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Yes and no. Ideally it's just a university sports team. But now college sports have gone from university students playing football in their spare time to except

Yes and no. Ideally it's just a university sports team. But now college sports have gone from university students playing football in their spare time to exceptional athletes who attend classes in their spare time. Some universities, such as UNC and Virginia Tech, have seen massive profits by selling merchandise thanks to these sports teams, and have made sports a higher priority than the actual academics. Now younger people are choosing to attend universities based on their sports team rather than the academics. Anyone who disrupts this big business of college sports can expect to feel massive backlash from the university and the crazed fans of the sports teams.

jsumrall 13y ago
And as someone else pointed out, the coach of the teams get paid more than the president of the university! They get paid more than even their most valuable professors!
- yardie 13y ago
  I haven't met a professor yet that could pack a 25000 seat arena. Good professors hold chairs which are paid by endowments. So maybe a few million $ a year in donations. Good coaches can make a few million $ on a good weekend. If they make it to the bowls, 10-20 million $.
  - sdoering 13y ago
    Sorry, but that system is so utterly strange to me. I really do not have the ability to understand this. Might be my problem, might be a cultural problem, as I am not an American. But in what universe could this be a good thing? What does sports do for the development of mankind? It distracts, it is just "panem et circensis"[1] and it is nothing more than a big business. So the people trying to teach people the ability to better the world have to "fight for the scraps" while others reap the benefits of telling youngsters to run faster, kick harder or throw better? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panem_et_circenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panem_et_circenses
    - pirateking 13y ago
      Your mistake is in assuming that it is about things like "running", "kicking", and "throwing". Sport is about the subjugation of human, by another human. It doesn't do anything for the development of humankind as a whole - that is the point. Things like sportsmanship and game rules exist to prevent full regression to our savage roots. I do think competition is a healthy and necessary trait for individual development. Meanwhile, education holds the potential of freedom from subjugation for all humans... The balance is disturbed.
      - xenophonf 13y ago
        Perhaps I've been trolled, but I'd have to disagree strongly. Sports might be seen as some kind of ritualized conflict, I guess, but then how is that different than any other kind of gameplay? Take chess, for instance - it is all about strategy and tactics in service to the intellectual domination, subjugation, and eventual defeat of one's opponent. But so what? It's damned fun, which is a worthy end in itself, and I believe that chess play hones the mind even as it entertains the players. Likewise, sports are fun! But if you need further justification, their play teaches us valuable physical and social skills - teamwork, graciousness, poise, coordination, fitness, and so on - that even if you aren't entertained by a particular sport, surely you can see its potential value in other dimensions. I guess my point is that not all human education is intellectual. It is experiential, and it is physical, and social, and moral, too.
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        Chess is more of an individualist game where the world championship will be won by one guy rather than "Team USA". It's also more difficult to follow than say soccer to people not intimately familiar with the game.
        dagw 13y ago
        Fischer vs Kasparov and Fischer vs Spassky was very much Team USA vs Team Soviet Union and not just two guys playing chess. People in Norway tuned in to the 2013 Finals to see Team Norway play, not to see some random guy called Magnus.
  - positr0n 13y ago
    25,000 is a bit on the small side for major universities. The university I went to just kicked off a construction project to increase the stadium capacity to over 100,000. A few miles north of where I currently live, the high school football stadium seats 18,000 [0]. [0]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas)
