TV deal among hot topics at this week's BCS meeting

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Bowl Championship Series commissioners will take the first baby steps here this week toward fixing their controversial system -- again.

Not that it will stop any of the crying that resulted from the most contentious season in BCS history in 2003.

None of the major issues are expected to be resolved at the annual BCS meetings that begin Monday and run through Wednesday. But the clock is ticking. A new TV deal has to be negotiated. The viability of a fifth BCS bowl must be decided. Both would begin with the 2006 season as part of what could be a 10-year contract.

The commissioners from the six power conferences most likely will begin the process of tweaking the BCS formula that produced a split national champion last year for the first time in the six-year history of the system. BCS chairman Mike Tranghese is leading a push to reduce the computers' influence on the formula. Last year, the human polls agreed before the bowls Southern California was No. 1, but the Trojans were No. 3 in the BCS and were edged out of the Sugar Bowl by the BCS ratings.

Tranghese said earlier this year he would like to eliminate the computers altogether, but that isn't likely to happen. The computers were added when the BCS began in 1998 because the Associated Press didn't want to have such a big influence on determining a national champion.

"I don't anticipate that we're going to go to just a system based on the human polls," said Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg, the incoming BCS chairman. "I think the human polls do have some weaknesses, including the preseason selection of teams. ... There will have to be some formula that continues to be used that factors in computer polls in some ways."

The commissioners could decide to give more weight to the polls. One suggestion has been to follow the polls if they have identical 1-2 teams at the end of the season.

Preliminary discussions will begin here on the viability of a fifth BCS bowl. The 24 non-BCS bowls were contacted by e-mail last week soliciting their interest in becoming the fifth bowl. That bowl was agreed upon in February, if there is a market for it. The idea is so new, the commissioners aren't close to deciding where the bowl will be, how much it will pay or which teams will play in it.

A formal agreement for the bowl has not even been signed. The bowl was created to provide better access for the 54 non-BCS schools.

Tranghese has said any formal announcements probably won't come until June. The Rose Bowl, in negotiations with ABC on a new contract, needs to know by then the structure of the new BCS contract beginning in 2006.