7 ms·

As an outsider with close to zero knowledge of American football, the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre. I mean, I understand the old principle of _m

As an outsider with close to zero knowledge of American football, the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre. I mean, I understand the old principle of _mens sana in corpore sano_ but it’s a stretch to imagine college athletics serving that goal for all but a very few students. I don’t doubt that the system has produced some academic success stories but it must be the exceptional case. Instead, the whole system bears the taint of over involvement of parties with financial incentives that have nothing to do with the mission of the academy.

nonameiguess 3y ago
Most college sports are just students who happen to also compete in a sport that is most likely earning negative revenue and they get scholarships in return. The NCAA and other associations, along with the school's athletic department itself, all get non-profit status and are eligible for tax-free donations and government funding because promoting amateurism in sport is a specifically designated carveout in the tax code. Men's football and basketball are entirely different stories. Of the North American big four, hockey and baseball have always had robust minor leagues and kids are drafted into them straight out of high school. Football and basketball, on the other hand, have pro leagues that have historically relied upon university competition to develop athletes ready for the big leagues. The NBA (American pro basketball) started up a developmental league something like maybe a decade back or so it now calls the G League, but historical inertia being what it is, there is a much larger following for universities and the best players will still tend to do at least a year there, which I think is still the minimum required. The NFL (American pro football) won't draft you until you're at least three years past high school graduation, so the players there have no choice and need to go to college. There's a lot driving it. Alumni pride, even regional and civic pride in places without pro teams in the same sport. Often the best school in each state is the flagship land grant public school and maybe a large private school, and these are usually not located in major metro areas that also have pro teams. There are a few exceptions like University of Washington, which played in the national championship game two days ago, is in Seattle. USC has one of the historically dominant teams and is in Los Angeles. But looking at the other top schools from this year, you're looking at Athens, GA, Ann Arbor, MI, Tuscaloosa, AL, Austin, TX, all places that do not have pro teams. Something people miss is the university athletic department is often, even usually, its own separate non-profit corporation from the school. So, contrary to a lot of takes, it actually has its own revenue stream and its own expenses separate from the larger university. Having a very good football and/or basketball team can draw in enough revenue that the athletic department at the very best schools is typically self-funding. They may as well just be pro franchises, except they don't pay taxes and the athletes nominally have to attend enough classes to not flunk out, though they also don't need to graduate. It's a farce of a system at the very top, but most athletes at most schools are actually amateurs just looking to do something healthy and competitive while they learn and get some of their school paid for, and the US law requires an equal number of scholarships awarded to men and women, so thanks to there often being men's sports that generate a lot of revenue, and there not being such a thing right now as women's football, the presence of a very successful football program can fund a ton of scholarship for obscure women's sports that give girls a chance to get a free education if they're willing to learn and practice them. Everything from fencing to bowling.
_ea1k 3y ago
> I don’t doubt that the system has produced some academic success stories but it must be the exceptional case. I'd guess the opposite. IMO, too much attention gets put on the top tier of athletes in the most popular sports. I'd guess that well over 50% see education as the primary benefit. Most of these students realize that they don't have a professional playing career ahead of them.
listenallyall 3y ago
College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. On the other hand, "amateur" leagues for popular sports (football, basketball) being associated with colleges is extremely effective at amplifying the interest of these leagues. Consider how little interest there would be in the "Ann Arbor Wolverines" vs "Columbus Buckeyes" in the USFL without any association with schools and their alumni, or whether anyone outside a 20-mile radius would watch Durham vs Chapel Hill if they played in the NBA's G-league.
- Beldin 3y ago
  > College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. And yet, outside of the USA, these sports do manage to exist, leagues and all, outside universities.
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know, sport is as mandatory as math until ~17year old, then universities sports clubs are open to anyone whatever how good you will perform. The budgets are low but you don’t need a ton of money to train/maintain your body in good condition. Physical well being is as important as math (if not more) and I hope my knowledge of the US does not depict the reality.
  - crq-yml 3y ago
    I've gathered that the situation in every country revolves around the available facilities/venues for sport, which is downstream of budgets and financing: in the US the majority of the divergence starts around high school level, with better-funded districts and private schools sometimes boasting rather spectacular facilities; since every US state sets their own education policies, there can be huge variance in what's available even going between different parts of California, let alone going to another state. At university level the "new gym" or "new stadium" is a common method of patronage, creating a snowball effect of a campus having really nice facilities and a large student population, so not only can they host athletics for the regular student body, they can also field an elite team by putting a little more into the scholarships and coaching budget. But the way in which this differs from other places is that access is often impacted by US urban sprawl conditions. In Japan, for example, middle school and high school athletes will use all the major urban venues, just as is depicted in manga and anime, because it's reasonable to get there by transit. So sports are supported by better utilization of the facilities across the entire local population. In contrast the US tends to have talent clustering in specialized cities: for example, all the serious tennis players go to Florida at some point. And that means there's a very substantial jump in pressure and selectivity when you go into the biggest competitive sports, and just about everyone at NCAA Division I level is intending to - or their parents groomed them to - go pro, and had it in mind from long before they got the scholarship. They allocate their day around the sport, and can't have an ordinary life. But there are always options to participate in lower divisions, intramural or other leagues with lower stakes as well, and those usually have to scrape around for budget, but can sometimes draft in the wind of an elite program.
dgoldstein0 3y ago
College football and basketball seem mainly to function as publicity for the schools and, when the teams are winning, help them to get the alumni to donate more. And serve as entertainment for the non athlete students. It's profoundly weird and completely unrelated to the academic functions of the university. Lots of people confuse schools with good sports teams for schools with strong academics.
- taylodl 3y ago
  Football and basketball fund all the other sports. That's important because there are still many kids getting their tuition covered with a sports scholarship, which, in turn, is being paid for by the football and basketball programs. All that to say there is some academic good that comes out of all this.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  > when the teams are winning, Trust me, this qualifier is completely unnecessary. See: Cal football's inexplicable perennial popularity. People just like having a team to cheer for, regardless of that team's success.
- dgoldstein0 3y ago
  Also fun random fact, but at a lot of major US public universities, the highest paid employee would be the men's football or basketball coach.
  - dmurray 3y ago
    The highest paid public servant in almost every US state, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lnir2v/oc_the_highestpaid_public_employee_in_every_state/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lnir2v/oc_the_high...
  - trilbyglens 3y ago
    not sure I'd call it fun.
  - cafard 3y ago
pjc50 3y ago
> the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre Unlike European football, in the US town-based football seems not to have taken off quite so much. The college scene, possibly because of affinity to elites, became the one that got the self-reinforcing money spiral that led to it becoming really big. This leads to weird distortions where the most highly paid public employee in many states is a sports coach.

