Tag: "NCAA football"

The Well-Functioning Bowl System

The college football bowl system, a cabal controlling the sport, sure does function effectively. Take the Hawaii Bowl, played on Christmas Eve and this year featuring Nevada and Southern Mississippi:

As of Thursday afternoon, Nevada had sold just 10 tickets through phone sales, but had distributed about 600 because pass-list tickets count in tickets distributed. The Hawaii Bowl, mostly because of its annual Christmas Eve date, has historically not been a well-attended game by fans of mainland teams. In 2009, there were about 150-200 Wolf Pack fans at the Hawaii Bowl.

10 tickets sold!!!!!!!!!!!

Surely fans of the Golden Eagles are ready to fly to paradise to see their team play the Wolfpack:

Brandon’s Rick Deaton said he had at least 16 friends ready to make the trip had the Golden Eagles been headed to bowl games in Dallas or Memphis.

“I think it was the wrong choice with all the positive momentum the program had going. Twenty thousand-plus (fans) would have gone to Dallas, but only a couple hundred are going to Hawaii,” he said.

Teresa Smith of Pro Travel Agency in Hattiesburg said last week that only a handful of flights have been booked through her agency.

“We’ve been receiving a lot of phone calls from people interested in going,” she said. “We’ve made reservations for a handful because the price of an airline flight ranges from $1,500 to $2,000 alone.”

Only $1500 before the game ticket and hotel and food. What a great deal!

Remind me why this game exists again. Teams going to the big bowl games make some money on it. Mid-tier bowl teams more or less break even. At this level though, the schools usually lose money on the game. I think it’s important to reward teams with winning records, but sending them 5,000 miles away and ensuring that no one watches the game and the schools get fleeced for their trouble, well, why?

I’m a huge proponent of the playoff system. In fact, I’d like to see a 32 team playoff. That is a lot of extra games for the winning teams, but you could make up for some of that by returning to the 11 game season. Seed the teams 1-32 and higher seed gets the home game until the final. Imagine the excitement this would create. It would be as big as March Madness.

Of course, teams like Nevada and Southern Mississippi aren’t often going to get to the final 32 unless they win their conference. Though this year, Southern Miss might have edged in. But it’s better for all involved to get these teams a reward that makes sense for the school and its fans. Maybe some sort of NIT-like tournament involving 8 or 12 teams that couldn’t quite make the cut. Maybe keep some sort of bowl game but ensure that it is close enough to the school so fans can attend.

The system as it stands though is completely ridiculous.

Via SB Nation

University of Miami Football, Basically Finished Forever

This very detailed and well-researched Yahoo expose of Miami Hurricanes football should only bury them for the next several decades:

A University of Miami booster, incarcerated for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, has told Yahoo! Sports he provided thousands of impermissible benefits to at least 72 athletes from 2002 through 2010.

In 100 hours of jailhouse interviews during Yahoo! Sports’ 11-month investigation, Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro described a sustained, eight-year run of rampant NCAA rule-breaking, some of it with the knowledge or direct participation of at least seven coaches from the Miami football and basketball programs. At a cost that Shapiro estimates in the millions of dollars, he said his benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.

• Prostitution: Shapiro named 39 Miami players or prospective recruits who he says received prostitution paid for by the booster. Due to the sensitivity of the claims, Yahoo! Sports has chosen not to reveal the names of the players Shapiro claims were involved. However, two players confirmed the booster paid for sexual favors for themselves and others during their careers with the Hurricanes.

As for Shapiro, he said his role in arranging for prostitutes encountered various cosmetic changes over time. From 2002 to 2003, the booster said he used a handful of hotels to either make the services of prostitutes available to individual players, or throw “parties” where services were made available to multiple players. The booster said he would use connections with escorts or at local strip clubs to arrange for the availability of women.

In individual situations, he would set up a player with a hotel room and have a woman sent to their location. In group settings, Shapiro said he would use the Mercury Hotel in South Beach, where he would purchase multiple rooms where array of women would be made available to a large group of players. The rooms were typically registered under the alias “Teddy Dupay” – a reference to the former University of Florida point guard whose 5-foot-9 stature and features were similar to the 5-foot-5 Shapiro.

Shapiro described one such party in graphic detail, taking place at the Mercury Hotel during Miami’s off-week in September of 2002 and featuring multiple women hired to have sex with players. The booster said he rented out several suites on a single night and entertained a handful of Hurricanes players.

Wow. We all know the world of big-time college athletics is corrupt beyond belief. But I’ve never read anything that exposes the dark underbelly so thoroughly.

Moreover, the compliance officer at Miami at the time was the same individual most responsible for USC’s harsh probation in the Reggie Bush case.

So basically Miami is screwed beyond all belief.

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