    - yardie 13y ago
      The university I attended had 75,000 seats, when I left. They've added skyboxes, extended and raised it since. I was being conservative because I assumed nonUS HNers would assume I was making these numbers up.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      The only high schools here in Scotland that have anything like stadiums, just a single stand really, are the rugby crazed private schools in Edinburgh. For example, here is a blog entry about the Stewarts Melville main pitch (of 6) at Inverleith in Edinburgh where I often spend time watching my son play: http://ian38018.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-05-25T23:52:00%2B01:00&max-results=1 http://ian38018.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-05-25... Also, I couldn't help noticing that the Eagle Stadium is paid for by taxpayers.... :-)
  - antimagic 13y ago
    Maybe not, but I have certainly met professors that have led research that universities have spun off into highly profitable companies. And even without worrying about direct money-generating capacity, it's having the best research teams that allows the big name universities to demand the ridiculous tuition fees that they charge. Yet coaches are paid more. I can only conclude that many university presidents actually wanted to own sports teams, and this is how they have got their wish...
  - dalke 13y ago
    I've yet to meet a coach who can pack a 25,000 seat arena either. They usually need other coaches, a team of players, and an opposition. Most good professors aren't in endowed chairs. Something like 1/3rd of the professors at the best schools are endowed. A state school like the University of Illinois has about 10-20%. Nor do most of the professors bring in money through endowments and gifts. Much more is brought in through grants, like through the NIH and NSF, and from state funding. (That's a general statement. There are many exceptions.) There's also tech transfer agreements. Consider this quote, about taxol synthesis developed at Florida State: > In 1996, Florida State University was the envy of the tech-transfer world of U.S. research institutions. That year alone, the university's research foundation received more than $28 million in Taxol royalties. By decade's end, the university's Taxol revenue would top $200 million, among the largest patenting pay-offs for a single university in history. That's one professor who brought in over $20 million per year, for a decade. (By comparison, the current FSU football program brings in now about $36 million in revenue, and $17 million in profit.) And as for the coaches, very few college programs can bring in a few million dollars per game, and only the 6 playoff bowls have team payouts of over $10 million, so that's at most 12 universities with that success.
    - ams6110 13y ago
      Many of the highly-paid elite coaches also either directly fund or by virtue of their reputation and network attract funding for endowments or gifts.
      - dalke 13y ago
        So noted. However, in the numbers I saw for the University of Illinois budget, the total endowments and gifts was about 1/7th of that of grant funding. I have not done any extensive analysis of this. My comment was mostly to highlight that the previous poster was making statements that I could not easily accept as being true.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  In a majority of states, the highest-paid public employee is a college football coach. In another 11 it's the basketball coach (Minnesota is a tie between the two). In eleven it's a college dean (usually the medical school), president/chancellor, or similar. http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228 http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-...
EliRivers 13y ago
As well as the money-spinner leagues, are there amateur (that's possibly not quite the right word for it, but the big college teams are clearly professional in all but name) leagues of the same sport for students who really are there to study and just want to play some inter-collegiate sports as well?
- hyperpape 13y ago
  Yes, I believe the terms are intramural and intermural leagues for ordinary students.

