STATEMENT OF JAMES E. DELANY

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My name is Jim Delany, and I am Commissioner of the Big Ten Conference. I have held that position for the last 14 years. Before assuming my current duties, I was Commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference for 10 years. During my college days, I played basketball at the University of North Carolina under Coach Dean Smith. That was a wonderful experience for me, enabled me to get a first-rate education, and prepared me to seek a law degree, which I also received from North Carolina. As a student-athlete, I twice had the opportunity to play in the NCAA Final Four. I understand the thrill of competing for a national championship, and although we did not win a national championship while I was at North Carolina, playing in the Final Four was among the highlights of my athletic career. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about the Bowl Championship Series and the many benefits that it has brought to college football fans and to the game in general. I also appreciate the opportunity to share with you the views of the Big Ten Conference concerning the BCS arrangement.

The Bowl Championship Series began in 1998 with two primary goals: (1) to bring to college football fans a true national championship game every season matching the number 1 and number 2 teams in the nation in a traditional bowl game; and (2) to create other exciting bowl matchups involving highly regarded teams. It has been remarkably successful in achieving those aims. Last season is probably the best example of the benefits of the BCS. Miami and Ohio State both finished the season undefeated and were ranked number 1 and number 2 respectively in virtually every poll. There was a clear consensus that these were the two best teams in the nation. They paired off in the Fiesta Bowl and gave us one of the greatest college football games ever played. That game, however, would have never occurred without the BCS arrangement. Under the bowl system as it existed before 1998, Ohio State would have been committed to play in the Rose Bowl against Washington State, the champion of the Pacific-10 conference. Miami would have played in either the Fiesta Bowl or some other attractive bowl, but it would not have played against Ohio State. The fans of college football would have been denied a true national championship game and a fitting close to the season.

A full understanding of the BCS arrangement must begin with an understanding of the bowl system in college football and how it developed over the years. The bowl system is a distinctive feature of college football. It began with the playing of the first Rose Bowl in 1902 and has expanded over the years. Today, there are 28 bowls games that play host to 56 college football teams and provide a rewarding post-season experience for approximately 5600 student-athletes. Many of the young men who have participated in bowl games have told me that it is one of the most enjoyable and memorable experiences of their athletic careers. Not only are they rewarded for their achievements during the regular season, but also they get to partake of a variety of attractions and activities in each of the host cities. Bowl games are far more than simply another football game. They are accompanied by parades, parties, and other events that make them far different from post-season games in any other sport in this country. Bowls are, in every sense, a celebration of college football. The bowl committees that host the games work tirelessly each year building community interest and participation. The committees are generally assisted by an army of volunteers who donate their time and talents to the endeavor. Bowl games take place in a diverse range of cities in every geographic sector of the country from Detroit and Boise to Miami, Tempe, and New Orleans. In every sense, bowl games and the bowl experience are part of the great tradition and fabric of college football.

As the bowl system developed over the last century, a number of bowl games developed relationships with various conferences. The first of these involved my own conference, the Big Ten, and the Rose Bowl. Beginning after the 1946 season, we sent our conference champion to Pasadena every January 1 to play against the Pacific-10 champion in the oldest and one of the most venerated bowl games. The Rose Bowl relationship has been a tremendous benefit to the Big Ten and to the Pacific-10 as well. The Tournament of Roses, the sponsor of the Rose Bowl, has provided a tremendous experience for our student-athletes and our fans and supported our institutions financially. At the same time, we like to believe that the Big Ten has been in a very real sense a “partner” with the Rose Bowl. We have annually provided our champion, which is a very fine football team, to play in the game. That has helped the Rose Bowl attract not only local interest and support for the game but to generate broad national interest in its contest. That interest has translated into substantial support by television networks that purchase the rights to the game and promote it heavily. The fans of our participating institutions have traveled in great numbers to the game, purchased tickets and participated in the many events surrounding the Rose Bowl, filled hotel rooms, and helped support the host communities in Southern California. The fans of the institutions in the Pacific-10 have also supported the Rose Bowl in a similar manner. Because of this close relationship and mutual support, the Big Ten/Pacific-10/Rose Bowl arrangement has grown steadily over the years, and we believe that it is fair to say that the Rose Bowl would not be the event that it is today without its long-standing relationship with the Big Ten and Pacific-10.

