2012- 21st Annual NC State Undergraduate Research Symposium

Session Time : 4/10/12 10:30 AM - 4/10/12 11:45 AM

Content Area : Economics

Poster Appointment: , -

Student Presenters :
Andre Kurepa Waschka Applied Mathematics/Economics

Mentors and/or Co-Authors :
Robert Hammond Economics

Abstract Title : Optimizing the BCS Tournament Format

Abstract :
The current college football system known as the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and the attendant human polls have ignited numerous debates over the competence, efficiency, and fairness of the system. The complaints about the current system can be organized into two major areas: the ineffective or low-predictive power of the current system to determine a national champion, and the radical inequality in the distribution of the economic benefits among the various university teams and conferences. In addition, recent changes to the BCS have denied the possibility of using the national championship as a collectively consumed good. An improvement to the current system that makes use of a binary, single elimination tournament format for four teams is proposed as a solution to many of the problems of the present system. The results, based on a mathematical analysis using a Monte Carlo method of testing indicate that the predictive power of the system could be significantly improved at the cost of one additional game. Furthermore, a basic statistical analysis of bowl game revenues indicates that a non-trivial amount of money could be brought into the system with the addition of that single game.