What A Nice Little Racket.

It was a fairly innocuous discovery in and of itself, and I don’t know if this has already been blogged about in any significant manner, but I was reading Yahoo columnist Dan Wetzel’s reader response column on his 16-team playoff system (one I like, for the most part), and this particular response to one e-mail about announcers being in the pocket for the current system struck me (boldface mine):

Announcers work for two groups, the conference (in that case the Big Ten) which is staunchly in favor of the current bowl system. And ESPN, which broadcasts tons of bowl games and has contracts with the conferences and, in the most ridiculous of conflicts, even owns five bowl games (Las Vegas, Hawaii, Armed Forces, New Mexico and Papajohns.com).

It’s not a real shock they’d spew the propaganda. Neither is it a shock that ESPN’s myriad outlets won’t tackle this issue – the one fans overwhelming care about the most – in any in-depth, significant or intelligent manner.

We all know about the Four-Letter’s co-ownership and airing of the Arena Football League, but since that’s a minor sport, it’s dismissed as such. However, this is a bit more serious, and it was easy enough to find verification of it via a press release on the Papajohn’s.com Bowl web site from last year.

The annual game will match a team from Conference USA against a bowl eligible team from the BIG EAST Conference. ESPN Regional Television also owns and operates other bowl games, including the Sheraton Hawai‘i Bowl, Pioneer Purevision Las Vegas Bowl, Fort Worth Bowl* and the recently announced New Mexico Bowl, which will also debut Dec. 23.

(*The Fort Worth Bowl became the Armed Forces Bowl last year.)

Has this ever been disclosed on ESPN telecasts of these games? I know every manner of corporation has gotten in on the act of owning, operating and sponsoring bowl games (and in the cases of the Peach and Citrus Bowls, removing the traditional names to promote the sponsor), but this goes beyond the usual: this is creating a live sporting venue in order to broadcast it on your network, and I doubt they disclose during the games that ESPN organized the bowl and invited the teams.

No wonder all its analysts are able to say with a straight face (much like Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit did on Sunday night) that the BCS and bowl system was able to do what it was intended to do: their employer has a hand in the low-level bowl pie to make money off of. Let’s see whose fanbases will be contributing, via the bowl schedule:

• Papajohns.com Bowl – Cincinnati vs. Southern Mississippi
• New Mexico Bowl – Nevada vs. New Mexico
• Hawai’i Bowl – Boise State vs. East Carolina
• Las Vegas Bowl – UCLA vs. BYU
• Armed Forces Bowl – Cal vs. Air Force

I’m not quite sure why the NCAA continues to depend on a system where outsiders control the money flow, the sponsorship, and the organization — yes, it may be tradition, but when you have bowls being run by the people your conferences have TV agreements with, isn’t there a bit of a line crossed here? Either way, you can’t or won’t discuss alternatives to the bowl system as it stands if you stand to make money off it — as well as money for those institutions you invite to participate.

Nice racket you run here, folks. Shame if something ever happened to it.

Update: First Take did have its analysts, including Pat Forde, to actually discuss the plus-one and eight-team models this morning, but it’s still dependent upon the BCS bowl racket to do so.