Justice Department considers probe into BCS

In a letter to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch said that the Justice Department will consider looking into whether the controversial Bowl Championship Series for college football violates U.S. antitrust laws. The BCS, which hosts five bowl games at the end of each college football season to determine the national champion, has come under considerable scrutiny recently for the way it selects teams for its bowl games. The champion of each of the six major conferences gets an automatic berth regardless of national ranking, which puts the schools that aren't in these conferences at a disadvantage. Hatch first proposed such an investigation a year ago after the University of Utah's football team went undefeated but still did not have a chance to play for the national championship. The BCS could be considered a trust because it has a "monopoly" over the five major bowl games and because it gives an unfair advantage to teams from the six major conferences. Says Hatch, "The current system runs counter to basic fairness that every family tries to instill in their children from the day they are born." Hmm ... family values...sounds like a Utah Senator to me. On a more serious note, I agree that the BCS is its acronym without the C, but this should not be a national issue now. Our country has much more important issues to deal with (i.e. health care, the economy, etc) than to waste the time of the Justice Department in looking into the legality of an institution associated with a game. The last thing the government needs is to get involved in some trivial aspect of entertainment. Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/30/obama.college.football/index.html?hpt=Sbin.