Doing the People's Business

The same legislative body that gave us the steroids hearings and a member threatening to call hearings on Terrell Owens is now threatening to bring us the BCS show trial:

Calling the Bowl Championship Series "deeply flawed," the chairman of a congressional committee has called a hearing on the controversial system used to determine college football's national champion.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, charged with regulating America's sports industry, announced Friday it will conduct a hearing on the BCS next week, after this season's bowl matchups are determined.

"College football is not just an exhilarating sport, but a billion-dollar business that Congress cannot ignore," said committee Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. Barton's panel is separate from the House Government Reform panel that tackled steroids in baseball.

The committee announcement called the hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday, a "comprehensive review" of the BCS and postseason college football.

"Too often college football ends in sniping and controversy, rather than winners and losers," Barton said. "The current system of determining who's No. 1 appears deeply flawed."

Barton said he does not have legislation in mind to force a change, but said he hopes congressional hearings will spur discussion and improvements. It won't be the first time Congress has looked at the BCS. In 2003, the Senate probed whether the system was unfairly tilted against smaller schools.

Look, some people like the BCS, some people do not. But I am pretty sure that Congress has much more pressing business than the BCS to deal with right now.

Maybe it is just members of Congress looking for a reason to press the flesh with athletes and sports figures that is the reason behind all of this. But Congress needs to get back to doing what is really important and leave this kind of thing to pundits and sports journalists.