FOX out of BCS hunt…Obama on playoff
November 17th, 2008, 5:40 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Josh Weinfuss
A day after President-elect Barack Obama said he would work for a college football playoff as president, FOX Sports announced it won’t be televising the BCS games starting in 2011.
FOX will not match ESPN’s offer, which has been reported to be in the $500 million range for the rights to broadcast the Orange, Sugar and Fiesta bowls, and the Rose Bowl when it’s the national championship from 2011-2014. The most FOX reportedly said it would offer was about $408 million.
The Rose Bowl Game will continue to be televised by ABC Sports until 2014, when that contract expires.
“Even with today’s vast economic uncertainties, FOX Sports made a very competitive bid to keep broad-casting BCS games free to every home in America, one that included a substantial rights fee increase, and certainly as much as any over-the-air network could responsibly risk,” according to a FOX statement. “Un-fortunately the university presidents and BCS commissioners were not satisfied and they’ve decided to take their jewel events to pay television. We wish everyone well.”
The BCS will be on cable for the first time in its 10-year history.
During an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Obama repeated his desire for a playoff to be im-plemented in college football.
“I think any sensible person would say that if you got a bunch of teams who played throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear, decisive winner, that we should be creating a playoff system,” Obama said.
He suggested to shorten the regular season by a game or two and include eight teams in a three-round tournament.
Earlier this year, three congressmen wanted the BCS to be investigated by the Justice Department’s anti-trust division for a violation of federal law. They said it’s an “illegal restriction on trade because only the largest universities compete in most of the major bowl games,” thus taking most of the millions of dollars that should be available to smaller schools.
Obama originally expressed his desire for a college football playoff during an interview at halftime of ESPN’s Monday Night Football on the eve of the election.
“I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this,” Obama said. “So, I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”
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