Republicans for Big Government

On the day the barbarians sacked Rome, the Roman Senate was holding a hearing demanding that Flavius, the owner of the Colieseum, hold play offs among the gladiators before declaring one of them the champion.

This is about a Republican politician trying to reform the BCS formula, which supposedly violates anti trust laws and benefits a handful of powerhouse conferences. A playoff system is probably more closer to the free market than the beauracratically determined BCS system.

Whatever happens to the BCS isn't likely to affect Americans outside of the football faithful. I don't see how John sees this as an example of government intrusion on our lives.

The only difference between the parties is that Republicans are only as statist as they need to be to win and Democrats only support individual freedom as much as they need to to win.

The problem we have isn't with the politicians; it's the voters.

Thank you, John, for doing so much to educate voters so that they can make better decisions.

Truly, nothing is off limits to legislators who write unconstitutional laws and judges who are willing to enforce them.

Constitution nothing!! The extent of their power knows no bounds.

Ask any politician of either party about the 10th amendment. They will either be ignorant of it or in denial of what it clearly says.

Very disappointing. ;-(

Why will congressmen spend five minutes approving a $100 billion regulatory change, but spend weeks regulating college footbal?

Answer: They believe they know something about football, and it is frustrating to wield their power on a stream of things they don't understand or care much about.

Come on Stossel, this was about the worst example of GOP "intrusiveness" you could have highlighted. The playoff idea is the most equitable and "free market" solution to this problem and why not let the controllers of the Federal dollars to many of these schools take a stand on this issue. Who else will? Who else with any clout *is*?!

I am no big football fan, but I have to agree with "Stossel fan," there have been many instances in the last few years leading to the obvious need to question the BCS National Championship selection system. The BCS seems to favor the major conferences and means a lot of money and prestige for those to whom it does favor.

Many outstanding teams with great records have been left out of BCS National Championship games: USC (2003), Auburn (2004), the Boise State Broncos (2006), as well as the University of Utah (2008). It is not just the BCS, it is the whole voting system for ranking and assigning all the bowl games.

When you think about it, Senator Orrin Hatch, from the home of the many times passed over University of Utah, seems the most natural choice to push this issue of unfair BCS System practices.

When in doubt, look to Ron Paul.

Life is not fair. It never will be and you cannot regulate fairness in peoples everyday lives. But when it comes to sports we can do our best to level the playing field.

I look at sports as a grown up version of playing a boardgame. In the game monopoly everyone starts out with the same amount of money and at the same starting position. If someone was to start the game with more money than another player then it could never be considered fair and monopoly wouldn't have been too fun of a game.

There is a reason that the NFL is the biggest and best of all the major sports today. Because of the salary cap that they impose fans in Green bay and Kansas City actually have hope of competing year in and year out. The only teams that suck every year(Lions) are because the leadership in the organisation sucks. In baseball the Pirates, Royals, and Reds have to put together a team with 30 million dollars while the top clubs easily spend twice that and in many cases much more.

I hate overregulation as much as the next guy in our day to day lives. But the sports we grew up loving are not real life. The are a giant boardgame. Set the rules of the game first. make sure everyone plays by them and then let the best teams(Front office, coaches and players) win.

P.S. If the NFL goes into a salary cap free year in 2010, people are going to see the NFL go teh way of baseball. The Giants, Bears, Cowboys, Jets will outspend the crap out of the Packers, Seahawks, Chiefs and Vikings. It will be no fun at all

So Green Bay and Kansas have a "right" to compete. Got it.

How does the BCS/Anti-trust issue affect the common person? Here's how. A lot of colleges get tax exempt status. Now, if the colleges are found to be in violation of anti-trust laws, they could lose that exempt status, be forced to pay taxes and then that would be more money that would go in gov't coffers.

People who are against the gov't getting involved in this aren't seeing the BIG picture. Take off the blinders, think outside the box or your narrow scope of view and then you'll see how this affects you.

I completely agree of course, but on the other hand, I would prefer that they sit around arguing about the BCS format rather than destroy our economy with trillion dollar stimulus and health care packages.