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Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

nytimes.com

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Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#111

Post by Ididntdothis »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #104
Ididntdothis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Nick Saban (Alabama's football coach) is probably the most underpaid state employee in the US.” A coach that makes 5 million working with athletes that aren’t paid for risking their health is underpaid?

There's NFL coaches making twice as much as him while producing significantly worse results. And he's certainly bringing in more than $5 million of revenue and free marketing to the university

Then he should go to the NFL and hang with the big guys.

Is he personally bringing in the millions and the athletes nothing?

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#112

Post by eitally »

headcanon wrote: post #63
partialrecall wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I hate it too, but its clearly profitable" 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?

The statement was scoped to NCAA Division 1 schools, which I imagine all have profitable football programs. However most of those also happen to be top-tier academic and research schools as well (there are of course exceptions), so I'm comfortable scoping the conversation to those schools.

I don't think that's necessarily true. It's true for the Big 5 "Power" conferences because they negotiate enormous media contracts, but if you're a mid-major school in a 2nd or 3rd tier city, and especially if you're not a consistent winner, I think profitability is a very high bar.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidching/2018/04/17/big-tens-...

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/espn-reaches...

On that latter deal with ESPN, note that the $470m/yr ESPN pays for the CFP games is relatively in the same ballpark as the NFL rights for Monday Night Football games ($600m/yr).

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#113

Post by eitally »

partialrecall wrote: post #66
headcanon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement was scoped to NCAA Division 1 schools, which I imagine all have profitable football programs. However most of those also happen to be top-tier academic and research schools as well (there are of course exceptions), so I'm comfortable scoping the conversation to those schools.

Well as I said previously, I take issue with the scheme as a whole. Furthermore, don't many players, coaches, etc, transfer up from lower divisions when they demonstrate themselves to have exceptional merit? It's not clear to me that Division 1 wouldn't be impacted if the lower divisions were eliminated. If that's true, then lower divisions are effectively subsidizing higher divisions, so it's a mistake to consider t…

No. It's rare for players to transfer up. In fact, the ones that do transfer are usually the ones who do have professional prospects but aren't currently projected as lottery pics (and some who are, like Jalen Hurts transferring from Alabama to Oklahoma).

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#114

Post by rpmisms »

_match wrote: post #71

The prejudice and ignorance in these comments are astounding, so I'll try address the major themes. I'm defensive because, though I rarely watch the games, I enjoy listening to postgame interviews with the Alabama coach, Nick Saban. He's found unprecedented success in a brutally competitive field by following a textbook stoic philosophy people in the south call "The Process", by encouraging relentless pursuit of perf…

Thanks for a smart and rational comment. I didn't know Saban was that much of a hardcore artist type.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#115

Post by rpmisms »

magduf wrote: post #29
rorski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crowds and drunk strangers are the major reason why people go to games. And tailgating for most sports fans is fun. Of course you get a better view of the game at home, but the live atmosphere can't be replicated by any TV.

Exactly. Hanging around and drinking a lot, and being around a bunch of noisy, drunk people, is something that most Americans greatly enjoy.

Well, most of us are Irish and German, so it does stand to reason that we would enjoy those things.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#116

Post by seanmcdirmid »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #98
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We let students major in theater, but not in football. There's a big difference.

Yet football players tend to make more money and find jobs around the sport more often than theater students do in and around the theater.

Is that true? Do you mean all football players including walk ons?

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#117

Post by criddell »

jumpman500 wrote: post #108
partialrecall wrote: post #3

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…

>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 I disagree with this. I was a college athlete. I firmly believe that being an athlete teaches you more about being a leader, a teammate and having discipline than almost anything else. Those are extremely desirable skills to have in any work place. I do think any team based activity ca…

> Not all football players are idiots.

There are probably some who wouldn't be accepted to their school on academic merit alone.

Aside from that, I'm very opposed to college football (and soccer) as it's played now because of what we know know about brain injuries. I wouldn't be surprised to see a class action lawsuit in the future from current players that shuts down the programs at a lot of smaller schools.

Any coach working today knows that the way they are asking the kids to play will injure them.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#118

Post by whyenot »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #98
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We let students major in theater, but not in football. There's a big difference.

Yet football players tend to make more money and find jobs around the sport more often than theater students do in and around the theater.

Is there a study or something that backs up your assertion?

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#119

Post by LoSboccacc »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #93
slg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 Sports are part of a traditional old-school liberal arts education. That is why the Ivy League schools have some of the largest athletic departments in the country even though they don't generate revenue anywhere close to schools like Alabama or Ohio State. It is really no different th…

We let students major in theater, but not in football. There's a big difference.

this is extremely misinformed. there are phisical education and phisical therapy degrees, team sport is essential to character development in children and sport in general done early and constantly is useful to combat a wealth of health related issues including obesity.

sport in school is not an USA anomaly, in Italy the school curriculum basically includes for all obligatory cycles as much hours of physical activity as there are arts and culture hours every week.

the USA anomaly is making a business out of it, but that's just them.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#120

Post by dghughes »

partialrecall wrote: post #3

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…

> 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,

People are arguing in the comments about the money, history and prestige US football brings to colleges in the US. I have to wonder in other parts of the world does soccer have such sway over universities? Are there universities that have soccer programs that bring in large sums of money for the university?

Soccer (football to the rest of the world) is probably 100 times as big with arguably ~6.5 billion vs ~300 million fans. It probably generates 100 times the profit of US football. It would be odd that the US college and football relationship is so strong when soccer is immensely bigger in every way.

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