WASHINGTON, DC — May 24 , 2010 — Alan Fishel is an attorney at Arent Fox and counsel to several parties impacted by the BCS. Mr. Fishel, who is providing his own views here, states as follows:

“The BCS has recently revealed certain information regarding how the system operates, which I believe highlights just a few of the many significant concerns with the current scheme. But there is far more that needs to be publicly understood about the BCS, both with respect to revenue and access. The revenue discrimination chart attached is meant to begin the process of shining light on what is occurring, and will continue to occur, under the BCS unless there are significant changes.

Some BCS proponents claim that the justification for the extensive revenue discrimination inherent in the BCS system is that all of the automatic qualifying conference champions are better, and that their bowl games will be more popular, than that of the champions from conferences such as the Mountain West and the WAC. But the facts tell a far different story. As the chart proves, in the last four years the major bowl games involving the Mountain West and WAC teams on average have had higher television ratings and larger game attendance than the major bowl games involving two of the automatic qualifying conferences, the ACC and the Big East. Additionally, the Mountain West and WAC teams playing in such games were on average higher ranked than the teams from the ACC and Big East playing in such games. Yet the the Mountain West and WAC have received for their participation in such games only about half of the revenue received by the ACC and Big East for their participation. While the chart and this statement explaining the chart reference the ACC and the Big East by name, this is not done to disparage those fine conferences, but simply to show one of the many ways in which this scheme operates to the detriment of other excellent universities.

Also, contrary to the BCS' recent claims regarding the Mountain West, the Mountain West did not voluntarily forego retaining revenue that it received under this system. In the coming weeks, we will be providing further details regarding why my colleagues and I believe the BCS scheme violates U.S. law and harms universities, student-athletes and the public.”

To view the Revenue Discrimination Chart, please click here.

To schedule an interview with Mr. Fishel, please contact him at:

Alan G. Fishel
fishel.alan@arentfox.com
202.857.6450