ESPN Crew Loses it Over A.J. McCarron's Girlfriend

Brent and Kirk talk about Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron's girlfriend during the BCS Championship Game.

The former Miss Alabama also had the sports world talking.

Fiesta Bowl CEO Junker Fired - Outrageous Spending

The Fiesta Bowl fired president and CEO John Junker for "an apparent scheme" to reimburse employees for political contributions and "an apparent conspiracy" to cover it up. 

After reading the report on FiestaBowl.org at http://www.fiestabowl.org/_documents/reports/Fiesta_Bowl_Final_Public.pdf Junker did much more than make illegal political contributions.

His spending in my opinion, was excessive and out of line, even for a BCS Bowl Game.

Junker, always looking in control in his bright yellow Fiesta Bowl sports jacket, had been the face of the event for three decades, leading it from an upstart event to one of the BCS giants. With an annual salary of about $600,000, he had been on paid administrative lead since Feb. 4 after, the board said, he failed to comply with two written directives to cooperate with the investigation.

The board said the probe also uncovered "excessive compensation, nonbusiness and inappropriate expenditures and inappropriate gifts."

Here are some examples from the 276 page reports as I read it in pdf form.

Some of Junker's reimbursed expenses were classified as "Undetermined."  How can that be? 

From the report:

The volume or excessiveness of certain expense reimbursements calls into question the reasonableness of these transactions taken as a whole. Following are examples of the types of expenditures that we classified as “Undetermined”:
•
Seemingly excessive expenditures on items that otherwise may be appropriate such as hotel expenses greater than $500 per night, air fare greater than $1,500, and high-dollar limousine charges.
•
Numerous gifts and tickets given to non-Fiesta Bowl employees915 such as conference officials, athletic directors, coaches, and sponsors. Gifts given to football players participating in the games, gifts given as memorials and tickets to other BCS bowl games were all classified as “Potentially Appropriate.”

The Fiesta Bowl, led by Junker also put on illegal fundraisers for politicians and gave gifts that they are not allowed to provide to politicians.  Also from the report:

The Fiesta Bowl would sometimes provide items of value to certain politicians. For example, in a number of the reimbursement requests submitted by the Fiesta Bowl employees whose expense materials we reviewed, the employee’s description of the expense named one or more politicians.

How about Junker using Fiesta Bowl money to pay $110,000 at an auction for a round of golf with Jack Nicklaus.

In March 2003, Junker attended “Celebrity Fight Night,” which bills itself as “one of the nation’s elite charity events” with a live auction. There are two charges on Junker’s American Express statement from March 24, 2003, one for $95,000 and another for $15,000. Each is listed as “Celebrity Fight Night” with a handwritten notation as “Jack Nicklaus golf bid.” It appears that in 2004 the Fiesta Bowl paid for Junker and at least one other person to fly to Florida to play golf with Jack Nicklaus in connection with the auction item purchased in 2003. There is also a $735.50 charge to “Prestige,” which may be a limousine service, in Boca Rotan in connection with the “Nicklaus” trip. Junker, in a supplemental statement offered by his attorneys, noted that the attendees of the foursome were supposed to be Nicklaus, John Compton (President of Frito-Lay), Kevin Weiberg (Big 12 Commissioner), and Mark Womack (SEC Senior Associate Commissioner). According to Junker, Weiberg cancelled at the last minute, and Junker filled in.  Junker believes that the golf trip was important for the Bowl’s relationship with Frito-Lay and its relationship with the SEC. A March 29, 2003 memo to file from Junker explains the purchase.

Junker also was allowed to have memberships at 4, yes 4 golf clubs.  Paid for of course, by the Fiesta Bowl.

The golf clubs were:

Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona

Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon

The Biltmore Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona

Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma

Remember, Junker lived in Arizona.

Two more areas that I couldn't believe.

Cars:

During the years that GMC was a sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl, senior Fiesta Bowl executives received GMC company cars.1101 When this sponsorship ended in 2009, Junker, Wisneski, Schoeffler, and Fields received money from the Fiesta Bowl to make down payments on a car, plus monthly automobile stipends.

In addition to the senior executives, Junker’s wife, Susan, also has a car paid for by the Fiesta Bowl. In the past, Susan Junker was provided a car under the Fiesta Bowl’s contract with General Motors. When that contract ended, Junker received a stipend to cover not only his own car, but also a car for his wife.

On August 25, 2009, Junker received an $8,500 check for automobile down payment(s); Wisneski received $6,500; Schoeffler received $3,000; and Fields received $2,000 on October 22, 2009.1 According to information Wisneski provided to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2009 Junker received an annual automobile stipend of $27,000; Wisneski $15,600; and Fields $9,600. Schoeffler stated that his monthly automobile stipend was $1,000/month.

And the infamous strip club visits:

On September 12, 2008, Junker, Aaron Brown, and Shawn Schoeffler spent the evening at Phoenix’s Bourbon Street, which claims to be a “World Famous Strip Club.”  Aaron Brown is a Maricopa County Sheriff’s lieutenant who owns Blue Steel Consulting, Inc., a company that provides security services to the Fiesta Bowl.

