The BCS muddle

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BCS_LogoFOX.jpgThe Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins is the daughter of my all-time favorite sportswriter, Dan Jenkins, and an insightful sportswriter in her own right. In this column, she eviscerates the Bowl Championship Series and everything it stands for in classic Jenkins family style:

Try to find some legitimacy in the Bowl Championship Series. Go ahead, try. Exert all of your ability, industry and intelligence toward the task. You can’t do it. The fact of the matter is that the treasure called the college football postseason has become buried beneath corporate scams. All you need to know is that the Fiesta Bowl has a CEO. His name is John Junker, and when he testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last year in defense of the BCS, he actually called the bowl games “independent business units” and referred to universities as “customers.”
When a sports organization is more concerned with revenue distribution than with fair competition, it is asking for problems.

The BCS system is the natural outgrowth of corrupt big-time college athletics, a subject examined in previous posts here, here, here, here and here. The good news is that the market forces of big-time college athletics are pushing the system toward change as the relative few universities that make money off of their football and basketball programs likely will likely gravitate in a few years into a collection of “super conferences” similar to the divisions of the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. The bad news is that many of the traditional rivalries of college football and basketball will be lost in the process.
Is the money worth that?

2006 Weekly local football review

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Aldrige Leading the Band.jpg
Houston Cougars 34 Southern Miss 20

The Cougars (10-3, 8-1) won their first Conference USA football championship in ten years with a Friday night win over Southern Miss (8-5, 7-3) before a raucous crowd of 32,000 at Robertson Stadium on the UH campus (that’s star RB/WR Anthony Alridge conducting the UH band during the post-game celebration). After a seesaw first half, the Coogs blew a chance of taking the halftime lead when time expired with UH at the Southern Miss two-yard line. But the Cougars regrouped and dominated the second half to pull out the win. The offensive stars were QB Kevin Kolb and WR Vincent Marshall, but the unsung heroes of the game were the UH defensive players, who limited Southern Miss to 122 yards total offense in the 2nd half. The Cougars will play Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina (7-5,3-5) from the Southeastern Conference in the Liberty Bowl on Friday, December 29th at 3:30 pm on ESPN HD.

Texans 23 Raiders 14

In a game that set back offensive football to before the invention of the forward pass, the Texans (4-9) defense played well and forced five turnovers to pull out a win despite the fact that the Texans’ offense managed only 122 yards total offense. The Raiders offense was horrifying, scoring just one TD while fumbling three times, missing three field goals, and allowing five sacks to go with two interceptions. Except for the turnovers, the Texans were worse as overwhelmed Texans QB David Carr finished 7-of-14 for 32 yards and did not complete a pass in the final 32 minutes. Inasmuch as Carr was sacked five times for 37 yards, the Texans finished the game -5 yards passing, which is not going to do much for Carr’s QB rating.

Despite Carr’s abysmal showing, the primary problem with passing game continues to be the complete breakdown of the Texans’ pass protection. Neither of the Texans offensive tackles were even slowing down the Raiders’ defensive ends as they rushed Carr, so the Texans QBr barely had time to drop back, much less survey the field and throw a competent pass. The Texans play the suddenly hot Titans (5-7) next Sunday at Reliant Stadium in Vince Young Bowl II, and then visit New England the next weekend before ending the season at home against the Colts (10-2) and the Browns (4-8). Getting one win in those final four games is possible, but certainly not likely for a team as bad as the Texans. So, my pre-season prediction of six wins for the Texans is looking like a loser.

Rice is bowl bound

Finally, congratulations to the Rice Owls (7-5,5-2) as they accepted an invitation to play in their first bowl game since 1961, the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl at the Louisiana Superdome on Friday, Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. The Owls opponent will be Sunbelt Conference champ Troy (7-5, 6-1), which was blown out only once this season (56-0 at Nebraska) and played tough (losing 24-17) at Florida State early in the season (the Seminoles beat the Owls 55-7 two weeks later). The bowl game will be televised on ESPN2 HD.

By the way, most Houstonians (and most of the nation, for that matter) will not be able to watch Rutgers play Kansas State in the Texas Bowl at Reliant Stadium on the evening of December 28th or Texas Tech play Minnesota in the Insight Bowl on the evening of December 29th. Both games are being televised by the NFL Network, which — as noted in these prior posts — the NFL owners are withholding from most viewers who receive their television through cable companies. What holiday spirit those NFL owners have!

Why don’t you tell us what you really think?

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baker120306.jpgThe NRO Corner‘s John Podhoretz in this NY Daily News op-ed makes clear that he is not buying into that whole “elder statesman” thing that the NY Times reported last week regarding James Baker, III’s co-chairmanship of the Iraq Study Group:

As Dana Milbank reports in The Washington Post, on Monday the [Iraq Study Group’s] “co-chairmen, James Baker and Lee Hamilton, found time . . . to pose for an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for Men’s Vogue.”[. . .]
Baker, Hamilton and their crew of old Washington hands (and I mean old, like Metheuselah-level old) are recommending a “gradual pullback” of American troops but without a timetable. That basically translates into a nice, long, slow defeat – the “graceful exit” of which the president spoke so harshly.[. . .]
This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.

