51–60 of 238 posts
is there a way to read nytimes articles with javascript disabled? (other than archive.is, I use cloudflare DNS)
No problems reading the article. What issues did you see?
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, except insofar as it's an activity that many students enjoy (but there is no shortage of other non-academic activities that many students share, such as baseball...) And in cases like this, where students are leaving the game ea…
> Why can't the American football industry run itself more like the American baseball industry? I am a very strong opponent of the overwhelming sports culture at American universities, and of the absurd sums of money spent to sustain it. (Example: Dabo Swinney was just given a $93 million contract to remain the football coach of Clemson.) This >Defenders of the current system will often claim that football is profita…
I guess we can debate whether "positive" equals "positive sentiment" or "positive success in generating brand awareness." However, the fact that this article exists underscores the positive publicity value of the Alabama football program regardless of whether this specific article is good or bad publicity.
In other words, the NYT never writes this article for Sheboygan State University's football program because not enough people care about it (note: it doesn't exist... nor does Sheboygan State... it's just a generic example so I wouldn't offend anyone with the name of a real university).
In contrast, people care about the University of Alabama's football program, which results in people caring about the University of Alabama.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why can't the American football industry run itself more like the American baseball industry? I am a very strong opponent of the overwhelming sports culture at American universities, and of the absurd sums of money spent to sustain it. (Example: Dabo Swinney was just given a $93 million contract to remain the football coach of Clemson.) This >Defenders of the current system will often claim that football is profita…
Is it really still profitable in e.g. that case of Dabo Swinney landing a 93 million dollar contract?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If one simply takes the behavior of the vast majority of universities in the US at face value it should be quite clear. Their priority is not education, it is profit. That's really it. Believing otherwise is like believing the priority of health insurance companies is public health or the priority of for-profit prisons is rehabilitation.
The vast majority of universities in the US are non-profit institutions.
The Church of Scientology is a considered a non-profit institution in the U.S. as well. Do you believe that The Church of Scientology is a benevolent actor? I don't. I believe their primary purpose is profit and they are taking advantage of their followers and the U.S. taxpayer in the same way these universities are.
The university in this article is "non-profit" as well, but they just granted a $70+ million contract to their football coach. I don't see how you can argue that this is appropriate for a non-profit institution whose priority is education when they are charging their 30,000+ undergraduates six figures to complete a four-year degree at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we will look back on this period of American universities (between say the 1980s and whenever the NFL gets a basic minor league) as a great aberration. College sports were meant to be clubs of enthusiasts from the student body, not a parallel big business. Maybe as an intermediate step, you could have schools that sponsor the teams and offer scholarships for when the players leave professional sports. That wo…
> I think we will look back on this period of American universities as a great aberration. I hope so. Athletics are only the tip of the iceberg. Tuition at universities like Harvard, Princeton, etc. runs around $45,000 a year. Even at public universities, it tends to be over $10,000 a year. This is tuition , mind you, not counting room and board. These figures are vastly higher than a generation ago, and are continui…
Other expensive private-nonprofit schools may be another matter entirely. But those two are bad examples to use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of universities in the US are non-profit institutions.
"Non-profit" doesn't mean that profit isn't the primary motive. It just means you can't show any profit, or return it to shareholders, as in a corporation. Instead, you do things like giving the University President an absurdly enormous salary, plus put him up in a lavish mansion, or go on a construction spree, building more and more very expensive buildings and stadiums, or give a 7-figure salary to the football coa…
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, except insofar as it's an activity that many students enjoy (but there is no shortage of other non-academic activities that many students share, such as baseball...) And in cases like this, where students are leaving the game ea…
There is college baseball. I'm firmly in the camp that sports have nothing to do with education, and there should be no association of organized sports and public educational institutions whatsoever. Gym class is one thing, but after-school sports have nothing to do with receiving a basic education.
In college sports (D3, which is a different ballgame and likely closer to what most people would imagine as "clubs") I learned a bunch as well, about leadership, organization, time management etc. We actually did much better in class during season because we had -5 hours a week of free time due to sports.
My university's sports are all funded through a calculation they did on alumni donations. Those who played sports are most likely to give money, so they keep the sports going as it has a marked impact on donations.
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, except insofar as it's an activity that many students enjoy (but there is no shortage of other non-academic activities that many students share, such as baseball...) And in cases like this, where students are leaving the game ea…
I hate it too, but its clearly profitable - people want to watch football and spend money on tickets and merchandise, and universities ended up being a good vehicle to drive fanbases. Its not realistic to ask people to not want to be football fans and not spend money on that interest, and not realistic to ask universities to not take that money. The most realistic potential improvement I can see is requiring public u…
That's not clear to me. Google tells me there are nearly 800 university football teams in America. Alabama is obviously top-tier and is doubtlessly profitable. But how many of the other hundreds are profitable?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of universities in the US are non-profit institutions.
Can you elaborate how you think that applies to this discussion? Seems like you are arguing semantics to me. The Church of Scientology is a considered a non-profit institution in the U.S. as well. Do you believe that The Church of Scientology is a benevolent actor? I don't. I believe their primary purpose is profit and they are taking advantage of their followers and the U.S. taxpayer in the same way these universiti…
What you are describing is more like "growth." And maybe the kinds of growth universities are investing in isn't great right now. That's a fine conversation to have.
This isn't just a semantic distinction. The profit motive and the kind of empire building growth motive are two pretty different things. You can see this because there ARE for-profit universities in the US and they act in dramatically different ways than the non-profits.
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, except insofar as it's an activity that many students enjoy (but there is no shortage of other non-academic activities that many students share, such as baseball...) And in cases like this, where students are leaving the game ea…
Your question seems to indicate that you aren't from the United States. College football is just one sport among many popular college sports in the U.S. It began as a club-type extra curricular activity but as it became more popular universities likely saw it as a way to market their school and attract customers (students). The top 30-40 programs produce $100 million in revenue which is usually enough to be self-sust…