Posted on 03/11/2020 6:58:21 AM PDT by karpov
College sports are a gigantic entertainment business that have nothing to do with the missions of the schools. Frequently, the highest-paid employee of a school is the football or basketball coach, and the athletics budget is hugely subsidized by fees paid by financially strapped students. Players who read and write at a middle-school level (if even that) are recruited to help teams win, but the academic work they do is laughable. Schools rack up big debts trying to win glory on the gridiron or court, even if it means scrimping on faculty salaries and building maintenance.
How did this lamentable state of affairs come about?
To find out, the book to read is Intercollegiate Athletics, Inc. by professor James T. Bennett. He has researched the history of college sports in America, starting with the earliest days (when contests were organized and run by students for their own enjoyment) up to the latest scandals and perversions. He explains how the sports juggernaut gathered force (first football, later basketball) and recounts the various efforts (mostly unsuccessful) to stop or at least slow it. And perhaps most usefully, he points out that the high cost of college sports falls mainly on students through mandatory fees—a tax on education that goes to benefit a pampered few.
If you’re bothered by the fact that, as the author reports on a recent study, Division I schools (the top level in the NCAA’s hierarchy) spend three to six times as much on athletics per athlete as they do on academics per student, then this is a book you’ll want to read.
The first intercollegiate sporting competition was not football, but rowing, when the Harvard and Yale teams met in 1852.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
All colleges should develop and offer a professional sports curriculum. Train players, umpires, referees and counselors (financial and ethical). Have a law-school track for would-be agents. Note: This would force the scholarship players to go through the rules, ethics, and financial courses.
Not only prepared professional players but educated referees and agents.
Offer retired, ex-players teaching positions.
But the proportion of college athletes who make it to the pros is tiny.
How did this lamentable state of affairs come about?
$$$$$$$$$$$$
” the athletics budget is hugely subsidized by fees paid by financially strapped students.”
I though some the athletics revenue went to the academic side. Guess I’m wrong, but don’t the big-revenue sports subsidize the little-revenue sports?
Why not just force the pros to set up minor leagues for football & basketball. Most of these “student-athletes” would be no more interested (or capable of learning it!) in a “professional sports curriculum” then any other academic curriculum. Colleges & universities can “rent” out their “names” and facilities and make money off that if there is a feel that some tradition & connection must be preserved.
College is for education, not guaranteeing a job on graduation.
:: Why not just force the pros to set up minor leagues for football & basketball. ::
Because the colleges would never go for it. Too much money. Thus, the focus of this thread.
They can either throw out athletics all together (never happen) or embrace the fact that they ARE the minor-leagues feeding The Show.
If they legitimize the flow of money involved by offering a curriculum that isn’t “adjusted” for scholarship student-athletes, all good things will survive. Besides, the really good players will get drafted before their degree.
Colleges had an established fan base. This was highly committed, relatively affluent and therefore attractive to advertisers. Television matured technologically and structurally in the 1960’s and moved into college sports with big bucks. That’s when the downward spiral began.
College’s are out of control at nearly every level.
>>>” the athletics budget is hugely subsidized by fees paid by financially strapped students.” I though some the athletics revenue went to the academic side.
Only about 10% of Division 1 programs make money. Many balance the budget by raising the student fees. Then the kids have to work on the weekends to pay the fees and can’t go to the games.
Absolutely true. A school like Ohio State brings in multi millions from football and basketball. They KEEP all the money within the athletic department supposedly to pay for non-revenue-producing sports like Lacrosse, girls field hockey, etc. But the athletic dept does not pay for upkeep or debt service on the huge arena used for basketball. Rather, it is funded by the student fees for “recreation”. College sports is a beast. Coaches earn 5-10 million and a multitude of assistants run towards a million. Nobel Prize winning Physics profs as well as the university President of the university and Governor of the state make woefully much less than these coaches. Gotta stay competitive! Why?
I know that.
And they can’t legitimize “the money” without admitting the hypocrisy of the “student-athlete” concept as least as far as football & basketball go. You start paying “student athletes” the next shoe to fall will be paying graduate students, think college is expensive now wait until that happens! (Those that are on stipends are paid less then minimum wage for semi-professional work! Many are not paid at all- don’t even get tuition wavers and are still expected to do the same work!)
As far as your curriculum idea its already been done in many places through the PhysEd departments - called Sports Management, Recreation Studies to name a few. They are just feel-good no-content no-work degree programs that look better on TV when the players name is flashed then General Studies. A new degree program is not going to turn non-college material students into college material students!
I am actually a college football fan but I have no illusions about it’s hypocrisy & corruption.
A winning football team tends to draw additional alumni donations for academics.
No college presidents go to jail either. Just parents trying to get their kids into college as the colleges throw up obstacles unless you ‘donate’ money. Lots of money.
O J Simpson never too a single test in his years at USC.
A paid proxy took all of his tests.
He cannot spell CAT if you spot him the C & the A.
Everyone involved saw they could milk fans (short for FANATICS) who are so blinded by their own fanaticism they'll pay hundreds and thousands to watch other people exercise.
Even now, many students away at college skip physically attending classes and do so online on a recorded basis while they are in jammies in their dorm or apartment. Whatever the merits of college sports, binge drinking, and casual hookups, they are increasingly severable from a college education. No doubt many parents and federal budget makers are wondering why sending teen dependents off to live at college with minimal supervision makes sense since a college education and residence at college can now easily be separated.
Over the next generation, adverse demographics, online teaching, skills testing, and AI systems are going to redefine higher education, while the looming federal budget crunch will lead to the end of easy money, with higher taxes to boot.
Those who do not add sufficient value to the college enterprise will get weeded out or paid less, with over the top athletics, diversity departments, and excessively compensated college presidents being easy targets. In the end, higher education will become more practical and transactional, while the residential college experience will become more an exception than the rule it is today.
And my guess is that under the spur of new federal taxes, today's big time college athletic teams will become part of a college branded professional training league affiliated with the pros.
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