[jsumrall]

Yes and no. Ideally it's just a university sports team. But now college sports have gone from university students playing football in their spare time to exceptional athletes who attend classes in their spare time.

Some universities, such as UNC and Virginia Tech, have seen massive profits by selling merchandise thanks to these sports teams, and have made sports a higher priority than the actual academics. Now younger people are choosing to attend universities based on their sports team rather than the academics.

Anyone who disrupts this big business of college sports can expect to feel massive backlash from the university and the crazed fans of the sports teams.

[jsumrall]

And as someone else pointed out, the coach of the teams get paid more than the president of the university!

They get paid more than even their most valuable professors!

[yardie]

I haven't met a professor yet that could pack a 25000 seat arena.

Good professors hold chairs which are paid by endowments. So maybe a few million $ a year in donations. Good coaches can make a few million $ on a good weekend. If they make it to the bowls, 10-20 million $.

[sdoering]

Sorry, but that system is so utterly strange to me. I really do not have the ability to understand this. Might be my problem, might be a cultural problem, as I am not an American.

But in what universe could this be a good thing? What does sports do for the development of mankind? It distracts, it is just "panem et circensis"[1] and it is nothing more than a big business.

So the people trying to teach people the ability to better the world have to "fight for the scraps" while others reap the benefits of telling youngsters to run faster, kick harder or throw better?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panem_et_circenses

[gojomo]

Sports teach various kinds of dedication and teamwork, inside a framework where you get strong immediate feedback and conclusive results on a regular schedule. It also demonstrates vigorous competition within a system of rules, and instructs participants and fans in the occasional randomness of rewards and importance of perseverance-through-losing, and graciousness-in-winning. These are all important cultural values for a big, contentious, competitive society.

It's also the original "reality" programming, unscripted and unpredictable, with a constant stream of life-stories and morality-plays, which can be covered as 'news' relatively cheaply. It's not just 'bread and circuses', but actual moral instruction: modern constantly-refreshed mythology, always available for casual discussion with acquaintances and strangers.

The strong linkage with US higher-education isn't strictly logical, but tradition and economic symbiosis has entrenched the relationship. The large-audience collegiate sports help market and fund entire college communities, providing a focal point for common entertainment-outings, loyalty-displays, reunions, fundraising. In its absence, people might be relatively more parochially-aligned with just their hometowns, or faiths, or social class, or careers.

[watwut]

Well, yes, but sports can possibly teach that only for those who play e.g. team. So, if the team excludes average students and take only almost professionals in, most students do not get to learn any of those things.

So, you have maybe 30 player learning those things while trying to get into paid adult league and the rest of students being fans learning essentially nothing.

[ams6110]

At almost any university, any student who's not skilled enough or dedicated enough for the varsity teams can join intramural or club sport teams. Nobody is excluded.

[gojomo]

Fans benefit vicariously from many of the lessons I mentioned. (Sure, they don't get the full interpersonal practice of teamwork and direct competition... but they observe the personnel, life stories, controversies, and dramatic results. And they discuss all that with other fans to deepen relationships and mutual understandings. That's why it's like a constantly-renewed mythology in its cultural-instructive power.)

[pirateking]

Your mistake is in assuming that it is about things like "running", "kicking", and "throwing". Sport is about the subjugation of human, by another human. It doesn't do anything for the development of humankind as a whole - that is the point. Things like sportsmanship and game rules exist to prevent full regression to our savage roots.

I do think competition is a healthy and necessary trait for individual development. Meanwhile, education holds the potential of freedom from subjugation for all humans... The balance is disturbed.

[xenophonf]

Perhaps I've been trolled, but I'd have to disagree strongly. Sports might be seen as some kind of ritualized conflict, I guess, but then how is that different than any other kind of gameplay? Take chess, for instance - it is all about strategy and tactics in service to the intellectual domination, subjugation, and eventual defeat of one's opponent. But so what? It's damned fun, which is a worthy end in itself, and I believe that chess play hones the mind even as it entertains the players.

Likewise, sports are fun! But if you need further justification, their play teaches us valuable physical and social skills - teamwork, graciousness, poise, coordination, fitness, and so on - that even if you aren't entertained by a particular sport, surely you can see its potential value in other dimensions.

I guess my point is that not all human education is intellectual. It is experiential, and it is physical, and social, and moral, too.

