[xirbeosbwo1234]

The problem with that is, in part, that they ignored the spirit of the donation, but also that the proper amount for a university to spend on a scoreboard is twelve dollars and thirty-seven cents.

OK, that's a bit unrealistic. I could build them one for a few hundred, though, and they could pay a student $50 to flip over the numbers during the game.

[bradleyjg]

The proper amount to spend is zero. There’s no reason for universities to be running minor league football teams with unpaid labor. On the contrary that’s the exact opposite of “charitable”.

[throwawaygh]

I mean, a few hundred for a score board seems right. Even a few thousand for a piece of infrastructure that can be used 20+ years for several different sports is not so unreasonable. Even rural middle schools will sometimes spend that much on scoreboards.

In University I participated in a club sport "funded" exclusively through the student government -- really more of a tax rebate than anything else since only 60% of what the climbing "team" paid in student fees we got back to buy ropes, biners, rent a van for outings. That sort of stuff.

College sports do serve a real community-building purpose. Just... a few hundred or maybe low thousands total per sport instead of a few tens of millions for the main sport.

[wpietri]

Definitely. One of my modest proposals that will never happen is that colleges go back to teaching, and football and basketball become more like baseball, where they have minor leagues as a way of getting players. The jumbling together of college and professional-in-all-but-name athletics is absurd, and egregious exploitation of "student" athletes to boot.

[rossdavidh]

Fundamentally, you're correct. However, when working for a university, I was well aware that private sector donations (and maybe even state funds) went up or down depending on how well the football team did. A losing record for the football team ought not to result in lower private sector donations towards scientific research or scholarships at that university, but apparently at most universities it does. Universities that ignore this fact do so at their peril.

[bradleyjg]

I don’t expect universities to spontaneously do the right thing. I’m hoping the courts force them to at least stop exploiting the pro athletes that make them so much money.

[cortesoft]

So there should be no sports at all at schools? What about other extra curricular activities? No band, no drama club, nothing but academics?

I get not wanting to have a minor league football team with unpaid labor, but even rec league basketball needs a scoreboard.

[rsj_hn]

In other countries, things not tied directly to a university's educational mission are still available, but as local community organizations. There are drama clubs, sports clubs, but available to the entire community, not just college students.

There is no reason why the state should spend its educational subsidies on funding auxillary recreational activities solely for the benefit of university students when a good GPA is not necessary to recreate, nor do university students have a greater need of recreation than anyone else.

[kmonsen]

I think most countries have some form of student sports as part of universities, just not the kind of professional ones like in the U.S. students study better if they have something else in their lives.

The problem is that it is really hard to know where to draw the line and the US as usual takes it fully to the extreme.

All that being said, I thought the big sports were a revenue driver for the schools that chose to participate in the bigger leagues?

[rsj_hn]

Intramural, sure, you can organize some soccer games between adjacent dorms as part of the responsibilities of the dorm admin, but in terms of paid programs, no.

[lrem]

See, they evaded a recurring cost!

[remote_phone]

> I could build them one for a few hundred

No, you couldn’t.

It has to keep working for years/decades, be maintainable, survive bad weather conditions, etc. even if you made the scoreboard out of wood and painted it, it would have to be large enough so that the stadium could see, the paint would fade and it would take weeks to make it, etc.

[dan-robertson]

So rebuild it every time as necessary. It will take a long time to eat into $1MM