nonameiguess 3y ago

Most college sports are just students who happen to also compete in a sport that is most likely earning negative revenue and they get scholarships in return. The NCAA and other associations, along with the school's athletic department itself, all get non-profit status and are eligible for tax-free donations and government funding because promoting amateurism in sport is a specifically designated carveout in the tax code. Men's football and basketball are entirely different stories. Of the North American big four, hockey and baseball have always had robust minor leagues and kids are drafted into them straight out of high school. Football and basketball, on the other hand, have pro leagues that have historically relied upon university competition to develop athletes ready for the big leagues. The NBA (American pro basketball) started up a developmental league something like maybe a decade back or so it now calls the G League, but historical inertia being what it is, there is a much larger following for universities and the best players will still tend to do at least a year there, which I think is still the minimum required. The NFL (American pro football) won't draft you until you're at least three years past high school graduation, so the players there have no choice and need to go to college. There's a lot driving it. Alumni pride, even regional and civic pride in places without pro teams in the same sport. Often the best school in each state is the flagship land grant public school and maybe a large private school, and these are usually not located in major metro areas that also have pro teams. There are a few exceptions like University of Washington, which played in the national championship game two days ago, is in Seattle. USC has one of the historically dominant teams and is in Los Angeles. But looking at the other top schools from this year, you're looking at Athens, GA, Ann Arbor, MI, Tuscaloosa, AL, Austin, TX, all places that do not have pro teams. Something people miss is the university athletic department is often, even usually, its own separate non-profit corporation from the school. So, contrary to a lot of takes, it actually has its own revenue stream and its own expenses separate from the larger university. Having a very good football and/or basketball team can draw in enough revenue that the athletic department at the very best schools is typically self-funding. They may as well just be pro franchises, except they don't pay taxes and the athletes nominally have to attend enough classes to not flunk out, though they also don't need to graduate. It's a farce of a system at the very top, but most athletes at most schools are actually amateurs just looking to do something healthy and competitive while they learn and get some of their school paid for, and the US law requires an equal number of scholarships awarded to men and women, so thanks to there often being men's sports that generate a lot of revenue, and there not being such a thing right now as women's football, the presence of a very successful football program can fund a ton of scholarship for obscure women's sports that give girls a chance to get a free education if they're willing to learn and practice them. Everything from fencing to bowling.

