From Bloomberg News:
Donations to the biggest college sports programs climbed as the U.S. economy faltered, with contributions rising 24 percent from the middle of 2006 to the middle of 2010.
The 54 public schools in the six most powerful sports conferences collected $998 million in fiscal 2010, up from $805 million in 2007, according to records from colleges in the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences. The increase came during a period when unemployment jumped to 9.5 percent from 4.6 percent and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 19.5 percent, to 1,030.71.
What sustained contribution levels were the gifts that schools require fans make to purchase, or hold on to, tickets for prime seats, according to fundraising executives. While one season ticket for University of Florida football games costs $259, a Gator fan who wants to sit in a premium seat near the 50-yard line would have to donate an additional $2,450.
Well, given which demographic group is probably putting up nearly all that billion dollars for zero-sum nonsense, maybe this item should actually have been an addendum on the Asian vs. white IQ thread...
ReplyDeleteSports is an interesting case. On the one hand its clear that athletes salaries are purely zero sum. Yes, we want them to make enough so they focus on athletics so they can reach new heights. But I'm guessing it doesn't take 100 million dollar contracts to do that. It seems like pay wars for top stars are a waste.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time there is demand for the product, so somebody somewhere is going to make all the money that sports generate. I'd rather see the players get that then the owners.
Personally, I'd like to see a greater share of the revenue pool go towards health benefits and pensions for all players rather then owners or superstars.
When you donate because you have to to get goods or services isn't that normally just called "paying"?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone done any research on the ethic breakdown of sports spectator- ship?
ReplyDeleteMy suspicion is that groups with lower IQs and book purchases have higher levels of Sport watching.
For example, Blacks/Hispanics love Football while Asians and Jews (despite the domination of Sport owners and media types) like it much less.
Anglo-Saxons of course are famous for their dislike of "Book learning" and their obsessive willingness to watch anyone throw or kick a ball.
"in the six most powerful sports conferences": how does one measure the "powerfulness" of a sports conference, in a way that isn't a circular argument?
ReplyDeleteThe move is to four super-conferences of 16 teams each. The Big-12 and Big East are crumbling as we speak, with Texas A&M moving to the SEC, Syracuse and Pitt to the ACC. Texas and Texas Tech could be gone by Saturday. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State soon follow.
ReplyDeleteThese four super-conferences in the future will have the financial resources to tell the NCAA to go suck an egg, controlling any meaningful football and basketball championship process. The billion dollars in donations and billions more in future TV and licensing revenue will be concentrated in the hands of these 64 schools. Even Notre Dame needs to be thinking about their place in this new reality.
a lot of these seats are tax-deductible corporate entertainment purchases, not purchased by "fans" in the individual sense
ReplyDeleteI perfect illustration of misplaced priorities. I bet 90% of the donors are white males.. if 10% of that went into something like the Vdare foundation.....
ReplyDeleteGOP is the stupid party again, falling into the trap of class warfare rhetoric. This is 2011, not the 80s when GOP could still be considered the rich man's party and when what was good for the rich was good for most Americans. After rise of liberal boomer billionaires and millionaires, culture war victory by the Left, and globalism, Democrats are the rich man's party and GOP is the middle class and small businessmen party.
ReplyDeleteThen, the logical thing for the GOP is not to defend ALL OF THE RICH, but only the lesser rich. Surely, Americans understand the difference between making 500,000 or low millions a year and making 100s of millions or billions a year. If GOP defends low taxes for the lower-rich and goes after only the big-rich, the people will understand and support the
GOP position. Most Americans know not all millionaires are alike. I mean there's a difference between having a networth of 2 million and a net worth of 900 million.
But GOP plays into Obama's game of dividing America into the rich and the rest of us. GOP must split the rich between superrich(whose taxes must go up very high), major rich(whose taxes must go up somewhat high), and lower rich(who should be left alone or whose taxes should go up just a little). Unless GOP does that, it can kiss its future good bye, all the more since the superrich go with Democrats and make their money from globalism and can use all sorts of loopholes to avoid taxes.
Btw, taxes are a red herring. Even if we raise taxes on the superrich, they'll get richer and richer cuz our globalist system is rigged to allow the rich to make even more and more. So, if inequality is really our worry, we need to look for the very source of rising inequality, and Paul
Craig Roberts and Pat Buchanan have been right on this. It's globalism.
As for now, make the liberal superrich pay more--way more--to pay for all the big government lunacies they've pushed on us.
It's like gladiatorial fights and chariot races in imperial Rome. Oh, and they also gave out lots of free food to urban layabouts. And the elites were irreligious and sexually libertine. And they imported lots of cheap foreign labor. And they pretended to be a constitutional republic long after that was no longer true.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Blacks/Hispanics love Football while Asians and Jews (despite the domination of Sport owners and media types) like it much less.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about football these days - although earlier in the century, when the Jews were still wearing the make-believe figleaf of assimilationism, there were plenty of Jewish Big-3 sports stars, like Sid Luckman, Hank Greenberg, and Dolph Shayes.
