The BCS system might finally be on its way out -- thanks to the Feds?

As far as I can tell, everyone hates the BCS.  (For the non-football-initiated, that would be the Bowl Championship Series used by the NCAA in determining a national champion for college football -- you know, the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, all of those bowl games that block up all the TV around Christmas and New Year's.)

Anyway, as I was saying, as far as I can tell, everyone hates the BCS.  It's been around since 1998, and Mr. K assures me people have been whining about it since about, oh, 1999.  Instead of having playoffs -- like every other normal sport -- the BCS uses some incomprehensible rankings system and computer algorithm to calculate the top two ranked teams, who then play in the BCS National Championship Game.  Bizarre rankings ensue.  The President has even taken up the issue --

Before he was sworn in as president, Barack Obama said in 2008 that he was going to "to throw my weight around a little bit" to nudge college football toward a playoff [i.e. non-BCS] system.  (AP)

Well, here's one campaign promise I guess he's kept.  (Not that I want to argue about any of the rest of his campaign promises, so let's just pretend I didn't say that.)

Apparently, the Department of Justice has just gotten involved. DOJ's Antitrust Division has sent a nice little letter to the NCAA inquiring as to why it doesn't have a playoff system.  Aside from the fact everyone and their brother wants to know, on what possible grounds could Justice actually care?  The problem, it seems, is the way the bids are calculated.

Under the BCS, the champions of six conferences have automatic bids to play in top-tier bowl games; other conferences don't. Those six conferences also receive more money than the other conferences.  (AP)

According to Bill Hancock, the Executive Director of the BCS, and quite possibly a Southern Belle in his previous life --

"Goodness gracious, with all that's going on in the world right now and with national and state budgets being what they are, it seems like a waste of taxpayers' money to have the government looking into how college football games are played."

Really, Bill?  According to Mr. K, lots and lots and LOTS of money is spent on college football.  Lots of universities obtain substantial parts of their operating budgets from football.  In fact, it seems that the ACC and the Big East have, over the last five years, collected $188M from the BCS.  (link)

$188M.
Two conferences.
5 years.

That's a lot of money.

So yeah, Bill, goodness gracious is right.  Seems to me that taxpayers have a perfect right to figure out where that money is going and that it's being divided fairly.