The Bowl Scam

Terry O'Keefe · Dec 14, 2011

Pretty interesting article....

The Orange Bowl is a rat's nest of corruption and waste, critics say. Ostensibly a nonprofit, the South Florida organization that runs the game was named last year in a complaint to the IRS for spending $535,000 on gifts, $40,000-plus on golf outings, and more than a million bucks in salary for its top executives, all while giving only a fraction of the cash the festivities earn back to local charities.

"To claim that items like this Caribbean cruise are 'business expenses' for a nonprofit is just a ridiculous abuse of the taxpayers' trust," says Matt Sanderson, an attorney who heads the Playoff PAC, the anti-BCS group in Washington, D.C. that uncovered the questionable expenses.

Bowl execs argue that Sanderson's numbers are inaccurate and that the game brings millions of dollars to South Florida while helping local youth football leagues. "It's really unfair to pull numbers out of a line-item form without context and accuse the Orange Bowl of misspending its funds," says Larry Wahl, the bowl's vice president for communications. "We give much more to the community than shows up in our nonprofit reports."

But spending aside, there's an even larger problem with the Orange Bowl and its ilk such as the Fiesta and Sugar bowls: Thanks to a corrupt system lubricated with tropical cruises and huge bonuses, games bleed struggling public universities by forcing them to buy tens of thousands of tickets at absurd markups — all so a needless middleman can make millions.

This scheme plays out across the nation each year on the ostensibly pristine fields of amateur athletics. Bowl executives grant themselves breathtaking salaries — some more than $600,000 per year. The games, meanwhile, provide coaches, athletic directors, and the suits who nominally supervise them with an unending stream of bonuses.

Everyone else picks up the tab.
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Bowl Scam

BuckeyeT · Dec 14, 2011

Under a playoff system, the schools' collective take might even approach $1 billion annually. It's the kind of money that could fill budget gaps in nearly every Division 1 athletic department.

Yet there's one small barrier that stands in the way: A playoff system would ensure that schools, not the insiders who make these decisions, would take home the money.
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:shock: ......the prosecution rests your Honor

gipper · Dec 14, 2011

Man, I'd like one of those bowl exec. jobs. :roll:

IrishCorey · Dec 15, 2011

Dan Wetzel has been saying this for years now. He's even broken down the bowls game by game and called out all the major players. Nothing new here.. just more people finally paying attention.

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The Bowl Scam

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