Similar relationships developed over the years between other conferences and other bowl games. For example, the Southeastern Conference has had a long relationship with the Sugar Bowl. It has sent outstanding champions to that game over the years and its fans have traveled to New Orleans in great numbers to participate not only in the football game but in the many activities associated with the Sugar Bowl and to visit the many attractions that New Orleans has to offer.

The Big 12 Conference, which was once known as the Big Eight Conference, for many years had a very close relationship with the Orange Bowl in Miami and sent its champion there on an annual basis. The former Southwest Conference, which dissolved after the 1995 football season, for many years sent its champion to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Atlantic Coast Conference developed a close relationship with the Citrus Bowl in Orlando in the 1980s and sent its champion to that game until the early 1990s. Even the Big East Football Conference, which was created in the early 1990s, got a very lucrative offer from what was then known as the Blockbuster Bowl to send its champion to that game every year. Other conferences developed similar relationships with different games.

With the growth of these relationships, it became increasingly difficult to match champions from each of these conferences in bowl games. Historically, the champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10, and Southeastern Conferences, along with Notre Dame, have been among the most highly ranked teams at season’s end. Indeed, Notre Dame or a team currently in one of these conferences has won every college football national championship since the end of World War II, except one. Before the early 1990s, the bowl system was not very good at matching the top two teams against one another in a game. In fact, before 1992, the bowl system had paired the number 1 and 2 teams against one another only nine times in 45 years. With the growth of the conference/bowl relationships and the commitment of different conferences to send their respective champions to different bowl games, the possibility of a bowl game pairing the top two teams grew even more remote. In short, under the bowl system as it existed in the early 1990s, there was very little chance that the national championship would be decided on the field.

The ACC, Big East, Big 12, SEC, and Notre Dame, and the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls attempted to address that issue in the early 1990s with the formation of what was called the Bowl Coalition. The Bowl Coalition had limited goals. It was designed to pair conference championships against one another and to match other highly regarded teams in exciting and appealing bowl games. The Bowl Coalition did not abolish the traditional relationships between certain bowls and certain conferences. For example, the Big Eight champion continued to play in the Orange Bowl every year, the Southwest Conference champion continued to play in the Cotton Bowl, and the Southeastern Conference champion continued to play in the Sugar Bowl. The Big East Football Conference, however, turned down a lucrative offer from the Blockbuster Bowl to participate in the Bowl Coalition, and the ACC did not renew its relationship with Citrus Bowl and also turned down a very generous offer from the Blockbuster Bowl to make the Bowl Coalition possible. While the Bowl Coalition was far from perfect, it was able to match the top two teams against one another in two of the three years it was in existence.

Neither the Big Ten nor the Pacific-10 committed its champion to the Bowl Coalition arrangement. The member institutions of the Big Ten were simply not willing to alter our valuable and long-standing relationship with the Rose Bowl, especially given the fact that the Bowl Coalition’s inability to guarantee a national championship game. We, nonetheless, recognized the Coalition arrangement as a step forward for college football and its fans.

The Coalition arrangement expired after the 1994 season, as did a number of the individual conference/bowl affiliation arrangements. At that time, the ACC, Big East, Big 12, and SEC formed the Bowl Alliance with the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls. The Alliance further increased the likelihood of a national championship game by allowing conference champions that had previously been unable to match up in bowl games to be paired against one another. The best example occurred after the 1995 season when Nebraska and Florida were both undefeated and ranked first and second in the polls. Those teams were paired against one another in the Fiesta Bowl with Nebraska claiming the national championship. That game would not have been possible under the prior bowl system because Nebraska would have been committed to play in the Orange Bowl under its conference affiliation agreement, and Florida would have been committed to play in the Sugar Bowl. Thus, the Alliance gave fans a national championship game that they otherwise would not have had.

