Playoff PAC has filed a 27-page complaint with the IRS, claiming that the BCS is abusing its tax exempt status as a public charity. Playoff PAC claims BCS bowls are using their “charitable funds” to “enrich Bowl executives, pay registered lobbyists without disclosure, fund political campaigns and heap frivolous benefits on Bowl insiders.”

The Bowls are registered as charities. They are “tax-exempt” and can receive “tax deductible donations.” They can’t benefit private interests. Here are Playoff PAC’s allegations.

Executives are skimming. Paul Hoolahan (Sugar Bowl CEO) and Phil Junker (Fiesta Bowl CEO) both made more than $600,000 last year, believed to be “above market” for charities of their budgets (average $185,000). Junker and his VP for marketing also took out $120,000 in zero-interest loans from the organization.

They are using funds for frivolous things.

The PAC also criticized the bowls for what it called overly generous perks, citing the $750,000 in travel expenses for the Orange Bowl in 2009 and the Sugar Bowl’s $200,000 in “gifts and bonuses” in 2008; and “frivolous” use of funds, such as the Orange Bowl spending more than $1 million in entertaining and catering in 2009, and the Fiesta Bowl shelling out nearly $400,000 for its “Fiesta Frolic” golf retreat in 2009.

They are getting mixed up in politics, illegally. The Fiesta Bowl paid $1.2 million over five years to a lobbying firm, despite explicitly denying it engaged in political lobbying. The bowl donated $2,000 to a Republican Senate candidate, illegal for a tax-exempt organization. Fiesta Bowl executives reportedly were encouraged to donate to certain political candidates and repaid by the Bowl, illegal regardless of tax-exempt status.

So, essentially, the BCS Bowl games, which exist to be profitable and frivolous, are being profitable and frivolous. What are they supposed to do with their tax-deductible donations? Charity?

You may think I’m going to use this as a mace to bludgeon the BCS and to argue for a playoff. I’m not. We need Bowl games. Where would we be in a world where reason and the spirit of fair competition trumped reason and the lust for power? Where would we be if the traditions of the AllState Sugar Bowl, of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and of the Discover Orange Bowl were not sacrosanct and eternal?

College football may be unfair, but, because it’s unfair, you get to have tedious, repetitive arguments about how unfair it is! That’s as good of a justification for the status quo as any. What else would you talk about? The football?

[Photo via Getty]