The Fiesta Bowl will make its case to a special college football task force April 23 in Chicago on why it should retain its status in the Bowl Championship Series, but a final decision on the bowl's future likely won't occur for weeks.
Bill Hancock, BCS executive director, told The Arizona Republic on Tuesday that the Fiesta Bowl will meet privately with a seven-member task force he created to review the bowl's internal investigation. The task force will help determine whether the Fiesta Bowl remains a BCS game or receives other sanctions, which have not been disclosed.
The bowl last month released a 276-page report that detailed corruption, potential illegal employee conduct and spending irregularities at the bowl. The report resulted in the firing of John Junker, the bowl's longtime chief executive, and the forced resignations of two other bowl executives. It also became an embarrassment for college football, and Hancock has said he was troubled and disappointed with the findings.
Being a member of the BCS allows the Fiesta Bowl to host a top-tier college football game every year and the national championship every four years, which generates tens of millions of dollars in tourist revenue for metro Phoenix. Others in that group are the Orange, Sugar and Rose bowls.
The Fiesta Bowl's disclosure of wrongdoing has given rival bowls not in the BCS hope that the Fiesta Bowl will get kicked out and allow one of them to move into the BCS.
There had been speculation that the Fiesta Bowl would meet with Hancock's task force during regularly scheduled BCS meetings in New Orleans April 26-28. But Hancock said the task force will not meet then and would not have its work completed by those meetings.
However, Fiesta Bowl representatives will appear April 28 in New Orleans before an NCAA subcommittee that licenses bowl games. That 11-member group could revoke the Fiesta Bowl's operating license, which would shut down the event, place the bowl on probation or fine the organization. Although the NCAA has no direct authority over bowls' activities, a bowl cannot operate without a license.
Therefore, in order to stay in business, the Fiesta Bowl must convince both the BCS and NCAA that it has sufficiently self-disciplined itself and persuade both not to impose a death penalty.
The Fiesta Bowl is in the second year of a four-year NCAA operating license agreement and the second year of a four-year BCS contract. It's unclear if the BCS can void its contract with the Fiesta Bowl or just kick the game out of the BCS when the contract ends. But an NCAA executive has said a bowl license could be revoked "in the best interest of college athletics."
Hancock said the earlier meeting in Chicago, at the Big Ten Conference headquarters, will be "an exchange of information," and the task force has already met three times.
"We have some questions for them, and they have things they want to tell us," Hancock said in a phone interview. "But absolutely there will be no resolution, and there will be no resolution in the next week."
Andy Bagnato, a Fiesta Bowl spokesman, said the organization is looking forward to the Chicago meeting.
"We plan to inform the task force about the sweeping reforms we have adopted in response to the investigation," Bagnato said. "We are confident that the Fiesta Bowl will remain in the BCS rotation, preserving a vital economic engine for Arizona."
Hancock said that any recommendation from the task force on the Fiesta Bowl's future would be sent to a 12-member group that includes 11 college football conference commissioners and the athletics director from Notre Dame for review. That group then will make a recommendation to the 12-member Presidential Oversight Committee, which ultimately will determine whether the Fiesta Bowl stays in the BCS, Hancock said.
Two of the task force members, Big East Commissioner John Marinatto and Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters, are on the group of conference commissioners. Another two task force members, Penn State University President Graham Spanier and Northern Illinois University President John Peters, are on the Presidential Oversight Committee. Spanier is chairman of the oversight committee, which includes University of Arizona President Robert Shelton.
John Zidich, CEO and publisher of The Arizona Republic, is a former member of the Fiesta Bowl's board of directors and was on the bowl's five-member executive committee from January 2010 to April 2011. The Arizona Republic is a Fiesta Bowl advertising sponsor.
Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478.
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