Angered that the current Bowl Championship Series rankings formula did not place the undefeated Utah Utes into this year's championship game, State of Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff is considering filing an antitrust suit against BCS member teams and conferences.Yesterday, Am Law Daily's Zach Lowe quoted me on the strength (or lack thereof) of the State of Utah's claim. While I have long taken the position that the NCAA is an illegal cartel that restrains the wages of student athletes (pdf), I do not believe the BCS system in itself is as clearly anti-competitive.
For the State of Utah to prevail on its claim, it would at a minimum need to show that the top ranked football teams in the country reached an agreement to boycott the University of Utah from earning their way into the championship game. The State of Utah additionally would need to show that these teams combined to have market power in some relevant market, and that the exclusion of the Utes from the championship game harmed consumers.
For the full Am Law Daily article, including my quotes, see here.
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4 comments:
I don't know if Utah has a case, but if you look at the coaches poll you can see what teams are boycotting undefeated teams into the BCS Championship game essentially. Granted the BCS is made up of humans and computers you can see which humans are biased I guess.
Also, I don't know exactly where the case is against the NCAA. I point I have constantly made about College football is that the NCAA does not crown a national champion in college football. I guess since the NCAA operates the Bull (sp)Championship Series it is held accountable, but that seems like a stretch.
Is this all just more noise into creating a playoff? But then again, couldn't the 9th place team, the one team that misses the cut of the proposed playoff system, couldn't they file the same lawsuit?
Chris:
I do not know what evidence the State of Utah has, so most of my statements at this point will need to be tempered. However, if I were representing the State of Utah in this case, I would be praying for evidence that top-ranked teams in the other BCS conferences reached an agreement with one another not to play Utah this season as a way to keep Utah's strength of schedule down and thereby make it mathematically impossible for them to qualify for the BCS championship game. Short of such evidence, however, I think it will be really difficult to prove an illegal group boycott under the Rule of Reason.
As to whether this is just a way of creating noise or trying to get a settlement with the BCS, my guess would be yes.
In regards to the commercialization of the NCAA, I don't have as much of a problem with the concept of "amateurism" and the perceived exploitation of players because scholarship athletes do get free tuition, room and board (which is the equivalent of earning 30+ or even 40+ thousand dollars a year) while the rest of the student body is paying up. Is this fair compensation compared to the income some big schools pull in as a thanks to the skill of some of some players? Probably not, but it's something.
The huge problem I do have is that schools don't actually educate most of their players, and the ones that do graduate generally turn out like Dexter Manley thanks to cupcake classes. Graduation rates are horrendous. There are only six BCS schools with 90%+ graduation rate
and the rest, save Wake Forest, are all below 80% (the numbers are here: http://www.fanblogs.com/ncaa/007839.php).
I do agree that earning restrictions imposed on athletes are a joke though. I understand that they want to prevent from boosters paying the Maurice Clarett's of the world for no show jobs but c'mon, it's a little ridiculous. If I'm a legitimate NBA prospect and I don't plan on graduating from college anyway, I'd be jumping ship to Europe for my "freshman" year. Plus everyone can use a little culture.
In regards to this potential Utah suit, I think Chris makes a good point by comparing a potential #9 team and Utah. I think we all want a playoff, but this suit would have too much to overcome. This is just like the Texas congressman who just introduced a bill would try to prohibit FBS subdivision football from using the term "national championship" without a playoff system after Texas missed out on the BCS Championship.
Yeah! That was unfair
Ron Kramer
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