[jiggy2011]

Chess is more of an individualist game where the world championship will be won by one guy rather than "Team USA".

It's also more difficult to follow than say soccer to people not intimately familiar with the game.

[Dewie]

> Perhaps I've been trolled,

You've never read from people who genuinely frame things in a dismal light? I've read a lot from people that view a lot of social interaction as exactly "subjugation". The simplest example is materialism and acquiring status symbols. Some take it further to more intimate group dynamics. Does this mean that other people are trash that you should just avoid? No, and most people plain need social interaction in order to stay sane. But it can be a useful frame-of-reference sometimes, if only for the philosophical value.

> but I'd have to disagree strongly. Sports might be seen as some kind of ritualized conflict, I guess, but then how is that different than any other kind of gameplay?

Indeed. Some people think of any kind of structured competition as a sport, so all of what you said still applies. Playing videogames competitively, for example (e-sports).

> But so what?

Yes, why ever look further than the surface? Because it's sometimes valuable to look at seemingly innoucous (or not - hooligans) phenomenoms and trying to look behind the most apparent dynamics. Sports is a fun pasttime for some/most people, with some competiveness, but perhaps not enough to cause any harm at all. It is also an incredibly socially accepted - heralded even - way of channeling some of the more anti-social human traits. If I'm feeling jealous, I feel that there's something wrong with me. If I feel spiteful, I feel that there's something wrong with me. If I feel like physically dominating someone else, against their will? Just pick up some of the more physically demanding sports and be worshipped as a hero. Coax it in some fake humility and "sportsmanship", and you've got a show for the whole family. That's funny to me.

Some atheletes will get a bad rap when they are obviously being cocky and showing off. But being the best and feeling like the best was the goal all along!

It seems to me, in my uneducated opinion, that while humans are social creatures, they are too tribal to be altruistic on the larger, macro level. People are divided by nationality, culture, ethnicity and so on. Team sports? Yet another tribe for people to belong to, and to antagonize other teams from (sometimes in a more friendly manner than others ;) ). There is a lot of social dynamics when it comes to football supporters.

Sports isn't the only thing that is disturbing to me, at some level. Violent video games are really fun, but the implications are disturbing. Yet, from what I've read, people who play these games are less violent, perhaps because they (we!) get a way to channel our violent streak. (Which is also a disturbing thought.) Maybe it's the same for sports? Many more than me have been disturbed by the implications of violent video games (I haven't been disturbed by the violence - I'm too used to it), but practically no one things of any kind of sports as being anti-social.

But yeah. So what?

> Likewise, sports are fun! But if you need further justification, their play teaches us valuable physical and social skills - teamwork, graciousness, poise, coordination, fitness, and so on - that even if you aren't entertained by a particular sport, surely you can see its potential value in other dimensions.

Take any sport to a higher and higher level, and it will always distill down to one thing - being the best (that's what you are left with with the top athletes at the top). That's inherently a comparative quality, and than you are left with the only choice of "subjugating" your opponents. A high-level athlete will think nothing of sacrificing fitness, physical health etc. for being the best. Is this necessarily that applicable to most practicioners of a sport? No, but it is the top athletes who are basically worshipped, they're not simply people who have taken a "fun pasttime" and gone full-geekery on it - they are, in some circles, viewed as the ultimate expression of that sport. Not as, "geeze, man, get a life".

[Dewie]

> Take chess, for instance

Some consider chess a sport.

[sdoering]

> I do think competition is a healthy and necessary trait for individual development.

There you have it. I tend to disagree. I see this as one of humanities problems. These unquestioned ideologies.

I believe, that competition should only be with one self. I try to get better. Better then yesterday, last week, last year, last try. But I do not try, to rise above my pears in comparison to them. To feel better, by looking at everybody I leave behind from above.

The only one I try to beat am I. I try to do everything, to be a better person, every single day. I am still learning - and will hopefully do that for the rest of my days. I am human, I am fallible.

But my past performance is my personal yardstick. Not your performance, or anybody's. I do not need your example, as a motivation.

[vacri]

That's a pretty tortured definition of sport.

[PavlovsCat]

Not so tortured a definition for spectator sports though.

[mhurron]

> I really do not have the ability to understand this.

Sure you do. There is nothing in the universe more important than money. Simply get past your belief that the American university system is about anything noble and realize it is just another money making scheme.