jsumrall 13y ago

And as someone else pointed out, the coach of the teams get paid more than the president of the university! They get paid more than even their most valuable professors!

yardie 13y ago
I haven't met a professor yet that could pack a 25000 seat arena. Good professors hold chairs which are paid by endowments. So maybe a few million $ a year in donations. Good coaches can make a few million $ on a good weekend. If they make it to the bowls, 10-20 million $.
- sdoering 13y ago
  Sorry, but that system is so utterly strange to me. I really do not have the ability to understand this. Might be my problem, might be a cultural problem, as I am not an American. But in what universe could this be a good thing? What does sports do for the development of mankind? It distracts, it is just "panem et circensis"[1] and it is nothing more than a big business. So the people trying to teach people the ability to better the world have to "fight for the scraps" while others reap the benefits of telling youngsters to run faster, kick harder or throw better? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panem_et_circenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panem_et_circenses
  - pirateking 13y ago
    Your mistake is in assuming that it is about things like "running", "kicking", and "throwing". Sport is about the subjugation of human, by another human. It doesn't do anything for the development of humankind as a whole - that is the point. Things like sportsmanship and game rules exist to prevent full regression to our savage roots. I do think competition is a healthy and necessary trait for individual development. Meanwhile, education holds the potential of freedom from subjugation for all humans... The balance is disturbed.
    - xenophonf 13y ago
      Perhaps I've been trolled, but I'd have to disagree strongly. Sports might be seen as some kind of ritualized conflict, I guess, but then how is that different than any other kind of gameplay? Take chess, for instance - it is all about strategy and tactics in service to the intellectual domination, subjugation, and eventual defeat of one's opponent. But so what? It's damned fun, which is a worthy end in itself, and I believe that chess play hones the mind even as it entertains the players. Likewise, sports are fun! But if you need further justification, their play teaches us valuable physical and social skills - teamwork, graciousness, poise, coordination, fitness, and so on - that even if you aren't entertained by a particular sport, surely you can see its potential value in other dimensions. I guess my point is that not all human education is intellectual. It is experiential, and it is physical, and social, and moral, too.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        Chess is more of an individualist game where the world championship will be won by one guy rather than "Team USA". It's also more difficult to follow than say soccer to people not intimately familiar with the game.
        dagw 13y ago
        Fischer vs Kasparov and Fischer vs Spassky was very much Team USA vs Team Soviet Union and not just two guys playing chess. People in Norway tuned in to the 2013 Finals to see Team Norway play, not to see some random guy called Magnus.
- positr0n 13y ago
  25,000 is a bit on the small side for major universities. The university I went to just kicked off a construction project to increase the stadium capacity to over 100,000. A few miles north of where I currently live, the high school football stadium seats 18,000 [0]. [0]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas)
  - yardie 13y ago
    The university I attended had 75,000 seats, when I left. They've added skyboxes, extended and raised it since. I was being conservative because I assumed nonUS HNers would assume I was making these numbers up.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    The only high schools here in Scotland that have anything like stadiums, just a single stand really, are the rugby crazed private schools in Edinburgh. For example, here is a blog entry about the Stewarts Melville main pitch (of 6) at Inverleith in Edinburgh where I often spend time watching my son play: http://ian38018.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-05-25T23:52:00%2B01:00&max-results=1 http://ian38018.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-05-25... Also, I couldn't help noticing that the Eagle Stadium is paid for by taxpayers.... :-)
- antimagic 13y ago
  Maybe not, but I have certainly met professors that have led research that universities have spun off into highly profitable companies. And even without worrying about direct money-generating capacity, it's having the best research teams that allows the big name universities to demand the ridiculous tuition fees that they charge. Yet coaches are paid more. I can only conclude that many university presidents actually wanted to own sports teams, and this is how they have got their wish...
- dalke 13y ago
  I've yet to meet a coach who can pack a 25,000 seat arena either. They usually need other coaches, a team of players, and an opposition. Most good professors aren't in endowed chairs. Something like 1/3rd of the professors at the best schools are endowed. A state school like the University of Illinois has about 10-20%. Nor do most of the professors bring in money through endowments and gifts. Much more is brought in through grants, like through the NIH and NSF, and from state funding. (That's a general statement. There are many exceptions.) There's also tech transfer agreements. Consider this quote, about taxol synthesis developed at Florida State: > In 1996, Florida State University was the envy of the tech-transfer world of U.S. research institutions. That year alone, the university's research foundation received more than $28 million in Taxol royalties. By decade's end, the university's Taxol revenue would top $200 million, among the largest patenting pay-offs for a single university in history. That's one professor who brought in over $20 million per year, for a decade. (By comparison, the current FSU football program brings in now about $36 million in revenue, and $17 million in profit.) And as for the coaches, very few college programs can bring in a few million dollars per game, and only the 6 playoff bowls have team payouts of over $10 million, so that's at most 12 universities with that success.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    Many of the highly-paid elite coaches also either directly fund or by virtue of their reputation and network attract funding for endowments or gifts.
    - dalke 13y ago
      So noted. However, in the numbers I saw for the University of Illinois budget, the total endowments and gifts was about 1/7th of that of grant funding. I have not done any extensive analysis of this. My comment was mostly to highlight that the previous poster was making statements that I could not easily accept as being true.
dredmorbius 13y ago
In a majority of states, the highest-paid public employee is a college football coach. In another 11 it's the basketball coach (Minnesota is a tie between the two). In eleven it's a college dean (usually the medical school), president/chancellor, or similar. http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228 http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-...

EliRivers 13y ago

As well as the money-spinner leagues, are there amateur (that's possibly not quite the right word for it, but the big college teams are clearly professional in all but name) leagues of the same sport for students who really are there to study and just want to play some inter-collegiate sports as well?

hyperpape 13y ago
Yes, I believe the terms are intramural and intermural leagues for ordinary students.