Utah senator wants briefing from BCS leaders

NEW YORK (AP) -- A U.S. senator wants Bowl Championship Series leaders to brief him before deciding whether to hold more Congressional hearings on whether smaller schools are being treated unfairly.

The issue was debated Sunday in New Orleans and university presidents and chancellors came up with a process to change the current bowl system.

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, wrote a letter Friday to University of Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer, a member of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, asking for a briefing and "any plans the BCS had to make postseason college football more accessible and fair."

"I am troubled by the current system and believe it is unfair to colleges and universities that are not members of the BCS," Bennett wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Bennett, the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress, also said that he is interested in holding hearings on the issue. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees have already held hearings on the BCS.

"We believe this is a matter that we can work out among ourselves," Frohnmayer said Monday. "It is very hard to figure out legislative or political solutions to what are issues among colleagues here. We trust that will become well understood."

Tulane president Scott Cowen, the leader of the Coalition for Athletics Reform, remained confident that government intervention won't be necessary.

"I think Congress is waiting to see if we can resolve these issues in a cooperative manner," Cowen said. "It has always been our desire to do that. ... We are on a path to do it."

Commissioners from the 11 Division I-A conferences will spend the next 90 days coming up with recommendations for changes to the BCS and present them to presidents from schools in each conference.

The current BCS contract expires after the 2006 bowls and negotiations will begin next year on a new system.

Created in 1998 by the six most powerful conferences, the BCS guarantees the champions of those leagues -- the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-10 -- will play in one of the four most lucrative postseason bowl games, leaving only two at-large berths.

Smaller schools complain that the BCS makes it impossible for them to win the national championship and puts them at a financial and recruiting disadvantage.

The BCS bowls generate more than $110 million a year for the big conferences. The BCS gives about $6 million a year to smaller conferences.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff plans to discuss if the BCS violates any laws at a meeting next month of members of the Antitrust Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General.

"Obviously there is an exclusive agreement in this case that appears unfair on paper to a whole lot of programs," said Shurtleff, who would prefer the sides resolve the issue themselves. "Whether an antitrust violation could be alleged is clearly up in the air. That is what it smacks of and smells like."

Frohnmayer, the former attorney general of Oregon, said "this is not a legal matter."