Folks, we’re very possessive of this site. After all, it’s ours. Every once in a while, though, we open it up to a guest blogger. Having said that, we have maintained our promise to not bitch about the BCS and its inherent corruptness for the entire season and we will continue to hold to that promise… by letting someone else do it for us.
Ladies and gentlemen, after a prolonged absence due to observing and documenting primal mating habits in the Amazon basin, the liberal conscience of Beers with Demo, Mongo, takes the BCS and the rest of you all to task:
(quick background note: undefeated Alabama and undefeated Texas will square-off for the national championship in the BCS title game while undefeated Texas Christian and undefeated Boise St. get stuck playing each other in the “Eff-you, little guy” Fiesta Bowl)
Greetings, Teabaggers!
So I get it confused whether you arch-conservative types are for the Invisible Hand of the Market Place or for Fundamental Fairness. Both, you say? Well, as with all things John Birch-like – Whenever you extend beyond the conservative comfort zone, you soon come to realize that the world ain’t that simple.
Case in point: The final BCS standings.
College football’s elite (See how I did that? Threw in a conservative buzzword – elite – to get you on my side of things) have formed a cartel based on whether your school was a gridiron juggernaut when TV’s were mass-produced in the early 50’s. Hell, errr, heck, errr, shoot, even an irrelevant team like those Catholic heathens at Notre Dame are grandfathered in under the “We were great in the 50’s” rule.
So what if a team like TCU, week in/week out, quarter by quarter, played the best football in this Year of Our Lord 2009 in this great land of ours founded under God’s watchful eye. Under the advertising/psychological concept of “branding” (Go look this up if you don’t know what it is. BwD only gives us socialists so much space to explain things), if you were great when Ricky and Lucy conceived Little Ricky from separate beds, you are in the national championship game – aren’t you, Texas? And if you are the TCUs and Boise States of the world, you are sent to dine at the Little Kids Table (Can’t have yet another upset – or two!! – of David over Goliath (purposeful Biblical reference inserted for your comfort) a la Boise over Oklahoma circa 2006 or Utah over Alabama this year, can we?) Forget for the moment that the Horned Frogs of Texas CHRISTIAN were national champions about 15 years prior to the advent of TV. If a clear-cut is done in the forest, and no one is there to see it…
So TV and all its adoring masses have been around now for like 60 years, plenty of time for a correction by the market place to demand and bring about a fundamental fairness that would let the University of Southern Vermont prove they had the best darn team in the land if that be the case, no? Well, then surely market forces will prevail and such a change is right around the corner – and there is no need for our evil federal government to interfere in this process of determining a champion in the sport that is as purely and uniquely American as it gets.
What? What’s that you say, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of the Great State of Utah? What say you, Rep. Joe Barton, Republican from the Great State of Texas?
You want to stick your very visible hands into the marketplace? But there’s a lot of money being made by the rich. Shouldn’t that count for everythi… errrr, something? A higher principle involved, you say your Honorablnesses? Fairness, truth, justice, the American Way? Wow. All that?
OK, federal representatives of the American government of the conservative persuasion: Make it so.
But the Rose Bowl stays right where it is.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
COLLEGE FOOTBALL MAKES FOR STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
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1 comment:
Mongo,
The Constitution gives Congress the express authority to regulate interstate commerce and an entity does not get much more interstate and commerce-y with the hundreds of millions of dollars flying around than college football.
So, it’s a strange argument you make, lad. You are whining about people doing the very thing you want… except they have to exempt your pet bowl. Consistency.
And aren’t these calls for hearings which suggest some good old-fashioned anti-trust saber-rattling which resulted in some positive changes with respect to the BCS and the non-BCS conferences a few years ago, precisely what a legislative body should be doing?
Bottom line: Despite their undefeated records, TCU and Boise St. may not be playing in a BCS bowl game this year absent the aforementioned “interventionist” tactics.
And I’m not understanding the free-market angle. The college presidents and athletic directors are acting in what they feel is the universities’ and colleges’ best interest. It may not align with our best interest, as fans, but they could scrap the BCS model and go with a playoff the moment the current contract expires but they, as a free market decision, have chosen not to do so thus far.
I understand your frustration – I share it – but taking to task Republican congressmen (who are doing your bidding) for not exhibiting your notion of ideological purity is a rather odd way of expressing it.
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