With Virginia Tech emanating the identity of a football school for ages -- and having advanced to consecutive Orange Bowls -- it should come as little shock that President Charles Steger monitors the controversial Bowl Championship Series.
Though, the heavy hand Steger has wielded in shaping the BCS' future may come as some surprise.
Appointed by Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford, Steger had represented the ACC in BCS television contract negotiations for nearly a year, working on the $500 million deal that was completed with ESPN in November. The agreement grants BCS games to ESPN from January 2011 through January 2014.
Following another meeting over school budgetary issues, Steger sat down to briefly chat about the lighter things in life -- the college football postseason.
Collegiate Times: I'm assuming you probably saw (Barack) Obama's (negative take on the BCS and urge for a college football Division I-A postseason tournament) during the Nov. 3 Monday night football halftime show... Do you think he was onto something?
Charles Steger: It all depends on your point of view. For the schools that are in the BCS, obviously, it's a lucrative deal. ... From the point of view of a fan watching football on television, I can see how they would like to have a playoff and whatever else, like they do in basketball. Except when you go to the basketball things, they're on the weekend (and) there are 10, 12, I don't know how many games going on.
Whereas, going to a football bowl is a very expensive proposition for the average family. They can't go to the quarterfinals and then semifinals. They're going to be able to go to only one. And then (there's) the logistics of moving the football team around. It's not like a basketball team. (When the) football team goes, we have truckloads of equipment and 140 people, not to mention all the other fans and everything else. And I think the logistics would have to be changed pretty dramatically so that the playoffs would occur at stadiums of the institutions, and not in the cities where the current bowls go.
And then you .... change the economic equations for the cities, you know, Tampa or Miami. Having us come for a bowl pumps millions of dollars into the local economy. So, if you're from the point of view of a city that hosts the bowl, it's not a good idea. If it's from the point of view of a fan who's just going to watch it on TV, it probably isn't an appealing thing. But the bottom line is, we've just signed a four-year contract, and nothing's going to happen until that's played out.
CT: (Oregon President) David Frohnmayer, the current chair of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, returned an e-mail to ESPN.com saying that he thinks Obama really enjoys the sport in part because of its compelling regular season. Do you think the Division I-A college football postseason is as compelling as college basketball's?
CS: Well, I think a couple things. One is the precedent of the postseason playoff for basketball has been established for a long time. Secondly, it can be implemented much more easily and quickly ... And then you're off one day if you win and the next day you play and all that. So, for football, to me, I guess I don't have the same desire as to, quote, see who is the national champion. I'm really much more interested in who wins the ACC.
And I don't have a great interest in professional football except for when Virginia Tech players are on the team, then I'll watch them but I'm really interested in the teams we play on a regular basis, and who comes out ahead on that, and after that the interest kind of drops off for me.
And the bowl games are kind of fun; they're good for our players to get national visibility if they're candidates for the NFL and all that. But I think it kind of drags out too long. And then you got the other issues of player welfare ... How many games is it good for the players to have to play? Is one more postseason game and the risk of injury, which could jeopardize somebody's pro career, is it really worth it? How much time are they away from the classroom? Only 1.5 percent of the college players go on to the NFL, so the other 98.5 percent need to walk away with a very good education ... So you've got to balance all those things ... It's not just the welfare of the TV fans, it's the welfare of the fans that travel to the games, it's the welfare of the players and it's also important for our students.
All the student fees that go into athletics -- you guys are entitled to benefit from that. You're not subsidizing the national TV networks.
CT: Did you notice, working in collaboration with the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, any dissenting opinions about the postseason system?
CS: There are a lot of different views having to do with the history of a lot of the conferences ... You've got Notre Dame who's independent, and then you've got the PAC 10 and the Big 10 who still want to preserve their right to play in the Rose Bowl.
So it's a pretty complicated thing, and we are respectful of all those sorts of things, but at the same time ... you have the different tiers of the bowls and the payouts. Some of the bowls now, it costs more to go than the bowl pays, which is an expensive proposition ... And also, playing out four years from now what the sequence will be: is that Rose Bowl contention still going to be viable?
Probably will be. Is Notre Dame signing another contract with NBC, which is separate because they're not in a conference, how long is that going to go on? ...
CT: Where do you all meet and how often?
CS: The last big meeting was in Chicago, but we would meet most of the time on a telephone conference call ... and Frohnmayer was the chairman on that group. Then, for two years, starting this year, John Swofford ... is the chairman of the BCS commissioners committee. So you've got the presidents committee, you've got the commissioners committee, and then you've got the athletic directors and they all kind of feed it all up to work together on this stuff. A lot of committees.
I didn't realize until I got involved in this a few years ago how complicated it was. And of course the financial stakes are very high, and the impact on the schools is quite significant.
CT: Had you been involved with BCS planning at all before that in any capacity?
CS: Only as any other president would have been involved -- and it was discussed at each of our presidents' meetings -- but no more or no less than any of the other presidents ... For whatever reason, Commissioner Swofford asked me to do it, and I thought it was a good thing to do, and I agreed.
CT: I read that there's some rumbling in Congress about the BCS, especially from representatives who happen to be from Texas. What are your thoughts on that in trying to enact changes through the U.S. government?
CS: I think they should be focusing on revitalizing the economy. I think that the economics of college football and the complexity of, as I said: from one point of view it's great for the fans, from the point of view of the cities that work years and years hosting these bowls, it's a big economic development thing. From the point of view of the colleges, you want to travel to cities where your fans can go and where you have visibility and everything else ... I really don't think it's the business of Congress to be interfering in this ... As with many things, its much more complicated than you realize when you get into it.