A few days ago the LA Times reported that only about 20% of NCAA division 1 schools made a profit from the athletic department. Most have to be subsidized by the school with general funds or student activity fees. I think that would make a strong argument against paying athletes. How can you expect other students to pay more and do with less in the classroom so that elite athletes can get paid? There is an argument that since football (and maybe basketball) teams bring in most of the money then those athletes should be paid. That will create a two tier system, although one can say that this already exist as football and basketball players get more perks even now.
It is amazing to me that in this time of economic crisis that so much money is thrown into college sports. Most public schools are running deficits and tuition is rising, but there is no cutbacks in most of these schools. Cal tried to cut a few sports last year but donations poured in to reinstate them. How come there isn't enough donations to stop cutting of classes available or to lower the tuition? Oregon is improving their athletic facility because of generous donation from Philip Knight of Nike. So they have become a football power but their academics is still mediocre. Now Conference USA and Mountain West are trying to merge. I think they will have teams from Virginia all the way to Idaho. None of these schools except for maybe Boise State can possibly make a profit. Wouldn't you think that the traveling expense increase will dramatically increase with this merger? Also the long travels will cause more fatigue for the students. The original idea of collegiate sports was a sound mind in a sound body. I think we have lost our minds.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
1 comment:
Use the following html code to make a clickable link in your comment (instructions in the sidebar). You can test the link by previewing your comment.
<a href="http://angryyellowman.blogspot.com">Angry Yellow Man</a>
The above example will display as Angry Yellow Man
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's a tough call. I don't like how college sports has become this big business. It's really become an arms race and money wins out almost every time and the only ones hurt are the fans. Especially with rising ticket costs and seat licenses. I want to blame it on greed but really all the universities are doing are trying to stay competitive.
ReplyDeleteThere's got to be a balance somewhere but I'm not sure where it is. I like that there are opportunities out there for students to be able to play their respective sports and earn a scholarship. At the same time, it seems that those non-revenue making sports only hurt the athletic department because they cost money to operate and are in the red.
I can easily blame Title IX, but for every female sport, there's a sport like lacrosse or rowing that don't really bring any revenue. Do I think that sports like these should be at a major university? Yes. Is it feasible for each university to have these sports and make money? No.
So that leaves a lot of pressure on football and in some aspects, basketball to provide the revenue.
It's unfortunate because now we'll see these super conferences which demand a lot of money from TV. But I don't know if anyone realized how much the logistics of having extra teams in the conference was going to cost...especially with travel.
I'm cringing every time I hear that the Big Ten wants to expand, but cringe even more when I hear other conferences expand outside their region. If the NCAA really cared about its student athletes, there's no way that these super conferences would be able to form.
-LBOAYM