Junker’s American Express statement includes five separate charges from Bourbon Street for the evening, totaling $1,241.75.  (The men also spent $46 at Z Tejas, a restaurant, and $48.47 at Tilted Kilt, a bar, that evening, all paid for by the Fiesta Bowl.) Junker acknowledged that the more than $1,200 spent at Bourbon Street that evening was not all spent for food and drink but “in all likelihood” included the payment for women to dance for them. -  Huh?

One of the investigators retained by counsel to the Special Committee conducted an investigation that concluded that the individual amounts that totaled up to the night’s charges equated with the charges for private dances. The Fiesta Bowl paid for the drinks and all the strip club charges.

Now, read that above paragraph again.  An investigator's job was to go to  strip club and conduct an investigation on how to spend $1,241?  What kind of job is that?

Conclusion at this point - The report is mind blowing, Junker will probably be charged criminally and the BCS may have to look at sanctioning the Fiesta Bowl.  Good job to everyone who was lining their pockets on the pretense of putting on a bowl game for "student athletes."

Phoenix Hits the Jackpot this Bowl Season

Every December, cities from San Diego to Shreveport and Memphis to Miami wait patiently for Cornhuskers and Yellow Jackets, Bulldogs and Hurricanes to arrive.

What I'm talking about here, are teams and fans that head to bowl games. Money gets spent, bodies get tanned, and in between some football gets played.

Cities make big bucks for hosting these bowl games. A city like Atlanta estimates that the annual Chik-fil-A Bowl held at the Georgia Dome brings about $35 million to the Atlanta economy. So it's not just the fans and players that love these bowls, It's the hotels, restaurants, taxi drivers, and street vendors that like the influx of visitors each year.

These year, one city is going to reap the bowl benefits three times over.

Phoenix is that city, and before Monday night's BCS Championship Game, Tempe hosted the Insight Bowl between Iowa and Missouri, and another Phoenix suburb, Glendale hosted the Fiesta Bowl between Connecticut and Oklahoma on New Year's Day.

The bowl matchups in the Phoenix area were a little something for everyone. "When you look at this set of bowl games," said John Eaton, clinical associate professor at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, "I think you have a much better Insight Bowl matchup, a Fiesta Bowl matchup that isn’t as exciting, and the BCS title game that will generate interest and bring in a lot of people from outside the town."

Bowls have the interest of the cities they represent when looking at which teams to invite to their bowls. Phoenix landed the Iowa Hawkeyes, who bring a ton of fans to games, Oklahoma, who also travels well, and an on the rise Missouri team. The one bad egg they landed was Connecticut who doesn't travel with any sort of fan base.

When the East Valley of Arizona last hosted three bowl game back in 2006-07 — the Carey School of Business estimated an overall economic impact of $401.7 million, including $171.5 million for the BCS championship game between Florida and Ohio State. Fiesta Bowl chairman Duane Woods said that he is hopeful that number can be topped this time around.

"We could see three times the stadium size, based on the demand we’ve had for the championship game," said Woods, who added that the Fiesta Bowl is hoping to add about 1,300 seats to University of Phoenix Stadium (capacity 73,000) for the BCS title game.

Michael Martin, executive vice president of the Tempe Convention & Visitors Bureau, said retailers in the city are especially excited about the upgraded Insight Bowl pairing. The Insight moved up the bowl pecking order among the Big Ten and Big 12 conferences, enabling it to select 12th-ranked Missouri and Iowa.

Being a BCS bowl, the Fiesta Bowl has a little less latitiude on who they can pick, but most years it gets a top drawer matchup. "We always try to make the right decision based on rankings and how teams perform for their conferences," Woods said. "Fortunately for us, we’ve developed a reputation as a bowl people want to come to. I think the schools know when they commit to coming how important it is to get their fan base out here."

The Fiesta Bowl ended up being a bit of a challenge. Big 12 champion Oklahoma was visiting for the third time in five years, and Connecticut struggled to sell tickets. During the Fiesta Bowl week some hotel operators reported blocks of rooms that wouldnt be rented, and tickets were widely available on internet sites like StubHub and TicketsNow for around $15.

The BCS title game between Auburn and Oregon sells itself. Both teams will bring large groups of fans, the national media will flow into town, and it appears lots of money will be spent. Hotels report they are busy, restaurants are advising you make reservations and people are all over the tourist spots.

One call I made to a Waffle House in Phoenix summed up the whole bowl experience. I asked the manager who he wanted to win the game. He replied by saying: "Which ever team will celebrate the most and hit the Waffle House late that night, or in the morning."

Saturday Afternoon College FB Play of the Day

Oregon

The Oregon Ducks are so close to playing in a BCS Championship game.  One team stands in their way, their rivals, the Oregon State Beavers.

Oregon goes on the road today, but it's not going to matter.  Oregon gives p 16.5 to the Beavers, but they will win by more than 20.  Take Oregon for the mid afternoon game today.

Boise St. Takes a Big Step in Quest for BCS Title

Boise State has gained seven first-place votes to close in on No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Ohio State as the top three in the first regular season Associated Press football poll.

The Broncos remained third after a thrilling 33-30 victory against Virginia Tech on Monday night, receiving eight first-place votes and 1,399 points from the media panel, 13 points behind the Buckeyes.

Boise St. Head Coach Chris Peterson has put together an amazing coaching staff and group of players. If they can get past Oregon State and not lay any eggs for the rest of the season, many expect the boys from Boise to be play in the national championship game.  Lookout Alabama, Texas, or Oklahoma.