The Alliance had one notable limitation. The Big Ten, along with the Pacific-10 continued to send our champions annually to the Rose Bowl. Because of those commitments, it was clear that the Alliance could never guarantee an annual national championship game if the number 1 or number 2 team was in either the Big Ten or Pacific-10. That happened on four occasions between 1991 and 1997. Therefore, when the Alliance arrangement expired after the 1997 season, the Big Ten, Pacific-10, and Rose Bowl were approached by ABC Sports and asked whether we would be amenable to some alterations in our long-standing relationship that might permit the creation of an annual national championship game. The Rose Bowl was asked to join with the Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar Bowls in a four-year rotation of a true national championship contest. That proposed arrangement required substantial concessions on the part of the Big Ten, Pacific-10, and Rose Bowl. Specifically, both the Big Ten and Pacific-10 would be required to commit their respective champions to play in a game other than the Rose Bowl when such champion was ranked first or second at the end of the season and the Rose Bowl was not scheduled to host the national championship game. Second, when the Rose Bowl was scheduled to host the national championship game, our conference champion and the Pacific-10 champion would have to play in another bowl game if those teams were not ranked first or second at season’s end. These were major alterations to our traditional relationship with the Rose Bowl.

I cannot adequately describe how difficult this decision was for the member institutions of the Big Ten. Because of our more than half-century relationship with the Rose Bowl, there were those in our conference who felt that the proposed alterations were simply too great a change to make, even if they ultimately resulted in an annual national championship game. A Rose Bowl bid had been the traditional reward to our conference champion, and indeed, playing for a spot in the Rose Bowl had become a driving force in our conference championship race and added immeasurably to the excitement of Big Ten regular season games. In the end, however, we recognized that others were also making substantial sacrifices to make an annual national championship game possible. The Big 12 and SEC were foregoing valuable and traditional bowl slots for their champions that they could obtain on their own, and the Big East and ACC had opted not to enter into lucrative individual bowl agreements that had been offered to their respective champions. Because an annual national championship game would greatly improve college football and give the fans a true champion decided on the field, we ultimately agreed to commit our champion to the proposed arrangement and to alter our traditional agreement with the Rose Bowl. The Pacific-10 made a similar decision.

The result is the BCS. The BCS involves only four bowl games, the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl, and eight of the 56 bowl slots available to Division I-A college football teams. Under the BCS arrangement, six of the eight slots in those four games are reserved annually for the champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10, and Southeastern Conferences. The remaining two slots are open and may be filled by any team in Division I-A college football team. For teams in Division I-A conferences whose champions do not play in one of the BCS bowls every year, there are two ways to qualify automatically for one of the two open slots. First, if one of those teams finishes number 1 or number 2 at the end of the season, then it will play in the national championship game. Second, even if such a team is not in the national championship game, it can qualify for automatic selection if it finishes the season ranked among the top six. Finally, even if such a team does not qualify for automatic selection, it may still be selected by one of the bowls that has an open slot. In fact, in most years, the open slots are filled with selections made by the bowls. This selection process allows those bowls not hosting the national championship game flexibility to create what they believe to be the most exciting matchups with the broadest appeal to the greatest number of fans.

Critics often ask why six of the eight slots in the BCS arrangement are guaranteed to the conference champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac‑10, and SEC. The answer is relatively simple. Without those guaranteed slots, there would be no BCS, no annual national championship game, and none of the other benefits created by the BCS. It is important to understand that under NCAA rules, each Division I-A team is permitted to playing in one and only one post‑season bowl game. Thus, anyone attempting to create a national championship game gets only one opportunity to pair the top two teams. That means that, whatever the mechanism, there must be participation by all of those teams that have traditionally competed for the national championship. Based on current conference membership, those teams are fielded by institutions in the six conferences with guaranteed slots or Notre Dame. The issue, then, is to induce those conferences to commit their champions to play in a particular bowl if they are ranked number 1 or number 2 and to forego other bowl commitments that might make such a matchup impossible. The six conferences whose champions have guaranteed slots in the BCS arrangement all had or individually were offered valuable bowl slots for the champions in the bowl system that existed before the formation of the BCS. One cannot reasonably expect that those conferences will substantially alter or forego those close and valuable relationships to create a national championship game unless the arrangement that is created gives their champions a bowl slot at least the equivalent of what they could have obtained on their own.

