Dan Wetzel and Josh Peter are at it again. The Yahoo! Sports investigative reporters who broke the stories about cheating at USC have uncovered evidence that the Alamo Bowl's executive director may have inflated claims about how much money bowls donates to charity during testimony to Congress...Derrick Fox spoke against a playoff, stating “almost all the postseason bowl games are put on by charitable groups” and “local charities receive tens of millions of dollars every year.”[Hats off to Jay Christensen of The Wiz of Odds for alerting us to this story!]
In fact, 10 bowl games are privately owned and one is run by a branch of a local government. The remaining 23 games enjoy tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, but combined to give just $3.2 million to local charities on $186.3 million in revenue according to their most recent federal tax records and interviews with individual bowl executives.
“That doesn’t seem like something that’s really geared toward giving to charity, does it?” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) after being presented with Yahoo! Sports’ findings.
“It’s perjury if it’s knowingly said,” Barton said of the sworn testimony, which he called “misleading.” “It’s also contempt of Congress. You’ve got to give [him] some sort of due process, but ultimately the remedy is to hold [him] in contempt of Congress on the House floor or send it to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution of perjury under oath.”
Some playoffs plans, including one produced by the NCAA, concluded they could produce so much revenue that even a lesser percentage share would result in more actual dollars for the six major conferences. However, it likely would require ceding power to the NCAA’s central office, which presumably would run a playoff.
Seeking answers to these questions was the purpose of the initial hearing, Barton said. Now he has new questions about whether inaccurate information was used by Fox to paint an anti-playoff picture.
“This is political dynamite,” Barton said. “Never underestimate the power of entrenched interests to fight back in an unfair way.”
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