Looking At The Actual Fiesta Bowl Ruling; Without The Customary Playoff Bias

Yesterday the ruling was finally handed down regarding the fate of the Fiesta Bowl and its possible removal from the BCS. Not the "blood letting" or massive shake up a lot were hoping for as the game was allowed to retain its elite BCS classification along side the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl.

Sad for the Cotton Bowl, the game most folks were pushing for if the Fiesta Bowl was to be replaced in the rotation.

Extra sad panda for Jerry Jones and paying his mortgage on Jerry's World.

Here comes the criticism folks as the ever ready Playoff PAC led by founder Matthew Sanderson was quick to denounce the ruling, or to put it more basically; a lot of fist pounding, a lot of see the system isn't working and a lot of "you'll see, you'll see" rhetoric.

To be clear, I hate "defending" the BCS. The system is not my thing. I've got a laundry list of things that I'd like to see corrected BUT when I see people attacking this using flawed logic I cannot just allow that sort of rhetoric to persist. Nowhere in the Playoff PAC response was their anything about the actual people hurt by this misappropriation of funds or the actual response that matters the most; the Fiesta Bowl itself.

Perhaps it is just easier to beat their drum but for our purposes let's go beyond pushing a self serving agenda.

One million dollars.

That's the fine levied by the committee on the Fiesta Bowl. That's the money that the bowl game is going to pay down to the Arizona charities that they wronged through their misappropriation of funds.

There's your outrage. There's the biggest problem here. There's the reason to get upset with this ruling.

From 2001 to 2010 John Junker had some $4.85 million dollars in expense reimbursements. Of that $4.85 million there were $132,355 in funds designated as "potentially personal," another $227,849 in "potentially inappropriate" funds, $2.26 million in "undetermined" use and $2.23 million in "potentially appropriate" usage. That's the break down for the time period that is being investigated by the Arizona Attorney General.

My point in showing you that? Well first and foremost with a large portion of the cash being designated as "undetermined" I'd absolutely call for the fine to, at least, match the combined total of the inappropriate, personal and undetermined funds that were misappropriated. Personally, I feel more should have been levied to truly act as not just a punishment but a sign of goodwill to the folks in Arizona to show that this stealing money from charities will not be tolerated.

Now last night I got into a quick discussion with Will Brinson from CBS Sports NFL Blog about the whole situation and he raised the ticket-price gouging parallel. Seeing the amount of money schools like UConn lose on the forced purchase of tickets is disturbing, especially with seeing the money being raked in by the bowl game themselves.

If there is any "right and wrong" to this issue for me it is having the bowls push more money towards the schools to aid their ticket finances. More cash to the actual charities, more cash to the schools to ease the pain of ticket purchases, that's a change I can absolutely stand behind.

As for the bowl remaining in the rotation?

It doesn't bother me much. Not having seen the sweeping changes being made by the Fiesta Bowl General Counsel. The restructing of the governing body, the new faces, the new policies and procedures in place to check and balance the money and where funds are going is a major step. This is akin to a government or charity re-designing their system, being tougher on audits and making sure that they don't allow for these same missteps to take place.

Again folks, corruption isn't about the system, it is about the people abusing their power within the system. Don't let the wool be pulled over your eyes as someone pushes an agenda that is 100% their own.