference games occur before the bowl games to even have a clear picture which conferences are playing the best ball in a given year.

this thing is a dog show, and schools that manage to put together a truly competitive team from time to time have no chance whatever to see whether they belong in the title game unless they belong to a chosen conference.

that’s the approach that highlights exactly how the bcs robs us of a real game and robs nearly all teams from getting a chance to show where they truly belong.

And I wish I could get RC Cola everywhere I go. It’s much better than Coke or Pepsi. But that’s not really a matter for the Justice Department.

drew, bottom left corner of that alleged email, is that our jayakris?

one thing i want the justice department to do right away is publish the algorithms the various bcs ranking entities are employing. also, every voter needs to be identified and how that voter marked his or her ballot needs to be posted. let’s open the curtains and see what’s in the room.

I am withholding BrickHorn’s considerable year end bonus until he produces his magnum opus on why PLAYOFFS are more evil than Bob Stoops.

“This is America. That’s not how we do things here. If you want a playoff, just send SEAL Team 6 into Bill Hancock’s secret lair and then toss his body off of an aircraft carrier.”

Would Boise St. be his shield?

roach:

Lawyers use empty threats just like everyone else. They just do a lot better job of it. There’s no real threat of discovery at this point, and everyone knows it. The DoJ sent a letter. Woohoo. The state of Utah has THREATENED to sue. They haven’t sued yet.

DoJ also knows that the BCS is in control here. The smart lawyers do, too. Because if DoJ tries to push it, the Big 6 hits the nuclear option, and we’re back to the Bowl Alliance days of the 90’s. Ballgame.

Dagga:

I don’t like the wording from that blog. It misrepresents the rule of reason as almost like a quantifiable balance test. Yours is much better, and actually captures the meaning of the unreasonableness test.

Have you read this article: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2010/08/20100823/Opinion/Antitrust-Laws-Do-Not-Provide-Answer-To-Reforming-BCS.aspx

Here’s the highlight:

In addition, there is no real consumer harm at play. Sure, the subsidiary BCS teams and non-BCS teams are subject to unequal (and possibly unfair) treatment. But that is not the constituency of primary antitrust concern. That party, rather, is the ultimate consumer — here, the college football fan (and perhaps the TV networks and sponsoring bowls). They have fared much better under the BCS. Whether they could do even better under a playoff system is simply not part of the analysis.

With the so many universities losing funding due to the budget, is there an argument that the non BCS schools are not getting a fair chance at the big money from the BCS games and the championship game?

Antitrust laws? They must be kidding. Wait, no….they’re not. The Federal Government never ceases to amaze at how utterly dumb something can get.

Nate, Dagga, doesn’t the fact that football (the only real $ earner) is the only sport that doesn’t have a NCAA championship tie in tell all you need to know?

If they HAD t have one, they would. They don’t and they won’t.

Game, blouses.

“But that is not the constituency of primary antitrust concern. That party, rather, is the ultimate consumer — here, the college football fan (and perhaps the TV networks and sponsoring bowls). They have fared much better under the BCS. Whether they could do even better under a playoff system is simply not part of the analysis.”

Overall, I think there are many instances where universities, alumni fans and casual fans have seen their piece of the pie and financial liability suffer with the advent of the BCS. Moreover, access to the games for fans is more difficult, since the BCS bowls receive such a high proportion of tickets.