A few months ago, we learned that ESPN is taking over the television rights for all of the BCS games starting in 2011 (the games at the end of the 2010 season). And Brooks has theorized that ESPN’s acquisition of the games will actually help make a college football playoff a reality.

(Is the Brennaman-Tebow love affair coming to a premature end?)

Now, FOX — the lame-duck broadcaster for the games with one year left on its contract — is reportedly prepared to let ESPN take over a year early for the right price. Because the “national championship” game is going to be played at the Rose Bowl, ESPN already owns the rights to the game in addition the regular Rose Bowl game. So that means FOX would be stuck with two OK games and then a ratings-killer along the lines of Virginia Tech-Cincinnati. And unless Florida misses out on the title game, we wouldn’t get to hear Thom Brennaman gush about his bromance with Tim Tebow anyway.

Tony Barnhart of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION has a bit about it in his latest column:

Remember that back in 2007 FOX jumped into the BCS sweepstakes and took it away from ABC by paying $80 million a year. When the contract came up for bid last year, ESPN outbid FOX by putting up $125 million a year for 2010-13. FOX has one more season, 2009, on its current deal to televise the BCS games. But there are some rumblings that FOX could sell those 2009 rights to ESPN if the Worldwide Leader made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Could that move the timetable up even further on a possible playoff? Here’s what Brooks said right here on this site in December:

ESPN is probably the only sports media organization on the planet that has sway over the NCAA (sorry CBS), because the WWL has its tentacles so deeply intertwined in college athletics and has the leading sports reporting arm in North America. Unlike CBS, which also has plenty of college sports interests, ESPN’s SportsCenter decides the news. And spins it at the whim of the ESPN suits.

By the time the Bristol boys take over the BCS broadcast coverage in 2011, the din over the BCS bowl debacle will be deafening. And we’ll likely continue to hear calls from Congress and Obama that a playoff system needs to be enacted.

While Brooks argues that ESPN has such control over the sporting landscape that they could essentially force a playoff system, Barnhart says it won’t happen until 2014 at the earliest. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

And don’t rule out government getting involved here. For better or worse, our government is dipping its fingers in a lot of things these days, and with President Obama being enough of a sports fan that he’s participating in ESPN’s office pool, federal intervention is not all that far-fetched. Especially if the Mountain West and the other non-BCS leagues can make a solid case that the system disenfranchises them.