US Senator's Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have sent a letter to BCS Administrator Bill Hancock looking for answers to their concerns. Bill Hancock has publicly acknowledged the letter, and will answer it in due time.

I'm looking forward to taking a longer look at the letter. I sure do think that Congress has more important things to do, with all the issues facing our country. The BCS is fair. Access is fair. Revenue is distributed fairly. And frankly, we welcome the opportunity to tell our story every chance we get.

A look at the questions contained in the letter, there significance and what is already known about the answers to the questions after the jump.

Question 1 Paraphrase: How will you be distributing the increased revenue?

The BCS literature is clear that the payouts are expressed in terms of percentages of revenue generated, after expenses. Each party will receive the same percentage of revenue they had in the past.

Question 2 Paraphrase: Will the measurable increase in parity be rewarded in the new contract?

With the possible exception of the MWC earning a BCS automatic qualification, it is unlikely that any changes will happen. The increase in parity will likely be dealt with by an impending round of conference alignments.

Question 3 Paraphrase: You said that the BCS pays roughly $18.5 to conferences who participate. Where is the WAC and MWC's money?

It is always good to catch someone in a falsehood in the public record. The BCS might be able to fudge their way out of this using averages, but the point made is unflinching. Neither conference mentioned made half the value quoted from BCS literature.

Question 4 Paraphrase: How exactly are future automatic qualifications determined, and how would the pay change?

The known details are listed in the letter. Frankly the picture is clear. The MWC will be very close to an invite, especially if they invite Boise State this summer. No one else even comes close to the edge. I expect this formula to be announced after this year's BCS annual meeting, which will also precede any formal answer to this letter.

Any conference earning a bid would earn an equal share with the other automatic qualifying conferences, plus $4.5 million if they qualify a second team. ESPN has already stated the revenue will not be changed based on any changes to the automatic qualifications that may happen. The result is the current automatic qualifying conferences would lose roughly $3 million each to pay for the new conference's share.

The BCS allows for 5-7 conferences to earn automatic qualifications. All were evaluated over 2007-2010 to determine the current automatic qualifications. 2008-2011 will be evaluated to determine if any new conferences should be admitted for 2012 and 2013.  All conferences would be evaluated over 2010-2013 if the current arrangement is extended through the next cycle. If one of the six automatic qualifying conferences failed to meet these criteria they would lose their automatic qualification.

Question 5 Paraphrase: What exactly is the BCS?

Currently, it is unclear to us what sort of status the BCS enjoys as an organization. According to public information, it appears that the BCS agreement did not result in the formation of a separate legal entity, with an exception of an entity that has been assigned ownership of certain intellectual property rights. Instead, the BCS apparently considers itself an "arrangement" wherein the teams, conferences, and bowl-game organizations appear to have remained completely separate and ostensibly independent.

How then does the BCS hire an Executive Director and hire Ari Fleischer? Who pays for these expenses?

Awesome question from a legal side. I would be curious to hear the answers to this question myself.

Question 6 Paraphrase: How exactly do the computer methods work?

Calls for making source codes for the ranking algorithms public will not be answered due to intellectual property rights. While some form of auditing might be appropriate, the BCS has hinted that they have some measures for evaluating which computer components are used. Transparency here would be a far more reachable goal.

Frankly, I would defend the BCS on the computer rankings if they made one change. Allow algorithms incorporating MOV to compete in the performance metrics the BCS measure computer algorithms against.

Thus ends the letter, after a few pleasantries.