Since college football teams aren't supposed to pay their players, they spend vast sums to wow beefy boys with practice facilities that 17-year-olds will consider awesome. Oregon recently revealed its new Phil Knight of Nike-funded palace, complete with barbershop:
Not to be outdone, Alabama countered the next day. Here's the football players' video arcade:
Wouldn't it be simpler just to pay the players?
Sportz fanz R stoopid.
ReplyDeleteSteve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is?
ReplyDeleteFlsshing lights and bling -- effective recruitment tools.
ReplyDeleteSteve it is the University of Nike not Oregon that is all.
ReplyDeleteWhiskey on Nook.
Yes it would. It also would be simpler to legalize drugs in some sports where drugs are omnipresent, such as cycling. Instead we have a dog and pony show.
ReplyDelete"Steve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is?"
ReplyDeleteWhy not make it transferable and find out? If a talented football prospect doesn't have the chops to benefit from a university education, why not let him play for the school and sell his full academic ride to someone who does? That would be a win all around.
Steve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is?
ReplyDeleteFootball and basketball generate billions of dollars a year. They not only fund most other sports programs on campus, especially women's, but also multi-million dollar coaching contracts.
To imply that the a college education is just compensation doesn't hold any water. Thousands of people share billions of dollars generated by athletes in those two sports. That's not something one can say about other college sports, again, many of which only exist because of funding from revenues generated by football and basketball.
In time, the system will adapt and pay college athletes. When that time comes, history will look back and declare that the now current system was a form of slavery rife with racism where thousands of wicked Whites made millions on the backs of Black athletes without compensation.
The argument that the current system is the current system and they don't have to play if they don't like it, is not an argument at all. It's actually really stupid.
Growing up in New York City insulates you from some parts of the "normal" American experience, and one of those parts is college football. There are no big football programs in the area, and two professional teams, one of which is often quite good, so native born New Yorkers never get in the habit.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, having minor league sports teams be run and operated by the country's higher education system that only Americans came up with and saw fit to implement. If you take a step back from it, it makes no sense on any grounds. I don't even know what "reforms" are appropriate to college sports, since the whole concept is ridiculous.
Is this just a weird way of doing things, due to a cultural tic, that somehow works out in the end? Or is there some sort of real damage big college sports inflict on spectator sports, higher education, and/ or the athletes? Does professional football and basketball gain some sort of an advantage or disadvantage of the system over professional baseball, which relies more on professional minor leagues and farm systems?
>Wouldn't it be simpler to just pay the players?
ReplyDeleteSolution-monger. This stuff is just the sort of corruption that serves as a bulwark to liberty. Sports fans happy, players happy, everyone happy.
Universities are corrupt in a dangerous way when they take public money for anything outside STEM. This is not dangerous.
@Inkraven - not to mention 3-4 years of world-class training, coaching, and national profile building.
ReplyDelete-SonOfStrom
I can't stand to watch NCAA revenue sports anymore.
ReplyDeleteDown here, in about the last four or five weeks, our 5-star McD's AA superstar has been caught speeding in a car rented from Hertz by a felon, has been caught in a traffic stop in an SUV rented from Hertz by that same felon - where he and his mates threw a bunch of marijuana and a loaded 9mm out of the window before they got to the head of the line - has been photographed down at the beach, drunk off his @$$ (he isn't 21 yet, so technically it's illegal for him to drink ETOH), and most recently has been caught driving a car belonging to a white girl (Miss "Warm Brown Sugar") at 93 MPH in a 65 zone, where the ticketing officer wrote him up for dangerously weaving in and out of traffic.
And yet still he's on the team.
At this point, we're lucky if we get one starter every four years who is NOT an Afro-Studies major.
(And that Afro-Studies department got caught by the NCAA for offering NO-SHOW classes, where the NO-SHOW's were the ostensible professors themselves - i.e. the classes existed only as a paperwork fiction in some administrator's imagination.)
Sorry, but I'm checking out of the whole revenue sports scene.
I might still keep an eye on the "olympic" sports, like swimming, or softball, where you can get a few honest-to-goodness student athletes every now and then.
But I'm done with football and basketball - I've got much, much better things to do with my time than wasting several hours watching a bunch of, ah, g-challenged nitwits making fools of themselves on television.
Or, more precisely, making a fool of me for wasting my time watching them.
That's what I've been saying for years, stop it with the whole 'student-athlete' crap for football and basketball for Div. I. Make them the pro sports they truly are.
ReplyDeleteNo requirement to even enroll in the school, pay the players a straight salary and if they want to pay for schooling from that, fine. If they want to blow that money on 'bling', purple drank and females that's fine too.
Cap football rosters to 60 players and basketball to 15, pay a standard salary/medical benefits regardless of Div. I school with a set 4 year contract with no-trade/no free agency (to keep schools from 'poaching' players).
Wouldn't it be simpler just to pay the players?
ReplyDeleteWe tried that at my alma mater, the University of Illinois, way back in the 60s.
We got our butts kicked but good. Something about NCAA recruiting violations.
