Bowl Games and the Sad State of Presidential Politics

Best Wishes For a Happy, Healthy and Successful 2015 !                                                                         
                   
                            
Bowl Game Thoughts
This year, there were 39 post-season bowl games scheduled, involving 76 college football teams. There are only about 125 FBS (1A) major college football teams from which the bowls pick their teams.  They are eligible for selection if they have won six games during the season.  If FBS teams played only FBS teams, this would be a mathematical impossibility, but many FBS teams include games with a “lower level” FCS (1AA) team, which usually is an automatic victory counted toward the six needed for bowl eligibility. 

For example, Western Carolina University, a FCS (1AA) school, was included on the schedules of two FBS teams this year, South Florida University and the University of Alabama.  Of course, they lost both games. FCS Howard University similarly appears on the FBS Rutgers schedule each year and gets trounced.  Michigan, a few years ago actually lost to FCS Appalachin State in an astounding upset.

Attendance at most of these 39 bowl games is sparse. Of course, the major bowls like the Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange, and perhaps half a dozen others sell out, but most do not. Usually, there are rows upon rows of empty seats shown on TV every time a punt or kickoff is followed through the air by the camera. Unless a local team is involved, fans do not travel, no matter how interesting the match-up may be.  The Boca Raton Bowl, pitting ConferenceUSA champion Marshall against the MAC champion, Northern Illinois, only half-way filled 30,000 seat FAU Stadium.  And similarly, Miami and South Carolina played to a half-empty house in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, LA.    Their bulk of the revenue from bowl games comes from television rights, which usually cover the teams’ expenses, the cost of running the event and little more.  Whatever hotel rooms and restaurant patronage comes from the games is a bonus for the sponsoring community.

Note the empty seats as the Marshall quarterback passes in the Boca Raton Bowl 

It would be far simpler if ESPN (which broadcasts most of these minor bowl games) built a “studio” stadium conveniently located somewhere in the middle of the country near a major airport and all of these under-attended games were played there, with a modest amount of tickets being sold or given to the locals, so that there might be some crowd noises, rather than stage bowl games in places like the Miami Marlins' baseball stadium (Memphis versus BYU) before a crowd that might fit into a typical Texas high school’s field.         
                                        
Political Commentary
It’s a sad commentary that the candidates for the 2016 Presidential election have already been narrowed down to Hillary Clinton (and no one else) on the Democratic side and either Jeb Bush or George Romney (again) or just possibly, Chris Christie on the Republican side.

The determining criterion in determining who gets the nomination is money.  It will take billions of dollars to run for President in 2016 and only the candidates named above are in the process of lining up sufficient financial resources to do so.  Any other candidates, relatively speaking, will remain poverty-stricken insofar as campaigning money is involved.  However appealing they might be to some, they cannot command the resources necessary to run a successful (or unsuccessful for that matter) campaign.
                                                          

Isn’t this a sad state of affairs!  The Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, which will go down in history as one of the Court’s worst (equaling the Dred Scott decision whereby an escaped slave captured in a free state had to be returned to slavery and Plessy vs.Ferguson wherby racially separate but equal schools are were considered okay) in that they were made by tired Justices who were oblivious to the changes the nation was undergoing.  Treating corporations and other groups as having the same rights as individuals in making political contributions, which is what Citizens United was all about, enabled candidates to amass vast treasuries with which to run campaigns.

It doesn’t matter how qualified or competent other candidates are.  Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren may have their supporters, but they really have no chance of winning their party’s nomination.  Except for determining who will get the G.O.P nomination (my bet is Jeb Bush), it’s all over right now.

We need legislation banning all contributions for Presidential and Congressional campaigns.  The media should provide free TV time for debates and limited government stipends should be given to both major parties and other candidates who qualify to be on the ballot to pay for TV advertisements and signage.

Campaigning should be limited to a short, two month period before the election, and negative campaigning in which an opponent is attacked would not be permitted. Financing by outside organizations, such as unions, chambers of commerce and political action committees should be banned.  These rules should apply to primary elections as well. Claiming this to be a violation of the First Amendment is hypocritical despite the Supreme Court's ruling to the contrary.  The First Amendment protects individual rights and should not be extended to protect the rights of financial sponsors with an agenda.

But here's news!   It ain't going to happen that way automatically.  The real challenge to our electoral process is for all Americans to make it happen that way.  And that process will not start with anyone who depends on the present way elections are funded for the office they hold.  It starts with individual voters.  They must pressure all elected officials to stop ignoring this problem.  Sooner or later, our political leaders will catch on.  Or they won't remain our leaders for very long.  Vox populi, vox dei, as they say in Latin.


                                            
                                                 

                      

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