_ea1k 3y ago

> I don’t doubt that the system has produced some academic success stories but it must be the exceptional case. I'd guess the opposite. IMO, too much attention gets put on the top tier of athletes in the most popular sports. I'd guess that well over 50% see education as the primary benefit. Most of these students realize that they don't have a professional playing career ahead of them.

listenallyall 3y ago

College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. On the other hand, "amateur" leagues for popular sports (football, basketball) being associated with colleges is extremely effective at amplifying the interest of these leagues. Consider how little interest there would be in the "Ann Arbor Wolverines" vs "Columbus Buckeyes" in the USFL without any association with schools and their alumni, or whether anyone outside a 20-mile radius would watch Durham vs Chapel Hill if they played in the NBA's G-league.

Beldin 3y ago
> College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. And yet, outside of the USA, these sports do manage to exist, leagues and all, outside universities.
aziaziazi 3y ago
Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know, sport is as mandatory as math until ~17year old, then universities sports clubs are open to anyone whatever how good you will perform. The budgets are low but you don’t need a ton of money to train/maintain your body in good condition. Physical well being is as important as math (if not more) and I hope my knowledge of the US does not depict the reality.
- crq-yml 3y ago
  I've gathered that the situation in every country revolves around the available facilities/venues for sport, which is downstream of budgets and financing: in the US the majority of the divergence starts around high school level, with better-funded districts and private schools sometimes boasting rather spectacular facilities; since every US state sets their own education policies, there can be huge variance in what's available even going between different parts of California, let alone going to another state. At university level the "new gym" or "new stadium" is a common method of patronage, creating a snowball effect of a campus having really nice facilities and a large student population, so not only can they host athletics for the regular student body, they can also field an elite team by putting a little more into the scholarships and coaching budget. But the way in which this differs from other places is that access is often impacted by US urban sprawl conditions. In Japan, for example, middle school and high school athletes will use all the major urban venues, just as is depicted in manga and anime, because it's reasonable to get there by transit. So sports are supported by better utilization of the facilities across the entire local population. In contrast the US tends to have talent clustering in specialized cities: for example, all the serious tennis players go to Florida at some point. And that means there's a very substantial jump in pressure and selectivity when you go into the biggest competitive sports, and just about everyone at NCAA Division I level is intending to - or their parents groomed them to - go pro, and had it in mind from long before they got the scholarship. They allocate their day around the sport, and can't have an ordinary life. But there are always options to participate in lower divisions, intramural or other leagues with lower stakes as well, and those usually have to scrape around for budget, but can sometimes draft in the wind of an elite program.

dgoldstein0 3y ago

College football and basketball seem mainly to function as publicity for the schools and, when the teams are winning, help them to get the alumni to donate more. And serve as entertainment for the non athlete students. It's profoundly weird and completely unrelated to the academic functions of the university. Lots of people confuse schools with good sports teams for schools with strong academics.

taylodl 3y ago
Football and basketball fund all the other sports. That's important because there are still many kids getting their tuition covered with a sports scholarship, which, in turn, is being paid for by the football and basketball programs. All that to say there is some academic good that comes out of all this.
BobaFloutist 3y ago
> when the teams are winning, Trust me, this qualifier is completely unnecessary. See: Cal football's inexplicable perennial popularity. People just like having a team to cheer for, regardless of that team's success.
dgoldstein0 3y ago
Also fun random fact, but at a lot of major US public universities, the highest paid employee would be the men's football or basketball coach.
- dmurray 3y ago
  The highest paid public servant in almost every US state, apparently: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lnir2v/oc_the_highestpaid_public_employee_in_every_state/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lnir2v/oc_the_high...
- trilbyglens 3y ago
  not sure I'd call it fun.
- cafard 3y ago

pjc50 3y ago

> the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre Unlike European football, in the US town-based football seems not to have taken off quite so much. The college scene, possibly because of affinity to elites, became the one that got the self-reinforcing money spiral that led to it becoming really big. This leads to weird distortions where the most highly paid public employee in many states is a sports coach.