The Big Ten provides a good illustration of this point. Given our long-standing relationship with the Rose Bowl, the member institutions of our conference simply would not participate in the BCS or any other bowl arrangement that guarantees an annual national championship game if we were not guaranteed a slot for our champion. We already had such a slot under our arrangement with the Rose Bowl, and the member institutions of our conference are not willing to alter that relationship except to permit an annual national championship game. In short, without the guaranteed slots, we would not have participated in the BCS arrangement. Rather, we would have simply continued our relationship with the Rose Bowl unaltered. That would have deprived college football fans of that tremendous Fiesta Bowl game last year, and given the performance of our champion and the Pacific-10 champion in recent years, may have deprived college football fans of a national championship game on several occasions.

The same is true of the other conferences whose champions have guaranteed slots in the BCS bowls. Without the guaranteed slots, they could be expected to simply renew or rekindle valuable and long-standing relationships that they had with particular bowls. The result would be a return to the old bowl system in which conference champions were not often paired against one another in bowl games and matchups between the top two teams in the nation were infrequent and occurred only by chance. That would serve neither the interest of college football nor its many fans.

Critics of the BCS also claim that it excludes teams outside the six conferences whose champions have guaranteed slots from the most lucrative bowl opportunities. Nothing could be further from the truth. The open slots exist precisely for the purpose of permitting every Division I-A team to compete for the national championship. Moreover, by guaranteeing that teams from conferences whose champions do not play in a BCS bowl every year will automatically qualify for one of the open slots when they are highly ranked, the BCS arrangement ensures that those teams that have truly exceptional seasons will play in one of the BCS games even if a bowl otherwise might have chosen to select another team that it believes has greater appeal to a broader group of fans.

As for the revenue derived from the BCS bowls, the value of those games exists precisely because of the BCS arrangement. Television networks, advertisers, corporate sponsors, and fans perceive those games to be more valuable than any single bowl game alone that cannot guarantee a national championship arrangement. By creating a national championship game every year and other exciting bowl matchups between highly regarded teams, the BCS arrangement is a new product that is highly valued by the consumers of college football. That value is reflected by the willingness of television networks, corporate sponsors, and advertisers to pay additional sums for a product that would not exist but for the BCS.

The revenues derived from the BCS arrangement are shared among a number of college football conferences. The five Division I-A conferences whose champions are not guaranteed slots in a BCS bowl every year will receive a total of almost $4.5 million this year for making their teams available to play in a BCS game even if they do not have a team that actually plays in one of the bowls. Furthermore, eight Division I-AA conferences will share a total of nearly $1.5 million of revenues from these four BCS games even though they will not play in them. Over the duration of the BCS arrangement, roughly $42 million will flow to five Division I-A and eight Division I-AA conferences regardless of whether they ever place a team in one of the BCS games. For the five Division I-A conferences sharing in this revenue, that is a substantial benefit. Under the prior bowl system, these conferences shared in none of the revenues derived from the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowls unless they actually placed a team in one of those four games. That has been a rarity. In fact, prior to the formation of the BCS, only seven times since the end of World War II have teams currently in the five Division I-A conferences played in the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, or Sugar Bowls. In more recent years, those four bowls virtually never selected a team from one of those five conferences. In the 20 seasons from 1978 to the formation of the BCS in 1998, 159 of the 160 slots in those four bowl games were filled by teams currently in the six conferences with automatic annual slots for their champions or by Notre Dame. The one exception is Louisville, which played in the Fiesta Bowl following the 1990 regular season. It is fair to say that the amount of revenues distributed from these four bowls to the five Division I‑A conferences whose champions are not guaranteed an automatic slot in a BCS bowl every season substantially exceeds the amount of revenues that these teams had previously earned from actually playing in these games since the end of World War II.

Today, thanks to the BCS arrangement, the bowl system is more open than it has ever been. Any team can qualify to play in the national championship game or one of the BCS bowls or can be selected to play in one of those games. This includes the Rose Bowl, which for more than 50 years played host to only the champions of the Big Ten and Pacific-10, but which in the past two years has hosted teams from three other conferences. Most importantly, however, the BCS arrangement guarantees college football fans an annual national championship game and other exciting bowl matchups. It provides these substantial benefits within the traditional bowl system that has been very good for college football, and it does so without limiting the number of post-season opportunities for student‑athletes, the number of total games available to the fans, or the number of advertising and sponsorship opportunities available to the supporters of college football. In short, the BCS is precisely the type of arrangement that comports with both the letter and design of the antitrust laws. I have no doubt that it will continue to be a great benefit to college football and its many fans. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today about these issues.