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Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
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Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#212It'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…
Football in general provides massive benefits to Universities. 1. Football (and mens basketball) are forced to pay more or less for the rest of all the other sports on campus[0]. Because of Title IX, student athletes/scholarships provided need to be equal across gender, which means that there need to be women's teams, which almost always lose money. You can make an argument that there shouldn't be other men's sports…
1. Sports can be financed by tuition and grants like everything else. Sports don't need to be expensive affairs with big travel and stadium budgets.
2. Since the pseudo-pro athletes are playing sports instead of studying, That's fake diversity of two separate programs in one building, like counting the cafe and janitorial staff in FAANG diversity. Better diversity would be letting diverse students in, not diverse football players. Letting students in explicitly because they provide muscle doesn't move society forward.
3. That's negative-sum, like the skyrocketing tuition due to making campuses into luxury country clubs just to compete with other schools. Rankings don't improve anything for the students and society at Aleve across the country.
4. Is negative sum. Football parties aren't a special benefit. Alcoholism and associated vices (like sexual assault) aren't a boon to a university's mission.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#213It'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…
Many students who attend American universities aren't just buying education. They are buying a "college experience" of which sports are a major part.
And we should fix that. Sending kids to $100K parties that cripple their career prospects is bad. Fun is great, but not at this cost.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#214Earlier 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…
I don't mind the strong sports culture. College football has an immense history dating back to the late 1800s as an organized national collegiate activity. I'm a fan and I enjoy the history and pageantry of the sport. Athletic departments are self-funded by donations, TV rights, ticket sales, and merchandise, and they take no money that would otherwise be allocated to academics. They also can increase the brand of a…
"Athletic departments are self-funded by donations, TV rights, ticket sales, and merchandise, and they take no money that would otherwise be allocated to academics"
That is absolutely not true. At least $300 a semester of my tuition went to our sports programs. And I went to a public university in the US. We don't even have that prestigious a football team. I can't imagine how much students pay at schools like Alabama.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#215Alternative less-clickbaity headline: Alabama incentivizes students to stay at games by offering improved chances of getting playoff tickets. When I first read the headline my mind naturally jumped to the most extreme interpretation: Alabama was using some sort of involuntary tracking technology to lower students' GPAs if they don't attend football games. Obviously very far-fetched, but knowing how much Alabama loves…
Yeah I don't see anything wrong with giving tickets to people who have demonstrated they care the most about football - in principle.
But the implementation details are concerning. Will we end up in a state where you "have to" be tracked 24/7 not to miss out on various deals?
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't mind the strong sports culture. College football has an immense history dating back to the late 1800s as an organized national collegiate activity. I'm a fan and I enjoy the history and pageantry of the sport. Athletic departments are self-funded by donations, TV rights, ticket sales, and merchandise, and they take no money that would otherwise be allocated to academics. They also can increase the brand of a…
"Athletic departments are self-funded by donations, TV rights, ticket sales, and merchandise, and they take no money that would otherwise be allocated to academics" That is absolutely not true. At least $300 a semester of my tuition went to our sports programs. And I went to a public university in the US. We don't even have that prestigious a football team. I can't imagine how much students pay at schools like Alabam…
Big football programs make big money, small programs don't.
For the 2012-2013 season University of Texas brought in over $100 million with under $30 million in expenses. Same year Alabama brought in $88 million on $47 mil in expenses.
edit: The magnitude of these numbers is why I think these teams and perhaps a 4-year league should be spun off and the players should be paid.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The places where the profitability of football is in question is basically everything lower than the 5 main conferences (Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big XII, and Pac 10), and especially the schools lower than that level which aren't reliable winners. (Think the San Jose State's of the world) Clemson football generated 50 million dollars last year https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/sports/college/clemso... While 93 million…
It's profitable only because the players aren't paid. Only a small percentage of the players make it to the NFL. Many of the remainder suffer physical consequences for the rest of their lives. It's one of the most obscene exploitation schemes still remaining.
> It's profitable only because the players aren't paid.
No.
The NFL minimum salary is under $500k and by your own admission these players aren't that good.
Even a generous $200k/yr and a generous 100 player roster only adds up to $20 million, and there are teams with over $50 million in profits.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#218It'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 don’t mind the strong sports cultural. I’d rather people find an outlet for their in build tribal tendencies through sports than something more destructive like race or politics.
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's profitable only because the players aren't paid. Only a small percentage of the players make it to the NFL. Many of the remainder suffer physical consequences for the rest of their lives. It's one of the most obscene exploitation schemes still remaining.
> It's profitable only because the players aren't paid. No. The NFL minimum salary is under $500k and by your own admission these players aren't that good. Even a generous $200k/yr and a generous 100 player roster only adds up to $20 million, and there are teams with over $50 million in profits.
First, there are not many teams with over $50 million in profits, only the top 13 as of 2018. [0]
Second, you're assuming that even the top players would only make the minimum, which you have arbitrarily set at $200k, assuming that they would be paid less than the minimum NFL salary. The more accurate measure would be to pay them some percentage of the average NFL salary, which was $1.9 million in 2018. [1] So assuming the average college player salary would be 40% (to use your arbitrary number), that would be just under $800k per player. Even with a 53-player roster, that puts player salaries at over $40 million annually, which wipes out profits for all but the top 15 or 20 teams.
Third, I didn't say these players "aren't that good." The fact that only 2% of them make it to the NFL doesn't mean the other 98% aren't that good, it just means that the market won't bear paying for more players when they're fairly compensated.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college-f...
[1] https://gazettereview.com/2017/03/average-nfl-player-salary/
Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early
#220It'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…
The ncaa is just legal slavery. That includes college baseball.