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SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch is again asking college football's Bowl Championship Series for answers -- this time about the money.
Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, sent a letter to BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock asking about revenue sharing, TV contracts, and whether Ari Fleischer's paycheck was coming from money designated for colleges.
The former White House spokesman and his sports public relations firm were hired last year to defend the BCS.
"Legal and antitrust concerns aside, I think it's clear that the BCS is fundamentally unfair and harmful to schools, students, college football fans and consumers throughout the country," Hatch said in a statement. "At the very least, I think the architects of the BCS should provide the public with more information to dispel the notion that the system is explicitly designed to favor certain teams while disfavoring others."
Hancock replied in a statement that he looked forward to reviewing the senators' letter, but he questioned the congressional interest in the BCS, considering the "nation has so many important issues to deal with."
The Playoff PAC, a political action committee that is lobbying for a college football playoff, took issue with the reply.
"It's astoundingly arrogant of the BCS to suggest that Congress has no business asking questions here," PAC organizer Matt Sanderson said in a statement issued to KSL Newsradio Wednesday.
"Students across the country are protesting tuition hikes. Public universities are operating in the red. The BCS is holding an enormous pot of school-bound money, and they refuse to tell anyone how much they have, how much they spend, and how they'll distribute funds," he said. "Right now is the perfect time for Senators Baucus and Hatch to ask hard questions about the BCS' opaque finances."
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
