BCS Extends Agreement With Harris Interactive

The conferences and institutions participating in the Bowl Championship Series have extended their contract with Harris Interactive^® for four years, it was announced today.

The agreement, which goes through the 2010 BCS bowls, keeps the Harris Interactive College Football Poll as part of the BCS Standings for the next four seasons. The Harris Poll made its debut last season.

This year’s BCS Standings will include the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, USA Today Coaches’ Poll and six computer standings – Jeff Sagarin, Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey and Dr. Peter Wolfe.

"The BCS was pleased with how the Harris Interactive College Football Poll was structured and delivered last season," said BCS Coordinator and Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive. "Harris Interactive’s approach to the coordination of the poll and desire for integrity in the process warranted this extension."

"Harris Interactive has been a leader in polling for more than 40 years," said Greg Novak, CEO of Harris Interactive.  "We are proud to offer our best practices to the BCS system, and we look forward to delivering a poll on the Top 25 college football teams in the nation for the next four years."

The Harris Interactive College Football Poll will rank the Top 25 teams on a weekly basis during the 2006 season, September 24 through December 3. The panel of 114 participants comprises former coaches, players and administrators along with current and former media. Randomly drawn by Harris Interactive from among a total of more than 300 nominations supplied by conferences and schools, the panel has been designed to statistically represent the conferences and institutions participating in the Bowl Championship Series. Harris Interactive is in the final stages of recruitment of this year’s panel members. Once the panel has been filled, the individual panelists’ names will be released by Harris Interactive.

Harris Interactive will post the poll results to its website each Sunday (www.harrisinteractive.com), beginning September 24^th. For the 2006 final rankings on December 3^rd, individual rankings from panelists will be made public.

The first BCS standings of the 2006 season will be released October 15.

Harris Interactive is the 12th largest and fastest-growing market research firm in the world. The company provides research-driven insights and strategic advice to help its clients make more confident decisions which lead to measurable and enduring improvements in performance. Harris Interactive is widely known for The Harris Poll, one of the longest running, independent opinion polls and for pioneering online market research methods. The company has built what could conceivably be the world’s largest panel of survey respondents, the Harris Poll Online. Harris Interactive serves clients worldwide through its United States, Europe and Asia offices, its wholly-owned subsidiary Novatris in France and through a global network of independent market research firms. The service bureau, HISB, provides its market research industry clients with mixed-mode data collection, panel development services as well as syndicated and tracking research consultation. More information about Harris Interactive may be obtained at www.harrisinteractive.com. To become a member of the Harris Poll Online, visit http://go.hpolsurveys.com/BCS.

The BCS is a five-game arrangement for post-season college football that is managed by the 11 Division I-A conferences and Notre Dame. Its purpose is to match the two top-ranked teams in the final BCS standings in a national championship game and to create competitive match-ups in the four other BCS bowl games. For more information, visit http://www.bcsfootball.org.

Nancy Wong, Harris Interactive

(585) 214-7316

Charles Bloom, Bowl Championship Series

(205) 458-3010