Hands off the BCS, Congress

Barton believes in limited government, but not so limited that it cannot right outrageous wrongs, such as the absence of a playoff. Bipartisanship lives: Barack Obama, who wants to fix everything — health care, the climate, the pothole on your street, college football — also wants a playoff.

“They keep trying to tinker with the current system,” Barton says, “and to me it’s like — and I don’t mean this directly — it’s like communism. You can’t fix it.” He would toss the BCS into the ashcan of history where, arguably, it belongs. “It is,” he says, “simply a cartel, much like OPEC.” It uses an “arbitrary computer system” and “complicated algorithms” to determine who gets to play in the “mythical championship game.” He has a point…

The BCS has effectively created a two-tier bowl system — the big four bowls plus the national championship game, with their gigantic television contracts, and the 29 much less profitable bowls — which is unfair. It also is none of Congress’s business.

Barton’s bill makes the usual perfunctory nod to the Constitution, finding that college teams travel in interstate commerce and college games “involve and affect” such commerce and therefore — the usual non sequitur — it is fine for Congress to meddle.