The education part is just a cover to keep the illusion alive. If you focus you can learn there, but you simply need to realize your worth to the school is as a paying fan. If you want it to be anything else, you're on your own to figure that out.

[sdoering]

> Sure you do.

No. I don't. I do not understand, cannot grasp any such concept of "money is everything" or such concepts of state, borders and so on. I am a human. I have fellow humans. Some of them are nice. Most of them are idiots. These are my categories, in which I view the word.

There is no such thing as homophobia, islamophobia, money makes the world go round, or any other of these so called "normal" ideologies. No such thing as "this god" or that deity.

So no, I really do not have the ability, to understand these concepts. I can analyze them rationally, I can look at them, like sitting in a lab, examining them, but I can never understand these concepts on a basis of experience or to see things from the concepts's perspective...

That was, what I was trying to convey...

[johnward]

It's a good thing because capitalism.

Well honestly there is nothing like a good football team to bring in funding for schools. That causes schools to focus highly on sports because at the end of the day they just want as much money as possible. It's really sad actually.

[dalke]

I've yet to meet a coach who can pack a 25,000 seat arena either. They usually need other coaches, a team of players, and an opposition.

Most good professors aren't in endowed chairs. Something like 1/3rd of the professors at the best schools are endowed. A state school like the University of Illinois has about 10-20%.

Nor do most of the professors bring in money through endowments and gifts. Much more is brought in through grants, like through the NIH and NSF, and from state funding. (That's a general statement. There are many exceptions.)

There's also tech transfer agreements. Consider this quote, about taxol synthesis developed at Florida State:

> In 1996, Florida State University was the envy of the tech-transfer world of U.S. research institutions. That year alone, the university's research foundation received more than $28 million in Taxol royalties. By decade's end, the university's Taxol revenue would top $200 million, among the largest patenting pay-offs for a single university in history.

That's one professor who brought in over $20 million per year, for a decade. (By comparison, the current FSU football program brings in now about $36 million in revenue, and $17 million in profit.)

And as for the coaches, very few college programs can bring in a few million dollars per game, and only the 6 playoff bowls have team payouts of over $10 million, so that's at most 12 universities with that success.

[ams6110]

Many of the highly-paid elite coaches also either directly fund or by virtue of their reputation and network attract funding for endowments or gifts.

[dalke]

So noted. However, in the numbers I saw for the University of Illinois budget, the total endowments and gifts was about 1/7th of that of grant funding.

I have not done any extensive analysis of this. My comment was mostly to highlight that the previous poster was making statements that I could not easily accept as being true.

[positr0n]

25,000 is a bit on the small side for major universities. The university I went to just kicked off a construction project to increase the stadium capacity to over 100,000.

A few miles north of where I currently live, the high school football stadium seats 18,000 [0].

[0]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas)

[arethuza]

The only high schools here in Scotland that have anything like stadiums, just a single stand really, are the rugby crazed private schools in Edinburgh. For example, here is a blog entry about the Stewarts Melville main pitch (of 6) at Inverleith in Edinburgh where I often spend time watching my son play:

http://ian38018.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-05-25...

Also, I couldn't help noticing that the Eagle Stadium is paid for by taxpayers.... :-)

[yardie]

The university I attended had 75,000 seats, when I left. They've added skyboxes, extended and raised it since.

I was being conservative because I assumed nonUS HNers would assume I was making these numbers up.

[antimagic]

Maybe not, but I have certainly met professors that have led research that universities have spun off into highly profitable companies. And even without worrying about direct money-generating capacity, it's having the best research teams that allows the big name universities to demand the ridiculous tuition fees that they charge. Yet coaches are paid more. I can only conclude that many university presidents actually wanted to own sports teams, and this is how they have got their wish...

[dredmorbius]

In a majority of states, the highest-paid public employee is a college football coach. In another 11 it's the basketball coach (Minnesota is a tie between the two). In eleven it's a college dean (usually the medical school), president/chancellor, or similar.

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-...

[EliRivers]

As well as the money-spinner leagues, are there amateur (that's possibly not quite the right word for it, but the big college teams are clearly professional in all but name) leagues of the same sport for students who really are there to study and just want to play some inter-collegiate sports as well?

[hyperpape]

Yes, I believe the terms are intramural and intermural leagues for ordinary students.