But the Jews & Asians have been pretty dadgum good in swimming lately - you had Kosuke Kitajima dominating the breaststroke for two straight Olympics, and Park Tae-Hwan winning a gold in the 400m freestyle in Beijing, and, on the Jewish side of things, you had Jason Lezak turning in possibly the single greatest relay swim ever - certainly the greatest relay swim since Shirley Babashoff in Montreal in 1976 [and, come to think of it, could Shirley be a Jewess herself?].
Shirley Babashoff in 1976 -- that was exciting. East German women had beaten American women in everything (with a little chemical help) until the last relay. Who did Babashoff outswim? Kornelia Ender?
ReplyDeleteClick on the link - if Wikipedia can be believed, then it looks like Ender swam the leadoff leg, in a blistering 55.79, but the USA won because Boglioli & Sterkel turned in back-to-back splits of 55.81 & 55.78 in the middle legs.
ReplyDeleteI remember us all screaming our lungs out through the whole race, and I can still see Shirley Babashoff, in my mind's eye, diving off the blocks for that final leg - and remembering the tension, and wondering - was it possible? - could we even hope that she could hold off the East German girl?
Man, that was a great race - just thinking back on it now makes me agitated [and a little teary-eyed - especially since one of the family members, who was watching that day, is no longer with us].
PS: Was Ender able to have any children with Roland Matthes, or did the 'roids leave her womb barren?
I know that a lot of those East German chicks were never able to have children afterwards.
I can still see in my mind's eye a slow motion replay of Babashoff's toes leaving the starting block (or whatever you call it in swimming) just as the third leg swimmer's fingers touched the wall. She cut it as close as possible without getting disqualified. Perfect execution.
ReplyDeleteShe cut it as close as possible without getting disqualified. Perfect execution.
ReplyDeleteYep - I remember the same thing - that moment of panic, thinking, "Oh my God, did she just false-start?"
Kinda like when some dude runs the entire length of the field for a touchdown, in football, and the announcers are scared to call it because they're looking all over the field to see whether any flags were thrown.
Sun Yang, a 6"6 Chinese guy, broke the men's 1500m freestyle record at the world championships. (It was at the time the longest standing men's record.) He also won the 800m.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yang
China spends a lot of money on Olympic sports.
The $1 billion in donations is a fraction of the total revenues collected by college sports. The question is, where does it go? The salaries, except for the 54 coaches, are not much. I assume that the rest funds the non-revenue sports e.g. baseball, swimming, etc. Then the balance goes to the colleges' general fund? I mean, no one is getting rich here except a few coaches, right? They do spend a fortune on facilities.
ReplyDeleteIs Mark Spitz Jewish?
ReplyDeleteIs Mark Spitz Jewish?
ReplyDeleteYep.
Milking the boomers while they can. They'll be at the retirement home in 15 more years, and the gig will be up.
ReplyDeleteWhen you donate because you have to to get goods or services isn't that normally just called "paying"?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's all this is. And while I don't have this kind of money to throw around to attend college football games, there are still (apparently) people that do.
The real question is who will be the first university to drop its football program and possibly its entire athletic program because the university is tired of losing millions on its athletic program.
ReplyDeleteIf all of the schools outside the four superconferences drop football, then where will schools like Wisconsin and Alabama find patsies to play?
Football isn't even healthy. Sports programs at colleges started as exercise for students. The frequency and severity of injuries sustained by a college football player during his term in school are such that only the loopy can maintain that this is healthy exercise. Not to mention playing on a hard field in wet weather. Good for the students? No - good for the yap in the stands, whose deepest unstated desire is to see the cruel Roman arena renascent, and who has too much spare cash in his pocket. He should have made do with dog fighting, and let the humans be human. It's too late now, though.
ReplyDelete"When you donate because you have to to get goods or services isn't that normally just called "paying"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe. Do these "donations" qualify for a tax deduction?
Football isn't even healthy.
ReplyDeleteModern football certainly isn't, ever since they quit calling "spearing" as a 15-yard penalty, and now all these speedy little, ah, Usain-Bolt-Wannabees accelerate up to about 25MPH, lower their heads, and use their helmets as high-speed projectiles, aimed squarely at their foes' most vulnerable body parts [such as their jaws, or their spines].
Dittoes for high-speed forearm shivers.
I guess TPTB think that Americans like watching the, ah, diverse folk trying to kill one another on the field of play?
Sucks to be a white kid trying to play the game nowadays - that's for dadgum sure.
Milking the boomers while they can. They'll be at the retirement home in 15 more years, and the gig will be up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, about a dozen years ago the WSJ ran an article about how student attendance at college football games had gone way down. I assume part of that was just reserving more seats for the higher paying customers, but still - those who didn't develop the yen as students might not be attending in their '40's. I assume not to do so will be
"racism," you know, disparate impact.
You know, we think of dog fighting as horrible, but is it really more horrible than college sports for humans?
ReplyDeleteReally. I mean, the dog often dies, and suffers pain, but the real objection is to the humans' enjoying it, not to the canine pain.