{"id":7576,"date":"2009-12-30T16:50:34","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T21:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7576"},"modified":"2013-01-17T15:51:53","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T21:51:53","slug":"punch-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7576","title":{"rendered":"Punch Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ah,

Ah, the sweet taste of scandal<\/p><\/div>\n

Between the unseemingly confluence of money and collegiate athletics and the ungangly Bowl Championship Series, the potential for abuse and scandal often seemed to lurk just below the surface.<\/p>\n

Enter the Arizona Republic<\/em> and allegations<\/a> that\u00a0employees of the Fiesta Bowl\u00a0were reimbursed for\u00a0campaign contributions to local\u00a0politicians whose votes could influence contracts related to the bowl game.\u00a0 Some $38,000 were contributed to Arizona pols over the past decade from\u00a0current and former Fiesta Bowl employees – hardly a massive sum\u00a0either in sports or politics.\u00a0 But\u00a0the\u00a0scandal\u00a0has managed to\u00a0renew talk of a college football playoff series from some high-profile politicos with too much time on their hands<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Playoff PAC, a federal political action committee created by six college football fans with political expertise \u2014 including Matthew Sanderson, former campaign finance counsel to Sen. John McCain\u2019s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign \u2014 filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state\u2019s office Tuesday after the Arizona Republic reported that five current and former Fiesta Bowl employees were illegally reimbursed after making political contributions…<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe Arizona Republic finally offered a glimpse into the BCS\u2019s opaque family of organizations. What they saw wasn\u2019t pretty\u00a0\u2014 a tax-exempt organization blowing $4 million on boondoggles and reimbursing employees\u2019 political contributions illegally,\u201d said Matthew Martinez, a spokesman for the PAC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whether the BCS should meet the same fate as the metric system and parachute pants\u00a0in this country or not, it shouldn’t be decided through a lawsuit.\u00a0 As flawed a result as the BCS often produces, a college playoff system is bound to be as messy.\u00a0 The NFL playoffs now take nearly over a month – how long is the NCAA willing to play 18-22 years olds who are accustom to 12-13 games at most in a season?\u00a0 How many teams would qualify for a playoff and how?\u00a0 Much like the BCS system, sports fans and pundits would again\u00a0be debating the merits of undefeated smaller schools playing again the best from the larger traditional conferences.<\/p>\n

The Fiesta Bowl scandal should be fully investigated – and not just by an “independent” counsel hired by the bowl’s authorities.\u00a0 Whether guilty or innocent, the Fiesta Bowl’s mixture of money and politics shouldn’t be influencing what ought to a sports-related decision.<\/p>\n

Besides, if you have Time Warner Cable, you’re not seeing the game <\/a>this year anyway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the unseemingly confluence of money and collegiate athletics and the ungangly Bowl Championship Series, the potential for abuse and scandal often seemed to lurk just below the surface. Enter the Arizona Republic and allegations that\u00a0employees of the Fiesta Bowl\u00a0were reimbursed for\u00a0campaign contributions to local\u00a0politicians whose votes could influence contracts related to the bowl game.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,35,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-money","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33562,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions\/33562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}