Wwenty years ago today, a few words by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens changed the course of college football. "Today we hold ?€¦ the NCAA has restricted rather than enhanced the place of intercollegiate athletics in the Nation's life." The high court upheld rulings in the lower courts that found the NCAA in violation of antitrust laws and could no longer control college football on television. Since then, the game has grown in ways few could have envisioned. The Bowl Championship Series exists because of it. It's why Miami, Fla., and Virginia Tech begin play in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season. The Big 12 formed and the Southwest Conference died, the Big Ten became 11 and the Southeastern Conference added and divided because of it. It's why Notre Dame has its own network. A generation has grown up with autumn Saturdays filled with televised college football. And games sprinkled on weeknights owe their origin to the decision. It's not even July and college football preview magazines have been out for weeks, testifying to the game's popularity. "We just refunded 8,000 ticket requests, our stadium is up to 92,000 after the latest expansion, and we're on television about every weekend," Georgia athletic director and former coach Vince Dooley said. "I'd say college football is in pretty good shape these days." *** Nobody was quite sure what unleashing college football on television would bring, but by the early 1980s college football powers were certain that the system that had been in place since 1952 couldn't continue. For three decades, the NCAA negotiated television contracts, regulated the number of appearances and distributed TV income equally among Division I schools. Under the NCAA guidelines, the epic 1966 tie between Notre Dame and Michigan State could only be seen regionally. In 1981, a glamour matchup between Oklahoma and Southern Cal wasn't seen in the Southeast. Those viewers got to watch Appalachian State and The Citadel. The big boys wanted to sell their product directly to the highest bidder, and in 1981 the Oklahoma board of regents and Georgia Athletic Association filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA. The Sooners and Bulldogs had the goods. Oklahoma games annually were among the game's highest-rated, and Georgia was entering the Herschel Walker era. They had the backing of the College Football Association, a group of powerful schools formed in 1979 that claimed schools individually owned their TV rights and must give consent for someone else to sell them. The CFA was working on a $180 million deal between NBC and 61 big-time football schools - pretty much everybody except Big Ten and Pacific-10 schools - which threatened the record four-year, $281.2 million deal the NCAA had signed with ABC, CBS and Turner Broadcasting. "We had negotiated a terrific deal that was beneficial to many schools," said Tom Hansen, the NCAA's television liason who is now Pac-10 commissioner. "Maybe too good. It showed how much money could be made televising football." The NCAA tried to appease the CFA. It called a special convention that December and created Division I-A and I-AA, cutting the largest group from 180 to 105. Eventually, enough CFA schools got cold feet and backed out of the NBC agreement. There were fears of NCAA retribution, including getting cut out of the NCAA basketball tournament. "We got the picture that if we went ahead with that NBC contract there would be disciplinary action," said University of Oklahoma law professor Dan Gibbens, who was chairman of the CFA television committee. "This got everybody's attention. We either had to knuckle under and stick with the NCAA plan or go to court." Oklahoma and Georgia went forward with the lawsuit, originally filed in Oklahoma City. But a New Mexico judge, Juan Burciaga, was appointed because a federal judge in Oklahoma without season tickets to Sooners games could not be found. Texas filed a similar action in state court, and Notre Dame, fully understanding its value in the open market, was a strong silent partner. The battle was on. "It was a risk venture," Gibbens said. "But we believed we had a strong legal position. We had to prove that we were out to benefit the consumer by making more products available. That way the consumer would have choices." *** On Sept. 15, 1982, Burciaga's decision was made public: The NCAA television contracts violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and were nullified. He held that "the right to telecast college football games is the property of the institutions participating in the games, and that right may be sold or assigned by those institutions to any entity at their discretion." The NCAA sought an immediate stay through the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Burciaga said the NCAA control amounted to price fixing. "The controls make the NCAA a classic cartel," Buricaga said. "That's the phrase I remember the most, 'classic cartel,'?" Dooley said. "Through the years, that's what has stuck with me." Oklahoma wasted no time in negotiating a deal. It sold the rights to its 1982 home game with Southern Cal to a New York-based syndicator, which easily collected 100 stations to carry the game. And it would have been shown, had the NCAA not appealed. The stay allowed the 1982 and 1983 seasons to progress on television as planned on ABC, CBS and Turner. The case headed to the Supreme Court in 1984, and by a 7-2 decision, college football officially was set free. Stevens called the NCAA plan "insensitive to viewer preference." Byron "Whizzer" White, the former Colorado All-America running back, and future Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissented. White's defense of the NCAA was part of the Supreme Court opinion. But it was of little consolation. "We were very disappointed," Hansen said. "If this was a monopoly, it was a very effective monopoly." *** For the brave new world of the 1984 season schools and conferences were on their own. The CFA was flush with victory, but there was plenty of confusion and a worst-case scenario was realized. The NCAA contract was scheduled to deliver $74 million. ABC's contract with the CFA was worth about $12 million. Then-NCAA head Walter Byers called it "an enormous economic miscalculation, and colleges are paying the price for that miscalculation." Arizona coach Larry Smith, whose conference was sympathetic with the NCAA, called the CFA motive a "selfish, one-sided venture to run the smaller, weaker programs out of existence." Consumers were winning - there were more games on television in the late 1980s than ever.But the schools were losing in the wallet. The Big Eight lost $1.5 million from its football contracts between 1983 and 1987. Notre Dame struck the first blow in the CFA, agreeing to its own contract with NBC in 1990. The Southeastern Conference negotiated its own deal. Leagues shuffled to strengthen their appeal to networks, none more dramatic than the formation of the Big 12 in 1996. "It's why we talked to Texas in the early 1990s," Hansen said. "We all looked to make our conferences stronger for television." *** The 1984 decision changed college sports' power structure. Football television money is the primary revenue source in major conferences such as the Big 12, and the conferences control that fund. No football money goes to the NCAA, which relies on income from the Division I men's basketball tournament for three-fourths of its annual budget. Power lies with the commissioners of the major conferences - the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC, ACC and Big East, who now are negotiating the next BCS contract, which will begin in 2006. Meanwhile, conferences are beginning to announce their regular-season television schedules. Last season, 67 Big Ten games were televised and the league averaged more than 70,000 fans per home game. In 1983, the 105 Division I-A programs averaged 42,162. Last year, the 117 schools averaged an all-time best 45,447. "More television was supposed to mean less attendance, and that was the big fear," Dooley said. "We were told television appearances needed to be controlled. I understood the concerns. But we knew we were right."