Final 9-02-03

Statement of Steve Young

On the issue of Fundamental Fairness and the Bowl Championship Series (BCS)

Before the

House Judiciary Committee

September 4, 2003

Chairman Sensenbrenner, Ranking member Conyers, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come and meet with you today and for providing a Forum by which we can discuss the issues associated with the Bowl Championship Series. I am pleased to testify before you today as an individual concerned with issues of fundamental fairness.

There are thousands of student-athletes today being unfairly impacted by the current BCS system which virtually excludes any NCAA Division I Football team, not part of a BCS Conference, from making a legitimate run at a National Title. This involves young people from at least five NCAA Division I conferences as well as independents, i.e., at least 54 Schools and thousands of athletes.

Let me put what follows in context for you. In the 2002-03 college football season, it is my understanding that a total of $109 Million dollars was paid in revenue from College Football Bowl games to Division I-A football programs. Of that, $104 Million went to 64 Schools coming from BCS Conferences while a paltry $5 Million was paid to the remaining 54 schools in the five Non-BCS conferences and Independents. That $5 Million was not even enough to pay for expenses at those schools, and, according to at least one source, the non-BCS schools lost an average of $1 Million dollars in their football programs.

As John Adams once said: “Facts are stubborn things.” The fact here is that intercollegiate football is the engine that drives all intercollegiate sports and this massive disparity in revenues impacts all sports, not just football. In particular, there is a disproportional effect on women’s sports programs, which depend to a large extent on football revenues for their support. Thus, as I will note in a moment, all elements of campus life in non-BCS schools are negatively impacted.

The issue therefore, is not just about football; rather, it is about recruiting for all sports, it is about access to a quality education, it is about proper support for Title IX as well as the impact the BCS structure has on the quality of campus life; indeed, at its center, it is about important issues of fundamental fairness.

The Bowl Championship Series highlights a series of major concerns that need to be remedied. Today I will cite a few of those concerns:

Lack of Equal Access

Division I-A football is the only sport within the NCAA structure where student-athletes have no equal access to winning a National Championship. This denial of access is fundamentally unfair and is clearly inconsistent with the traditional background and objectives of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The goal of the BCS system is to pit the two top teams in the country in a game to decide the national collegiate football championship. However, no team outside the BCS coalition has been permitted to play in a BCS Bowl in the first five years of the system. Teams from non-BCS conferences simply want a level playing field when it comes to competing to win a national title. In soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, etc, equal access is granted. Not so in football.

Conflict with Objectives of Title IX

As Congressional representatives, you understand that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. Under Title IX, if an institution that is a recipient of federal funds sponsors an athletic program, it must provide equivalent athletic opportunities for males and females. Naturally, it would be the intent of Congress to ensure that Title IX is implemented effectively throughout the country and that athletes, regardless of their sex, be given equal access to compete. However, the BCS System is clearly at odds with the express congressional intent to achieve equality in intercollegiate athletics. Those institutions without access to BCS funds have a much more difficult time meeting their Title IX obligations. Additionally, schools that are part of a BCS Conference are given a substantial competitive advantage in building facilities, hiring coaches and recruiting athletes to bolster all other sports within their institution including those for female athletes.

Impact on Recruiting

Attending a University where the possibility of achieving a national championship is next to impossible is far less attractive to the serious athlete than attending a school which offers such an opportunity. When I came to Brigham Young University in 1980, it was my presumption that I would have just as good a chance to compete at the highest level of competition as any other NCAA athlete. With the implementation of the College Bowl System in NCAA Division I-A Football in 1996, the “level playing field” on which I had competed was significantly altered to the detriment of the sport and its thousands of student athletes. The denial of equal access to competing for a national championship not only harms outstanding student-athletes but their sponsoring institutions as well by creating an inequality in recruitment. Members of the basketball teams at universities like Tulane, Louisville, Gonzaga, and the University of Utah, to name a few, join their programs knowing that, at season’s end, they will have an equal shot to achieve a national title. But student-athletes participating in football at these very same schools, working out in the same facilities and attending the same classes, have no such hope as it relates to their chosen sport. Hence, if a football player has any aspiration of winning a national championship, they would avoid attending such a University. Is there discrimination in this process? I think so. Is this what the NCAA was designed to do? I do not think so.

