Defending The BCS

I was driving today and found myself at a red light behind a perfectly nice white Toyota (buy American damn it!). This was memorable because the owner of the Toyota had put the word "champaine" on the back of the car in big black letters. I know that's not actually how you spell champagne, but the owner of this Toyota didn't. My point is, sometimes people do things, and it's best not to waste time trying to figure out why. Why would someone want to have champagne written across the back of their car, and why wouldn't they find out how to spell it first? I don't know, and I'm not going to waste what little sanity I have left on trying to figure it out.

For a long time, this is how I felt about the BCS. It was stupid, it made no sense, and I just didn't have the energy to care. But last weekend, as I watched Texas almost blow it's spot in the national title game, and as I listened to the ABC announcer tell me, after every play, how many minutes we were away from BCS chaos, I had an epiphany. I've seen the light. The BCS is a great idea, maybe the best idea in the history of sports. The rest of us were just too damn stupid to see it. But not me, not anymore.

See, sports have had playoffs for years, it's been done to death. Just thinking about some sport having all the best teams play each other on the field in some sort of tournament to decide a champion makes me yawn, that's sooo 20th century. The BCS is so revolutionary, so modern. They've got voters and computers and statistical formulas, and probably some robots and talking monkeys too. TCU, Cincinnati and Boise St. probably don't like it this year, but if they wanted to contend for championships, they should have thought of that before they decided to not be Alabama or Texas. This is the wave of the future, and I'm on board. I don't want all my other favorite sports to get left behind. So, here are some ideas for how the other sports can be more like college football. We need to get to work on this right away, before it's too late.

First, a few rules. Number one, the BCS still has a championship game, I guess they figured they'd throw the dinosaurs a bone, so we're not picking the best team, just the best two teams. Number two, we need to stay as far away from on the field competition as possible, I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it. Finally, you'd still have the same regular season, just for kicks, like college football does. We're just replacing the playoffs.

Baseball. My first thought was some kind of home run derby. But those happen on the field, that feels too much like honest athletic competition, not what we're going for. My second thought was letting the two teams with the nicest ballparks each year play for the title. The problem there is that ballparks don't change much and you'd get the same two teams a lot. College football has taught us that you really need a good rotation of like four or five teams. But I was on the right track with this.

I propose that baseball decide its two championship contenders each year based on the quality of ballpark food. Teams can change this pretty drastically from year to year if they want, so it won't always be the same teams. Plus, this would help with baseball's parity problem. I haven't been to the new Yankee stadium yet, because I don't own my own company, but the food at the old Yankee Stadium sucked. In contrast, I saw a game in Cincinnati once, they had pulled pork sandwiches and chili. The Reds kick the Yankees' ass in food. I also heard the San Francisco Giants have garlic fries at their ballpark. Garlic fries! Right there at the ballpark! You see where I'm going with this, any team can win the food competition. I don't care who the judges are, as long as I'm one of them.

Basketball. First of all, to be honest, if you suggested quality of stadium eats as a system for all four major sports, I wouldn't argue with you, but I'm trying to be creative here. A slam dunk competition has the same problem as a home run derby. I thought maybe just taking the two teams with the two tallest players. That would be funny, because teams would have to spend the off-season searching the world for the tallest freaks they could find, but you'd still need basketball talent for that championship game. Funny, but not really fun.

I've got it! Hip-Hop records. I've noticed a lot of basketball players make rap albums. I've heard they're mostly terrible, but maybe it's because they're not trying hard enough. So here's the pitch. At the beginning of every season, every player makes an album. Over the course of the season, the team works together to pick the best album they have and make it better. At the end of the season, the two teams that produce the two best albums play for the title. This would be great both for basketball players who always wanted to be rappers and rappers who always wanted to be basketball players. This would also allow the Knicks to spend an insane amount of money on a whole team of terrible rappers they can pair with their current team of terrible basketball players. I think this is a win for everyone.

Football. This was the easiest one. Three words: Cheerleader Beauty Pageant. This should appeal to most football fans and keep the same high ratings the playoffs currently get. Everyone would love it and it would lead to even more attractive cheerleaders than we have now. Sometimes life's just that simple.

Hockey. This is the toughest one for me, I've already written here about how much I like the hockey playoffs. But when it's time to move on, it's time to move on, and I'm a team player. I thought about taking the two teams with the most Canadians on their rosters. Sadly, I'm afraid this might seem vaguely racist to non-Canadians. A drinking competition would be fun, but almost every hockey player I've ever met has seemed like a genuinely nice guy, so let's not destroy their livers for sport. Zamboni races? We should definitely have them, but I don't think they're right for this.

I thought about this for a while, and it finally came to me. A beard growing competition. This is perfect because it keeps one of the traditions of the old playoffs without all the boringness of actual playoffs. Beards would be judged on length, thickness and general creepy appearance. Bonus points for cool beard design, like if you were able to cut your beard into the shape of a hockey stick. Points off for dyed beards, that would be the beard competition equivalent of performance enhancing drugs. The two teams with the highest average beard scores play for the cup.

So, there it is. If I didn't cover your favorite sport, I'm sure you can think of some ideas on your own. Think this was stupid? I dare anyone to explain how any of my ideas are any worse than the BCS. I double dog dare you.