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The Fiesta Bowl will remain part of the BCS system. A fine and other reforms were handed down from the NCAA.
Almost three months after firing John Junker after the spending scandal that almost cost the state of Arizona a BCS game, the Fiesta Bowl has an agreement in place to make Robert Shelton its new president. Shelton currently is University of Arizona President. He is expected to take over this summer.
The choice of Shelton is a good one for an organization looking to recover from the huge black eye that was left after it was found that there was rampant misuse of money, including funneling money to politicians and spending on lavish parties on the Fiesta Bowl dime.
Shelton has a track record of reputation. In addition to being U of A president, he is also a member of the oversight committee for the BCS. That background will come in nicely to oversee the now tainted bowl.
The BCS executive director thinks highly of Shelton, saying "Robert is a man of integrity and his university experience means he understands what college football is all about. I have not been given the official word he is the choice of the Fiesta Bowl. But if it does come to pass, it would be a smart hire by the Fiesta Bowl."
The Fiesta Bowl was lucky to maintain its BCS status and maybe Shelton had something to do with that. It certainly looks like they got the right guy for the job. Everyone involved would benefit from having the Fiesta Bowl approach the reputation it had before the whole mess began.
The BCS has ruled that the Fiesta Bowl can remain part of the Bowl Championship Series which means that it will still be part of the top tier of college football bowl games and on a rotating basis host the national championship at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ. The Fiesta Bowl was fined $1 million by the BCS for it's illegal political contributions and improper spending.
"The message is they had cleaned house and addressed their problems, but our group doesn't believe they went far enough," said Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, in a telephone interview with the AP. He added that the $1 million fine was meant to reflect the "serious nature of the matter."
The City of Glendale will keep the Phoenix Coyotes for at least another year and won't have to also lose the prestigious and revenue generating Fiesta Bowl. Not a bad 24 hour haul for the west side town. To make matters even better, the fine paid by the Fiesta Bowl will reportedly go youth sports in Arizona which is an added bonus.
It is not clear how making a non-profit entity pay a million dollar fine makes much sense. Only in the world of college football is taking money from the Fiesta Bowl and giving it to the community the Fiesta Bowl is supposed to be supporting in the first place considered punishment. Don't try and make sense of it beyond the headline value of "$1 million fine".
The other reforms, however, do seem more practical.
Among other things, the BCS said the Fiesta Bowl must also remove board members who were found to have engaged in inappropriate conduct; include at least two members from the "collegiate community" on the board, such as faculty members or athletic directors; conduct an annual internal audit and share the results with the BCS executive director; replace its auditing firm (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) or bring in a new supervisory partner; and consult with the BCS on the hiring of a new executive director.
This is good news for Glendale and the entire Phoenix area who gets to keep the cash cow. Whether the investigation and publicity surrounding this case actually has any real impact on the entire college football bowl system remains to be seen.
What happened with the Fiesta Bowl under John Junker's watch might have been over the top, but it can't be the only such case of lavish spending by the "non-profit" organizations that run the bowl games.
It's really no surprise that whatever process the NCAA put in place the police the dirty doings of the Fiesta Bowl Committee and John Junkers's lavish spending of "non-profit" money would eventually be revealed as a fraud. The first whiff of that inevitable news comes to us via AP report that has the merry details indicting the same group tasked with reviewing the Fiesta Bowl's worthiness to retain its NCAA Bowl License with being beneficiaries of the Fiesta Bowl's spending.
Try not to be too shocked as you read this:
Nine of the 11 members of an NCAA panel that will help decide the Fiesta Bowl's fate attended a bowl-sponsored retreat that included free meals, resort rooms and golf outings.
The nine names all showed up on a 2008 "Fiesta Frolic" attendee list obtained by Playoff PAC in a public records request. The group provided the list to The Associated Press.
Playoff PAC is a group that hopes to get rid of the BCS system all-together and replace it with a legitimate college football playoff bracket.
Co-found Bryson Morgan summed up this latest bit of NCAA chicanery that his group uncovered, "This is a jury of the (Fiesta) bowl's former freeloaders."
Well said, Mr. Morgan. Well said.
Fiesta Bowl Might Move- To A New Date
The end of the NFL lockout is having larger effects than one might initially think. Just take a look at its impact on the college game, for instance. The Fiesta Bowl could change from its originally scheduled date of January 5th as a result of the lockout's end, according to CBS Sports. If the move does occur, the Fiesta Bowl would instead be played on January 2nd, three days earlier than originally planned.
The BCS did not schedule a night game for the night of January 2nd behind the Rose Bowl due to all of the uncertainty surrounding the NFL lockout. The NFL regular season, which was scheduled to end on January 1, would have cleared up the schedule for college bowl games the next day. However, the BCS worried that the NFL lockout could push back the NFL regular season, and in such a circumstance there would be NFL games playing on the second night of January.
Thankfully, the NFL lockout has passed and football is back on schedule this year. The NFL regular season will end on the first, and the BCS can slot in a second bowl game for the night of the second.
The BCS has given the option to the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl to move their games up to January 2. While the other two have decided not to, the Fiesta Bowl might actually prefer the move in order to draw higher ratings.
Instead of playing on a Thursday, when people may be done with their vacations and back at work, the Fiesta Bowl would have the opportunity to play during the New Year's vacation season when people have more free time. In addition, the Fiesta Bowl could see a boost in ratings as a result of being broadcast right after the Rose Bowl.
There is no official word about the change yet, but it appears that the Fiesta Bowl could move up.
Aug 17 6:10p by Nikil Selvam