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Why do we continue to allow our institutions of higher learning (namely high schools and colleges) to promote this sport? The very organizations charged with m

Why do we continue to allow our institutions of higher learning (namely high schools and colleges) to promote this sport? The very organizations charged with making our children smarter sponsor a sport proven to cause brain damage. At some point these institutions need to be held accountable for this, only when that happens will we see any change.

dylan604 7y ago
Simple: money. The money earned from football events pay for so much of that institution's budget. Friday Night Lights is a tradition that's not going to change.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  Actually this is not true. Many top athletics programs lose substantial amounts of money, even after accounting for TV deals, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni... There’s some unsubstantiated claim that constantly growing expenditure on sports is requires like a marketing arms race to advertise to potential students, but I haven’t seen much data backing that. My guessis that, just as with most professional sports clubs, college athletics programs by design are intrinsically huge loss leaders designed to be vehicles by which coaches & administrators extract money from the university. For the tiny fraction of top teams with massive fan bases, they can get away with this while being profitable. For almost all other programs, they burn through money chasing success and profitability for a while, and after enough consecutive seasons of financial losses, they retreat to fiscal austerity and a decline in the athletics department while some other programs are on an upswing.
  - ajkjk 7y ago
    It doesn't have to be a surprising economic argument. People like football. They're obsessed with it. Of course they have it at their schools.
    - xnyan 7y ago
      People also like running, video games or chess to name a few. Football, even with its popularity, is unique in providing an enrichment pipeline from high school to the pros that a few benifet from quite a bit.

dylan604 7y ago

Simple: money. The money earned from football events pay for so much of that institution's budget. Friday Night Lights is a tradition that's not going to change.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
Actually this is not true. Many top athletics programs lose substantial amounts of money, even after accounting for TV deals, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni... There’s some unsubstantiated claim that constantly growing expenditure on sports is requires like a marketing arms race to advertise to potential students, but I haven’t seen much data backing that. My guessis that, just as with most professional sports clubs, college athletics programs by design are intrinsically huge loss leaders designed to be vehicles by which coaches & administrators extract money from the university. For the tiny fraction of top teams with massive fan bases, they can get away with this while being profitable. For almost all other programs, they burn through money chasing success and profitability for a while, and after enough consecutive seasons of financial losses, they retreat to fiscal austerity and a decline in the athletics department while some other programs are on an upswing.
- ajkjk 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be a surprising economic argument. People like football. They're obsessed with it. Of course they have it at their schools.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    People also like running, video games or chess to name a few. Football, even with its popularity, is unique in providing an enrichment pipeline from high school to the pros that a few benifet from quite a bit.