Equal Access to a Quality Education

The impact of the BCS structure goes far beyond intercollegiate athletics. All students at colleges and universities not part of the BCS system are negatively impacted by the enormous sums of money funneled to the 64 four year institutions that are privileged to be a part of the BCS. While this, perhaps, is an oversimplification, it is axiomatic that the fundamental and central purpose of higher education is to prepare students with a quality education to enable them to become productive citizens. Among other things, this costs money. By dominating the four major bowl games, the BCS schools earn what appear to be monopolistic revenues of better than 95% of all bowl income. Non-BCS schools are on the outside looking in. Precious funding for these institutions that would otherwise be allocated to the building of classrooms and libraries, salaries for excellent faculty, and for the support of scholarship and research, must be funneled to Athletics in order to give them any shot at competing against the privileged sixty four. In turn, this scenario allows the BCS schools a superior chance at providing all the necessary athletic facilities to perpetuate their football programs and the necessary funding for facilities, faculty and research.

Antitrust implications

While I have been trained in the law, I am by no means an expert in the antitrust laws of the United States. However, it must clear to even the casual observer that the BCS represents a powerful combination of a small number of schools which have created a powerful barrier to entry whose purpose is to exclude all non-members of that elite group from any meaningful participation in post-season play. This combination may or may not be a technical violation of the somewhat vague antitrust statutes but its effect is clearly to stifle the competition and perhaps even fix prices. These anticompetitive effects provide to BCS schools a fundamentally unfair competitive advantage when it comes to their ability to recruit athletes, build facilities, and pay coaches and university professors.

Achieving the Dream

Our country was built by men and women of amazing character who dared to dream of a vision of a new democracy, one in which people of all ages, creeds and colors could achieve greatness. The ultimate objective of any group of athletes is to combine their efforts and be named the best at what they do. The BCS system is a sad departure from this great American tradition. When I won the Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers in 1995, each team in the National Football League began that season with an even shot at a championship. Can you imagine a scenario in which essentially half the teams in any given pool are automatically penalized by a coalition of their equals and denied the basic opportunity to win a championship? And yet, this is exactly what the BCS structure has created.

Closing Thoughts

Already this year, with the college football season barely a week old, Non-BCS teams have proved their meddle against teams from BCS Conferences. Teams such as the University of Louisville, Northern Illinois University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and my alma mater, Brigham Young University, have already begun the season with convincing wins over opponents from the supposed power Conferences. Even Western Michigan barely lost a tight game to their in-state opponent, Michigan State. However, from the outset, these excellent institutions of higher learning, due only to the fact that they are not part of the BCS combination, will all but be locked out of competing for a National Title and for the $104 Million dollars going into the coffers of the BCS schools as a result of this ill-devised system.

Perhaps the most pernicious effect of the BCS system is its self-perpetuating nature. The powerful BCS schools continue to be enriched at the expense of the non-BCS schools with the concomitant negative impact on college campuses around the country. The long-term effect of the BCS structure is to drive the non-BCS schools out of competition at the Division I-A level.  The massive incongruity that is inherent in the current BCS structure needs to be examined in great depth. I am appreciative of these hearings which have provided an initial forum to highlight a system which is exclusive rather than inclusive…a system which promotes prejudice rather than equality. 
 
The BCS combination is unfair in its concept, in its implementation, and in its effect on institutions and student-athletes alike. While I am now out of football, I acknowledge the importance of collegiate football in my life; sadly, under the BCS structure, the opportunity I had for competing for a national championship is being denied to far too many athletes. In today's world of college football, I would have been "on the outside looking in." Again, I thank you for the opportunity to express my personal views. It is my hope that through the efforts of clear-thinking individuals such as yourselves, the system will be changed to reflect the time-honored values of America---fairness and equality. Thank you.