Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) “urged the Justice Department on Tuesday to investigate college football’s Bowl Championship Series for what he views as violations of antitrust laws,” the AP reports. Senator Hatch is Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.
Hatch made the comment after conducting a standing-room-only hearing in the Senate subcommittee with antitrust oversight, where he serves as the top Republican.
"Frankly, there’s an arrogance about the BCS that just drives me nuts," he told reporters. "Hopefully this hearing will open the door to have some people reconsider their positions. And if nothing else, the Justice Department ought to be looking at this."
The AP notes that he said “it’s clear to him that the BCS is in violation of antitrust laws.”
Here’s part of his beef with the system:
Utah, which is in the Mountain West, was bypassed for last year’s national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season. The title game pitted Florida against Oklahoma — each with one loss.
[…]
Under the BCS, some conferences get automatic bids to participate while others don’t, and the automatic bid conferences also get far more of the revenue than the other conferences. Hatch and other BCS critics view that as anticompetitive behavior, while the BCS says it simply recognizes the teams people want to watch.
Interestingly, it sounds like Senator Hatch was really the only member heavily involved in today’s hearing.
Although Tuesday’s hearing attracted quite a few spectators, senators mostly stayed away. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, left a few minutes after starting the hearing. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer briefly popped in, but didn’t ask any questions. It was, for the most part, Hatch’s show.
