Antitrust Law

Arent Fox Sends Report on BCS Exclusions to US Justice Department

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Is the Bowl Championship Series unfairly excluding teams that don’t play in the right conferences in violation of the antitrust laws?

A report by Arent Fox forwarded to the Justice Department this past week contends the answer is yes, reports Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins. According to Jenkins, the DOJ is conducting an ongoing antitrust review of the bowl scheme.

Arent Fox represents Boise State and the Mountain West Conference. According to the story, Boise State lost just once but it was left out of all the major bowls. Nine others that were undefeated since 2004 didn’t get a chance to play for the national championship either.

Jenkins opines that the championship ought to be known as the BS Bowl. “It’s a system in which fraternal preference trumps excellence, and a half-dozen elites control the market, the profits and the access, via a double-super-secret poll formula that no one can understand without a special decoder ring,” she writes.

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