The pandemic has shut down all of UD‘s sports scandal fun; and, as this article suggests, big time university athletics might have a lot of trouble bouncing back when covid ends. Oh dear.
The pandemic has shut down all of UD‘s sports scandal fun; and, as this article suggests, big time university athletics might have a lot of trouble bouncing back when covid ends. Oh dear.
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July 17th, 2020 at 2:10PM
Actually confused. The article talks about huge money paid to colleges for continuing sports programs; but I thought you have been saying that sports programs costs were higher than the income generated. Which is true? Please. THANK YOU.
July 17th, 2020 at 8:45PM
jane: They’re both true. U Alabama makes tons of money from football; so do a very few other schools. Most schools lose money on their “money” sports. Some lose immense sums of money. And for all big sports schools, there is also reputational damage – not all damage is monetary. Cheating scandals, recruitment scandals, law-breaking, etc., etc.
July 18th, 2020 at 1:32PM
To elaborate on UD‘s observation: on a fully-allocated cost basis (including debt service on the buildings) almost no College Sports program runs at a profit. Go on down the food chain, and you have money-losing programs propped up by student fees (everybody in the Mid American Conference, for instance) or by cable television (the atrocity that is college football on school nights in November, again the Mid American has pride of place) and now the so-called power conferences are limiting their football to within conference.
As far as recruiting, has anybody noticed the conjuring trick in the basketball coaches’ association asking to be rid of the college boards for implicit bias in the tests, as if nobody has been paying attention to the business model, which is recruiting athletically talented but academically dubious gladiators, a few of whom get to sign a professional contract, whilst most of them might never graduate and never lace up sneakers again once their eligibility is done?
July 20th, 2020 at 3:58PM
IN the comic strip Tank McNamara, the example of a sports mad university was Enormous State University. The school was described as a less than mediocre diploma mill attached to a football team.In the words of the comic strip: “The boosters — a collection of real-estate developers and other entrepreneurs — view the university as a “football program with a little appendage on the other side of the stadium.”
July 20th, 2020 at 5:53PM
superdestroyer: Yup. There’ll always be a Nebraska.