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The BCS and the Sherman Anti Trust ActThe BCS or the Bowl Championship Series was developed for the purpose of identifying a true national champion in division 1 college football. This system creates a matchup of five bowl games for the top ten ranked Division I NCAA college football subdivision. The system takes the top ranked teams from the six BCS conferences. In addition to those six four others are selected from the other non BCS conferences and three independent schools. No more than two teams from any conference will be selected to participate in a bowl game. Some of the main controversial points against the BCS are where they come up with the pairings and choose its national champions. Many people criticize the methods that the BCS uses to determine the rankings as well, where as there are many undefeated teams in the nation that are never given the opportunity to compete in the national championship game. Since 2001 there have been multiple teams that were better candidates to compete in the BCS championship game than were chosen, based on their overall performance over the year and win vs. loss ratio. In 2004 Both Auburn and the University of Utah had undefeated seasons and neither was chosen to play in the BCS championship game. The University of Utah was voted to play in the fiesta bowl against Pittsburg, where they defeated them with a score of 35-7. Auburn was chosen to play Virginia Tech where they won with a score of 16-13. Once again in 2008 the University of Utah went undefeated, Beating Alabama who was ranked number four in the BCS ranking system in the Sugar Bowl 37-17. The University of Utah was ranked number two in the nation at the very end of the season. Utah was the only undefeated team in the Nation in the 2008 season as well; two one loss teams were chosen to play instead. There is a lot of opposition to the BCS in the United States Government regarding the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. “In the 2010-2011 bowl season, for example, the six automatic-qualifier (AQ) conferences were given $145.2 million in revenue from the BCS while the five non-AQ conferences received only $24.7 million”. Following the University of Utah’s victory over Alabama in 2009, Utah’s Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced his investigation into whether or not the BCS was in violation of any anti-trust laws, stating that “More than half the schools are put on an unlevel playing field that they will never be allowed to play for a national championship”. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch also stated he was looking into a potential lawsuit against the BCS as a possible monopoly under the Sherman Anti Trust Act. The Sherman Anti Trust Act was passed in 1890, requiring the US government to investigate any organization or company suspected of a monopoly regulating interstate commerce. The BCS is under investigation due to the fact that it has six conferences that are favored over other conferences and given automatic berths to bowl games and receive at least 18 million dollars in revenue each season, where all other non BCS conferences are offered a much smaller amount of money. There have been many occurrences of BCS conference teams using money earned from the BCS bowls for actions that are illegal under the regulations of the NCAA. Multiple teams have lost titles and game victories due to these acts. Under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act this seems to be in violation of the “Rule of Reason”, due to the funding of these specific schools gives more money to them to be able to afford better programs and continue to grow where the non BCS conference schools are not given the same funds to allow them to grow as rapidly. Section 2 of the Sherman Act talks about companies that artificially set the price for a specific service, or goods, which correlates with the funding the BCS conference schools get versus the non BCS conference schools. Section 4 of the Sherman Anti-Trust act states that “District attorneys of the United States, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney-General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations. Such proceedings may be by way of petition setting forth the case and praying that such violation shall be enjoined or otherwise prohibited.” June 29th 2011 Utah’s Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said “he has begun the process of selecting his legal team to investigate them and possibly sue the Bowl Championship Series” Saying “there are serious anti-trust violations in the BCS system, which is used to crown a national champion in college football”. “The antitrust division of the United States Justice Department has announced its plans to meet with the BCS to understand how it operates”.The BCS have been accused on many occasions for promoting the BCS system because both they and their BCS executives have a high financial benefit from it. Many employees are paid much higher salaries for a non-profit organization. They use this money for bribing both politicians and sports directors and executives with gifts. Since 2008 there have been multiple political figures that have stated opposition to the BCS, and that they would rather the NCAA have a play-off tournament among the conference champions. In 2008 Barrack Obama said “"I think it is about time we had playoffs I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams -- the top eight team’s right at the end. You got a playoff". ................
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