Must we BOYCOTT The BCS System?

I'm not sure a playoff system is necessary...

IMHO, who cares who the "real" national champion is? That's not what the bowl system is all about.

It's about a one-time game...a chance for an underdog team (like Boise State) to prepare for and play the game of their lives and beat a heavy favorite.

A playoff system would probably make it tough for a team like Boise State to have such a magical system.

Furthermore, do you think those kids from Boise State who went 13-0 and knocked off a perennial power really care that they didn't win some mythical national championship?

Playoff plunderer
_{from Yahoo Sports. click here for full story}

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They shout on talk radio shows, write screeds on message boards and plead with the sports gods in a futile effort to be heard by the faceless Bowl Championship Series. They are the growing number of fans who want a college football playoff. They want it now, dammit. They want to know how to get it done. They want to know who the hell to call.

Lucky Jim Delany.

The madmen and mad women crying out for the death of the BCS may recognize Delany's name but probably wouldn't recognize his face. They likely have no idea he rose from humble beginnings, took over as commissioner of the Big Ten in 1989 and brokered deals that extended his influence far beyond the Midwest. Chances are they have no clue Delany, 58, has emerged as a man widely considered the most powerful figure in college sports and the biggest obstacle to a Division I-A football playoff.

BCS haters may decide Delany is public enemy No. 1. But inside the corridors of college athletics, he is respected, envied and, in some cases, feared.

Delany, according to one colleague, can exhibit "Doberman-like aggressiveness." With a bite to match his bark, he has further enriched the wealthiest conferences and cemented the BCS system that has drawn the ire from two of the most powerful men in his own conference – Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr.

But as he has done with the public outcry, Delany has largely ignored the coaches' call for a playoff. He readily admits a playoff could be good for Division I-A football at large, but quickly adds, "I don't work for college football at large."

From Big Ten headquarters in Chicago, Delany presides over a college sports monarchy. The Big Ten is the nation's biggest conference, a collection of 11 universities that covers an area with almost 25 percent of the nation's TV households and prompts television networks to genuflect. When Delany arrived at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Conn., this year, employees wore buttons that proclaimed "Bristol is Big Ten Country."

Despite the royal treatment, Delany dismisses talk that he is the king of college athletics. But at times one would think he wore a crown.

Earlier this year, for example, when Notre Dame's athletic director and the commissioner of the Sun Belt conference devised a plan to modify the BCS, the two men immediately took the idea to Delany.

"If you're going to make it work, you've got to get Jim to sign on to it," said Wright Waters, commissioner of the Sun Belt conference.

That's one reason playoff advocates have ventured to the Big Ten headquarters and trotted out plan after plan, all of which Delany has sacked. Never mind that a playoff is used to determine the football champion in Division I-AA, Division II and Division III, not to mention every other sport sanctioned by the NCAA. Never mind that the president of the University of Florida has vowed to press the issue with his colleagues. Or that commissioners from the other major conferences now say they're open to the idea of a playoff as it gains traction faster than Adrian Peterson accelerating off tackle.

Disregarding the howls for change could test Delany's power. For now, he stands positioned to battle not only the likes of Paterno and Carr, but also the force of public will.

Polls show more than 50 percent of college football fans favor a playoff. Those percentages figure to spike now that undefeated Ohio State will play in the BCS title game against one-loss Florida rather than Boise State, which improved to 13-0 after its remarkable, highlight-heavy victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Eventually the consumer will get what he demands, Delany said. But he cites TV ratings and attendance figures as evidence that the consumer has yet to truly demand change.

Defending his assertion, Delany said revenue from college football has grown to $900 million from $200 million since 1990; average attendance for Big Ten games has increased to 71,000 from 58,000 over that same period; and the rising TV ratings and sponsorship dollars suggest the game is as healthy as ever.

"There's probably more of an outcry than there was 15 years ago for something different. I don't disagree with that," Delany said during a recent interview in Chicago. "But what I've also seen simultaneously is the growth in interest in the BCS and the regular season.

"If the public walks away from our games during the regular season and walks away from television during the regular season and walks away from the bowls, they're saying, We won't support this anymore. We want something else.' But I don't see them walking away from anything."

There's no sign Delany will walk away from a very lucrative position.

Studies indicate the slightest step toward a playoff – seeding the teams in four BCS bowl games and pitting the two top-rated teams emerging from those games in the national championship – could generate another $50 million. But with a new system, Delany and the commissioners of the other BCS conferences could lose control of the knife that guarantees them a huge slice of the financial pie.

The so-called BCS conferences – which include the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC – outnumber the less powerful conferences six to five. Thanks to that slim majority, the six conferences grant themselves automatic bids to the five BCS bowls and this year will take in more than three-quarters of the estimated $120 million the BCS will generate.

The annual yield since has widened the financial gap between the haves and have-nots, and since the formation of the BCS eight years ago, no conference has benefited more than the conference Delany runs. He appears determined to protect the Big Ten's economic interests even if it means preserving a flawed system.

The NCAA can do nothing about it either. The organizing body for college sports controls the men's basketball tournament and the billions of dollars that come with it because 31 conferences compete in Division I basketball. Furthermore, CBS has agreed to a $6 billion, 11-year contract for the TV rights not just to air games between teams in the BCS conferences, but for a tournament that features the likes of George Mason, Gonzaga and other giant-killers and spurs millions of fans to try to match the glass slipper with the next Cinderella while filling out their 65-team brackets.

Despite Boise State's electrifying victory over Oklahoma, college football fans seem less consumed with upsets than showdowns between the traditional powers. That has enabled the six biggest conferences to form the BCS, control about 80 percent of the postseason money and perhaps prompt Delany to declare last year that the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl would abandon its BCS partners if they took even the slightest step toward a playoff.

That sentiment has frustrated the likes of DeLoss Dodds, athletic director at the University of Texas who fought for a playoff for 10 years. He finally abandoned his efforts in part because of Delany. Dodds said it became increasingly clear that the alliance of the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl would block his efforts or any others to implement the playoff.

Of course without Delany, there might not even be a BCS.

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_{from Yahoo Sports. click here for full story}

why there will never be a playoff is very simple. the average adn casual fan will not follow a playoff. they will however take that fun filled trip to a southern city using their vacation.

now the hard core fan would travel each week to root for their school. there are however few hardcore fans.

the bowls allow the alumni to get a vacation package togeither, hang with their college friends and bring their wives and children along.

it is a big tourist thing.

now I would like to see a playoff as much as the next person. it just is not financially in the best insterest of big time college football. big time college football is not different then big oil,. big water, big business. they are going to look out for themselves.

How do you schedule a playoff system for DI?

BCS Bowl games through the month of December?
Where at? When?
At NFL stadiums (Neutral site) or home field advantages?
Weekends or Week nights?
Remember the NFL is in full-swing in the tail end of the regular season (determining playoff scenarios).

airman makes a great point about the EVENT of Bowl Games for alum and family.