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If anyone cares...how' bout a national championship game!
Back to back games for the Fiesta every 4 years - woo hoo!
Fiesta, Valley reap benefits of BCS plan
Andrew Bagnato
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 10, 2004 12:00 AM
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BCS breakdown
THE PROPOSAL: BCS officials plan to add a fifth game, played at the site of one of the existing bowls (Fiesta, Rose, Sugar, Orange) about one week later. It would be designated as the national championship game.
THE BENEFITS: Non-BCS conference teams have a greater shot at joining. Also, the four BCS bowls get the added revenue of a second game every four years.
THE RUB: We're still no closer to a true championship system. It's still the BCS formula picking two teams.
THE LOSERS: Cities who wanted to get a piece of the BCS pie by hosting the fifth game - and potentially join the title game rotation.
WHAT'S NEXT: College presidents have to approve the plan, but that's expected because the BCS planned a news conference for today.
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The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl has emerged from the restructured Bowl Championship Series smelling like a rose.Well, maybe not a rose. Given the frosty relations between the Rose Bowl and the other three BCS bowls, the folks at Fiesta headquarters in Tempe would probably prefer to smell like something else. But however one chooses to put it, the Fiesta is among the clear winners under the agreement reportedly hammered out Wednesday among Division I-A commissioners.
Many details of the new BCS, including payouts and the formula that will be used to determine pairings, still must be addressed. But under the broad terms of the deal, which will be formally unveiled today, the Fiesta would play host to the national title game once every four years in addition to its regular bowl game. Major-college football's latest postseason scheme will take effect after the 2006 regular season.
Insiders are calling this format "double hosting." The Fiesta is calling it a gift from the college football gods.
"When you're talking about adding an opportunity to host another game, we're all over that," Fiesta President John Junker said. "We'd host a bowl every week if we could. That's what we do."
The deal will allow the Fiesta to maintain its hard-earned position as one of the nation's elite bowls. That position seemed in jeopardy Feb. 29, when Division I-A presidents decreed that the lucrative BCS had to make room for such outsiders as the Mountain West and Mid-American Conferences. One way to improve access for the TCUs and Toledos: Add a fifth bowl to the rotation. That set the stage for the Peach or Gator Bowl to elbow in on the Fiesta's turf.
The damage to the Fiesta, while hard to estimate, could have included fewer sponsorship dollars and slackened ticket sales.
Fortunately for the Fiesta Bowl, the presidents said that the market had to support a fifth bowl. After a half-hearted effort to find that market, BCS honchos let the plan die quick.
That left the BCS pretty much where it started - with its four original bowl partners hosting a total of five games, the fifth to rotate among the sites.
For Valley football fans, the good news is that every fourth year will bring an opportunity to watch two elite bowl games in one week - and the second one will determine the national champion. If the plan had been in effect last season, the Fiesta might have staged Ohio State-Kansas State on Jan. 2 and Louisiana State-Oklahoma on Jan. 9.
Steve Moore, chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the second BCS game could entice tourists to stay longer in the Valley.
"People may prefer to come down and spend their vacation and watch two games," Moore said. "You might have someone stay eight or nine days. It's the greatest weather of the year."
And the bad news?
Try Boise State-Texas A&M. The Fiesta could be stuck with that uninspiring matchup, or ones like it, because it will be required to provide access to non-BCS conferences. The Rose Bowl was able to use its clout to maintain its traditional Big Ten-Pac-10 matchup except in years when one of those leagues puts a team in the title game, which has happened once in the BCS' first six years.
The upshot is that the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls will bear most of the burden of accommodating the non-BCS teams, who tend to have small fan followings and little TV appeal. Junker isn't thrilled about that part.
"Over a four-year period, to say that our enterprises in Miami, New Orleans and Phoenix hold exclusive responsibility for access doesn't seem to be in the spirit of any agreement," he said.
But the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar had to go along because they have no real leverage. The Rose, by contrast, leaned on more than a half-century of tradition with the Big Ten and Pac-10, a pairing that has produced vast New Year's Day television audiences. That gave the Rose leverage as it opens negotiations on a new ABC contract Friday.
This isn't a perfect deal for college football fans who want a playoff system, or at least a revised BCS that inches closer to one. It's also not a perfect deal for the Fiesta Bowl. But it's better than anyone there could have imagined in February. At the very least, a second BCS game would provide another boost to winter tourism, Junker said, which traditionally kicks off with the Fiesta Bowl when the weather here is balmy and warm.
"Our games hit at the perfect time for the Valley," he said. "What a great time to be on national TV."
Staff reporter Craig Harris contributed to this report.
BREAKING DOWN BCS PROPOSAL
Positives:
• Integrity of the regular season: College football is one of the few sports whose regular season matters. Games in September will still have an impact on the national title chase.
• Income: Increased payouts will be welcomed on campuses squeezed by rising costs of travel, coaches salaries and Title IX demands.
• Improved access: Leagues such as the Mountain West, Western Athletic and Mid-American conferences have long insisted that they can compete with the big boys. Now they'll have a chance to prove it, although they'll still have to earn their way.
Negatives:
• Oddball matchups: It's an unavoidable cost of providing access to lesser leagues. Or maybe you want to see Hawaii-Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl.
• Odd man out: Although the BCS has been working to simplify and improve its ranking formula, it still can't figure out a way to give three once-beaten teams a shot at the national title. Expect more controversy as teams clamor for a slot in the national title game.
• Odd names: What are they going to call the title game? For example, in the year that it's played in Glendale, it can't be called the Fiesta Bowl, because the Fiesta Bowl would have been played a week earlier. Think corporate sponsor. Think GEICO Bowl.
• Logistics: How will one city host two major bowls within a week of each other?
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