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Divided over powerful government

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smithgoestowashington.jpgThe late Milton Friedman commented recently that he had concluded that the best political make-up for the federal government was one that had the greatest likelihood to develop gridlock because of the damaging policies that the government enacts when one party or the other controls both the legislative and executive branches. In this TCS Daily op-ed, Arnold Kling of EconLog channels that thought:

The conventional wisdom is that we would be better off if politically powerful leaders were less mediocre. Instead, my view is that we would be better off if mediocre political leaders were less powerful. [. . .]
We have to expect mediocrity from political leaders. They are selected by a very unreliable process. In general, I try to avoid contact with narcissists who spend their time pleading for money. Those are hardly the intellectual and emotional characteristics that make someone admirable, yet they are the traits of people who go into politics. [. . .]
The libertarian view is that private institutions, both for-profit and non-profit, are better at problem-solving than government institutions. Regardless of whether political leadership is wise or mediocre, our goal should be to limit the damage that public officials can do. Do not demand that they “solve” health care, “fix” education, or launch a “Manhattan project” for energy independence. Even for experts, those are impossible tasks. The harder we press our existing leaders to address these issues, the more trouble they are going to cause.
The belief that the problem with government is the particular individuals in power is dangerous. The myth is that somewhere out there we could find great leaders who could use government to solve all of our problems. Instead, we need to be vigilant against the enlargement of government, by either mediocre or expert leaders.
Do not look upon the electoral process as a search for great leaders. At best, it gives us an opportunity for damage control.

Benny Hinn has a deal for you

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benny-hinn-website.jpgThe last time we checked in on televangelist Benny Hinn, he was having a snit with the Nigerian hosts for one of his crusades and fighting with the IRS. Recently, Hinn has been in the news again as the subject of this NBC Dateline piece regarding Hinn’s rather lavish lifestyle and tastes that are, might we say, a tad alien to Christ’s message of sacrificial atonement upon which his business, . . uh, I mean, “ministry” is based.
A $10-million, 7,000 sq. ft. home, $112,000 per month for a private jet, a couple of $80,000 cars, luxury hotel rooms that are 5,400 sq. ft. at $10,800 per night for a “layover.” At least Hinn is generous with his tips, which totaled over $4,500 during a recent three-day period. A salary of half a million to a million dollars per year–plus book royalties. Business, . . . er, I mean the ministry is good, eh?
At any rate, Hinn has now decided that the lease payments for his corporate jet are a tad steep, so he wants to acquire a corporate jet, which he has already named “Dove One.” Hinn is ramping up his money-raising machinery to pay for his new toy, and for a mere $1,000 “donation,” here’s what Hinn promises:

You will receive a beautiful art-quality model of Dove One for your desk or mantle as a constant reminder that you are a vital part of this last-days harvest for souls.
Your name will be placed prominently in a special area of Dove One where I study and pray during my travels, where I will also pray for you and your family as I go around the world preaching the Gospel. Everywhere I fly, your name will travel with me, millions of miles and for years to come, reminding me that you have made it possible for me to go and preach as God has called me to do.

What a deal! ;^)

The Delta Center becomes the Melta Center

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HMMPCover.gifNaming rights deals on stadiums and arenas are notoriously speculative ventures, and sometimes the naming itself becomes rather odd. Inasmuch as debtors in bankruptcy such as Delta Airlines don’t normally renew naming rights deals, a nuclear waste company has bought the naming rights for what was formerly known as the Utah Jazz’s Delta Center, prompting local wags to propose nicknames such as Glow Bowl, the Isotope, the ChernoBowl, the Tox Box, and the Melta Center.
Of course, the Times story can’t report on this development without reminding us of Houston’s naming rights fiasco:

Radioactivity is quite new to naming rights, unless you count the brief time before Minute Maid replaced Enron as the name of the Houston Astrosí ballpark.

By the way, this Forbes slideshow (related article here) reviews the ten largest naming rights deals, which is led by another Houston deal.

Ida Mae consoles the Horns after the A&M loss

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Elgin, TX.gifAfter you get done playing a game of Teasip Bingo, take a moment to read this report on the Texas Longhorns’ tough loss to the Texas Aggies by longtime Horns fan Ida Mae Crimpton, who writes regular reports on her beloved Horns from her perch in Elgin just east of Austin. Here’s a part of what Ida Mae had to say about the Horns’ most recent tough loss:

With Colt coming back off of his injury and since we were just playing the Aggies, no one really seriously thought that there was a possibility that we could lose. But when the game was finally over and we’d lost, a funny thing happened; Mack didn’t seem to be too bothered. He went to midfield, shook coach Frangipani’s hand and then led the team back to the locker room. Coach Chizik told Earl what happened next. Mack gave the guys a post game talk like he usually did but this one was different because of what he talked about. He told the guys not to worry too much about losing because there were other things more important than winning, like God, family, the Gross National Product, the danger posed by international communism, and erosion (which, if you stop to think about it, really is a problem in some areas of south Texas). Well, needless to say, there were more than one set of eyes rolling around that room as everybody tried to figure out what the heck the coach was talking about. Then, Mack told the whole team that they were invited to his house for cherry cheesecake and Frescas, which sent Sally into a panic when she heard about it because they didn’t have any cherry cheesecake in the house and if the team did come over they’d just have to settle for Nabisco Honey Grahams with canned cake frosting (one of Mack’s favorite snacks). But after Mack left, coach Chizik spoke to the team and told them that it probably wouldn’t be a good night to drop by Mack’s house and that maybe they could take a rain check.

