Big East Must Maintain a Top 12 Team for New BCS

[Guest Pitt Fan]

Access, money at heart of BCS changes

By Wendell Barnhouse

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Increased access and a bigger slice of the Bowl Championship Series revenue are two of the major selling points for the new BCS proposal that was announced Sunday in Miami.

Several sources with knowledge of the new agreement told the Star-Telegram the details Tuesday. The agreement, which has yet to be formally presented to schools of the 11 Division I-A conferences, will provide a better chance for teams from "non-access" conferences to play in one of five proposed BCS bowl games.

For the five conferences outside the current BCS umbrella -- Mountain West, Western Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt -- here is how they can place a team in a BCS bowl:

• An automatic bid to any conference champion that is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS standings.

• An automatic bid to any conference champion that is ranked in the top 16 of the final BCS standings, if the conference champion of any of the current BCS conferences is ranked below 16.

• If there are two teams from conferences not currently BCS members ranked No. 12 or higher, the higher-ranked team receives an automatic bid while the other team goes into the pool of teams to be considered for an at-large BCS bid.

"With this new proposal, the threshold, the barrier we were up against is not as tall as it is currently," Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson said.

Under the current BCS contract that runs through the 2005 season, about 4 percent of the BCS' $100 million contract goes to the current non-BCS conferences. For most of those 50 or so schools, it's about $100,000 a year.

The proposed changes would increase the revenue slice to about 7.5 percent of the new contract. Also, if a team from a current non-BCS league earns a BCS bid in the new deal, another 7.5 percent would go to those five conferences.

What has yet to be determined is how an extra 7.5 percent would be distributed among the five conferences.

BCS leaders soon will start negotiating with ABC Sports, the current TV rights holder. In order to keep the BCS bowls paying out about $13 million per team, the BCS will need to boost its current contract from $100 million to around $125 million a year.

"We did the market study," Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters said. "The bowls are lining up [for the fifth bowl]. And there's money out there to be had."

BCS commissioners plan to meet at the Final Four in San Antonio in early April and again in Phoenix in late April. By the end of the month, it is hoped that the proposed changes will have been approved by all 11 I-A conferences.

"We're waiting on a document that has the deal points that we can take to our schools, something everyone can sign off on," Waters said. "This is a huge step. But this isn't the final solution; it doesn't solve all the problems.

"There are details now, and there will be details six months from now. It's like herding rabbits. It's a moving target. Sometimes the public doesn't understand that."