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Yes, this is extremely common. On the one hand, yes, this is absolutely batshit insane. On the other hand, college sports are enormously popular; football gam

Yes, this is extremely common. On the one hand, yes, this is absolutely batshit insane. On the other hand, college sports are enormously popular; football games regularly play to sold out crowds of over 50,000, and during football season there will be games on TV all weekend (not just local ones). They bring in a lot of revenue and publicity for the university -- and the latter (debatably?) helps attract students to apply.

turbojet1321 2y ago
I'd never considered that a sports program could be revenue producing. That's quite interesting. Although it seems weird that higher education and (almost-professional) sports are so tightly coupled.
- sf_rob 2y ago
  An interesting outsider perspective is this clip of Steven Fry going to an Auburn game: https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8 https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8 Regarding the latter, it’s weird and certainly was exploitative when college athletes weren’t allowed to monetize through sponsorships and frankly still is exploitative.
  - turbojet1321 2y ago
    I was more thinking that there's not a particularly natural overlap between sports and academic ability. You'd think that by tying the two together, you'd get both worse sporting and academic performance than if they were unrelated.
    - zifpanachr23 2y ago
      The US has a decidedly liberal viewpoint on education. Sports ability is in some sense an educational endeavor. The ancient Greeks called it "athletics". So US educational institutions don't really have any hangup against treating sports any differently than they might treat a CS class. They are a subject you have to study and train at...and sometimes sit in a theatre and have a class time about (watching scout footage or deconstructing plays, etc). Sports are probably just as rigorous as anything else academically once you get to something approaching a division 1 level of play. The reason we don't recognize it is because we suck and are mostly casual about it on a forum like this (filled with sports failures like myself or sports non-participants). The people actually in these programs with D1 scholarships and whatnot I guarantee take it as seriously as you or I would take calculus.
      - dcrazy 2y ago
        This is hardly an American phenomenon. The Bauhaus was famous for incorporating athletics too.
      - turbojet1321 2y ago
        I never meant to imply that athletics wasn't a serious pursuit. I agree that physical capability is part of being a well-rounded person. It's certainly common here (Aus) for schools and universities to have sports teams and to strongly encourage participation. What I find strange in the US context is the emphasis on it as a (revenue generating!) spectator sport. I understand that amateur (for want of a better word) sports can be highly entertaining; what I don't understand is why you'd go to university teams to find the best amateurs. I've played and watched enough sport to know that it's common for academic and physical abilities to be not particularly well correlated, particularly at tails of the distributions.
      - lazyasciiart 2y ago
        Not really. You can’t major in playing sports, you can’t get credit for it, and i don’t know what you mean by “as rigorous as anything else academically”, but it’s probably not true. I didn’t play division 1 anything but I did play in college (no scholarship).
int_19h 2y ago
It's batshit insane either way in the grand scheme of things. It just goes to show how market forces don't necessarily incentivize the things we actually want or need.
- simonh 2y ago
  It seems like crowds of 50,000 people want this enough to regularly pay for it, subsidising other people’s education in the process.

turbojet1321 2y ago

I'd never considered that a sports program could be revenue producing. That's quite interesting. Although it seems weird that higher education and (almost-professional) sports are so tightly coupled.

sf_rob 2y ago
An interesting outsider perspective is this clip of Steven Fry going to an Auburn game: https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8 https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8 Regarding the latter, it’s weird and certainly was exploitative when college athletes weren’t allowed to monetize through sponsorships and frankly still is exploitative.
- turbojet1321 2y ago
  I was more thinking that there's not a particularly natural overlap between sports and academic ability. You'd think that by tying the two together, you'd get both worse sporting and academic performance than if they were unrelated.
  - zifpanachr23 2y ago
    The US has a decidedly liberal viewpoint on education. Sports ability is in some sense an educational endeavor. The ancient Greeks called it "athletics". So US educational institutions don't really have any hangup against treating sports any differently than they might treat a CS class. They are a subject you have to study and train at...and sometimes sit in a theatre and have a class time about (watching scout footage or deconstructing plays, etc). Sports are probably just as rigorous as anything else academically once you get to something approaching a division 1 level of play. The reason we don't recognize it is because we suck and are mostly casual about it on a forum like this (filled with sports failures like myself or sports non-participants). The people actually in these programs with D1 scholarships and whatnot I guarantee take it as seriously as you or I would take calculus.
    - dcrazy 2y ago
      This is hardly an American phenomenon. The Bauhaus was famous for incorporating athletics too.
    - turbojet1321 2y ago
      I never meant to imply that athletics wasn't a serious pursuit. I agree that physical capability is part of being a well-rounded person. It's certainly common here (Aus) for schools and universities to have sports teams and to strongly encourage participation. What I find strange in the US context is the emphasis on it as a (revenue generating!) spectator sport. I understand that amateur (for want of a better word) sports can be highly entertaining; what I don't understand is why you'd go to university teams to find the best amateurs. I've played and watched enough sport to know that it's common for academic and physical abilities to be not particularly well correlated, particularly at tails of the distributions.
    - lazyasciiart 2y ago
      Not really. You can’t major in playing sports, you can’t get credit for it, and i don’t know what you mean by “as rigorous as anything else academically”, but it’s probably not true. I didn’t play division 1 anything but I did play in college (no scholarship).

int_19h 2y ago

It's batshit insane either way in the grand scheme of things. It just goes to show how market forces don't necessarily incentivize the things we actually want or need.

simonh 2y ago
It seems like crowds of 50,000 people want this enough to regularly pay for it, subsidising other people’s education in the process.