> It's not at all clear to me why we allow American football and universities to have such a perverse relationship, when it's plain to see that football itself

> It's not at all clear to me why we allow American football and universities to have such a perverse relationship, when it's plain to see that football itself has nothing to do with education, People are arguing in the comments about the money, history and prestige US football brings to colleges in the US. I have to wonder in other parts of the world does soccer have such sway over universities? Are there universities that have soccer programs that bring in large sums of money for the university? Soccer (football to the rest of the world) is probably 100 times as big with arguably ~6.5 billion vs ~300 million fans. It probably generates 100 times the profit of US football. It would be odd that the US college and football relationship is so strong when soccer is immensely bigger in every way.