Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 18 Article 3 Issue 2 Spring The Quest for Number One in College Football: The Revised Bowl Championship Series, Antitrust, and the Winner Take All Syndrome C. Paul Rogers III Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw Part of the Entertainment and Sports Law Commons Repository Citation C. Paul Rogers III, The Quest for Number One in College Football: The Revised Bowl Championship Series, Antitrust, and the Winner Take All Syndrome, 18 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 285 (2008) Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol18/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE QUEST FOR NUMBER ONE IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE REVISED BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES, ANTITRUST, AND THE WINNER TAKE ALL SYNDROME C. PAUL ROGERS III* I. INTRODUCTION With any sports topic, everyone who is a sports fan has an opinion, and that opinion is not required to be rational or supported in the least by salient facts. College football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has been one of the most controversial topics discussed by sports fans since its inception in 1998.1 Most everyone agrees that the system is flawed because virtually every year there has been a controversy about which two teams should play in the national championship game. Even the BCS architects understand that the 2 system has flaws, as they continue to tweak the BCS system each year. Beyond the varying opinions and critiques of the BCS, a more fundamental issue regarding the system is whether it is legal.