Read the entire hilarious piece, and also Ida Mae’s other priceless reports on the Horns’ season, particularly this priceless report on the Horns’ recent loss to Kansas State.
You gotta love football in Texas.

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation Report

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regulation.gifAs expected, the report of the Committee on Capital Market Regulation issued today is calling for represents arguably the most high-profile effort to date to present in the public forum the case that excessive business regulation — much of it an overreaction to the corporate scandals of the post-stock market bubble period earlier this decade — is stifling public securities markets and causing the U.S. markets to lose business to foreign competitors. A copy of the 148-page report can be downloaded here.
Most notably, as Larry Ribstein explains in more detail here, the report suggests that the premium for listing on both United States and a foreign market for foreign companies has dropped dramatically since 2002. Shares of a foreign company are generally worth more if they are listed both on U.S. markets as well as their home markets because — at least in theory — investors will pay more for the stock due to the additional confidence provided under the United States regulatory system. The report finds that the cross-listing premium has declined for companies also listed in countries with sophisticated markets and less onerous corporate governance controls, such as Hong Kong, Japan, and England, and that the premium has remained steady or increased only in regard to companies cross-listing from countries with questionable controls, such as Italy, Brazil and Turkey. Thus, the clear implication is that the U.S. is losing its previous competitive edge in securities markets to countries with sophisticated securities markets and less onerous corporate governance regulations.
The committee is directed by Harvard law professor Hal Scott and is co-chaired by former White House adviser Glenn Hubbard, now dean of Columbia University’s business school, and John Thornton, former president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and now chairman of the Brookings Institution. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to welcome the report as he is already publicly advocating many of its recommendations and recently called for a broad re-examination of business regulations and laws.
The report’s theme is that a change in regulatory philosophy is necessary to preserve the viability of U.S. securities markets. The revised philosophy is one based more on general principles than rules, similar to England’s Financial Services Authority, which uses principles-based regulation and oversees all British financial firms, in comparison with the U.S.’s web of federal and state banking and securities regulators. The report recommends generally that the SEC act more like federal banking regulators and concentrate more on the underlying soundness of the financial markets and less on individual acts of wrongdoing “with less publicity surrounding enforcement actions,” a clear jab at the public relations campaigns that prosecutors have mounted over the past several years to demonize businesspersons.
The report makes 32 specific recommendations, six or which pertain to easing the application of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act governing internal company-financial controls that are absurdly expensive for most businesses to implement. Other recommendations call for setting a higher bar for regulators or private litigants to sue outside auditors, independent directors and company employees, and also recommends that Congress cap auditors’ liabilities.

Hugo Chavez’s odd charitable venture

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citgo113006.jpgThis OpinionJournal editorial reviews the rather odd arrangement under which Houston-based energy company Citgo — which is controlled by the Socialist Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez — supplies home heating oil to former Democratic Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, II’s Citizens Energy Corporation at a 40% discount. The nonprofit Citizens passes the savings onto the poor and contends that it helps 400,000 homes in 16 states that would otherwise have trouble heating their homes.
The OpinionJournal piece scours Kennedy for playing nice with Chavez, but the article fails to mention the oddest aspect of this supposed charitable venture. The poorest of the U.S. citizens who will receive the discounted price on the home heating fuel that Citgo sells to Citizens are far wealthier than the poor people of Venezuela, four out of 10 of whom survive on $2 a day or less. How does it make sense for Chavez and Kennedy to sell oil at a 40% discount to people in the U.S. who are far richer than Chavez’s constituents in Venezuela? Sort of sounds like taking from the poor to give to the not-as-poor to me.
By the way, as noted in this earlier post, don’t worry too much about Chavez cutting off Venezuelan energy supplies to the U.S. We’ll be just fine without them.

It’s Texas high school football playoff time

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refugio.jpgThe Texas High School Football Playoffs are taking place all across Texas right now, and there is no better way to get a good dose of Texas culture than to take in a game or two.
The video below is an example of what can happen in the Texas high school playoffs as Plano East mounts a furious comeback from a 42-17 deficit with 2:42 left in a 1994 playoff game against John Tyler High School. It’s an incredible video, spiced by the absolutely hilarious commentary from a couple of good ol’ boy announcers. Make sure you watch the entire video, though, because there is a surprise ending.
By the way, the town of Refugio (see name on the jersey in the picture above) is pronounced “Ruh-fur-rio” in Texas.