The football program has never recovered.
I can really see how this will contribute to the advancement of research into protein folding and nuclear fusion. Actually, it won’t do any of that. Instead, it’s goal is to help the university accomplish what is the ultimate goal of any university these days, winning football games.
ReplyDelete...Or we could get rid of "college athletics" all together. Let the professional teams develop their talent through youth leagues tiered by age. Unfortunately there is too much money in college sports. It would probably take an armed conflict to institute any real change.
ReplyDeleteEven if we suppose no human evolution took place anywhere in the past 10,000 yrs, wouldn't the races have evolved differently in the previous tens of thousands of yrs?
ReplyDeleteI mean American Indians arrived in the Americas much earlier than 10,000 yrs ago. Since mankind had very primitive technology for most of its existence and was at the mercy of the natural environment for all of its 150,000 yr existence before the last 10,000 yrs, much variations would have developed before the last 10,000 yrs. So, even if Gould is right about no evolution in the last 10,000 yrs, it still means it happened in the 100,000 yrs preceding them, and that would have been significant.
Also, a north and south genetic difference became pronounced even before man left Africa.
The theory should be called 'out of north africa' theory.
The albama football program brings in tons of money. the quality of student has risen exponentiallydue soleoy to the foot ball team. saban is the most underpaid man in America
ReplyDeletealso, student athletes are smarter than the general population
Hollywood sets the template for modern Liberalism. Holliberalism.
ReplyDeleteIt makes all those movies about evil corporations but Hollywood rakes in big cash as a bunch of giant corporations. Be greedy by attacking 'greed', and you're well-covered and very wealthy.
Yes, they should be get paid.
ReplyDeleteAlso they should get free or greatly discounted tuition to finish their education if they are cut from the team. That won't cost the colleges much; I don't think the majority of the kids on teams are capable of keeping up passing grades. Too much time spent on athletics and the dream of going pro.
I think it would be very interesting to ask the former players what they think would be fair.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/23/black-and-blue-in-chicago/
ReplyDeleteShut city schools and brown-bomb the suburbs. But conservatives cheer because they hate the teacher's union so much that they think anything that undermines public education in the city is good. But if city schools shut down and if students are given 'choice', won't they be streaming white schools?
Cons are so stupid.
One purpose of these facilities is to keep the players on campus in a structured environment 24/7, since so many of them lack the native judgement most of us take for granted.
ReplyDeleteThe universities ought to kick in some cash for local law enforcement, rape training, rape kits, and rape counselors.
ReplyDeleteI have nothing against inviting the circus to town. There are certainly some people that enjoy the Big Top, the glitz, and glitter and they should have their fill. But at the end of the day, when they turn their wild animals loose on the streets, someone needs to pay for the inevitable and predictable injuries to the community at large.
Perhaps a surcharge on every foobaw and bakkabaw ticket to pay for the damage and injuries? Maybe require the foobaw and bakkabaw shows to post a substantial bond or support a victims fund? Alternatively, perhaps the university promoters could agree to keep them penned up or under guard at night? Matbe require each foobaw or bakkabaw fan to sponsor (and be responsible for) a player the way we used to do with immigrants?
There are many ways we could mitigate the harm to our communities. Having lured them to town with all the expensive sparkly lights, money and trinkets, the least the universities can do is spend something for the protection of the community.
Baseball is predicted to soon vanish. But I think football has a fatal flaw that also dooms it.
ReplyDeleteOthers have told me that I should read Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". So I downloaded it from Kindle. I've seen the movie often enough so I compare them as I read along. The flaw everyone comments about in the movie is the fact that the Troopers carry such ineffective rifles. There are more bugs than people but it takes five riflemen to kill a single bug.
That's not true in the book because in the book they are all ensconced in full body armor. Steakley did much the same in the rather better novel 'Armor' but that book lacked Heinlein's gratuitously inserted political harangues. Those lectures seem to be the book's major appeal.
Fully armored - and thus plausible - Troopers wouldn't work in the movie because it would then be just battles between CGI bugs and CGI Troopers. To have the audience identify you have to see the human face.
An extreme example of this is "American Ninja Warrior". The contestants appear nearly naked one by one. This allows the viewing public not only the opportunity to see their faces but allows the editors to insert an "Up Close and Personal" video segment. We see the contestant, his family and all sorts of personal trivia. This season they have cut down on the mawkish mini-tragedies but they still try to make all the players into 'human interest' stories.
Football is poorly suited for modern TV sports watching. Like the original Starship Troopers they go into battle fully armored. You can't see their faces. You can't even gauge their sizes.
I prefer female beach volleyball for TV watching. The original Greek Olympians compete naked I'm told. Half naked is good enough for me. Football players wear too much.
Forget about steroids, someone soon will cheat by substituting a robot for an interior lineman. Who could spot it?
Albertosaurus
@Inkraven
ReplyDeletethe marginal cost of free tuition is nil
Here's a crazy notion - how about we set up actual professional sports leagues for these young men, virtually none of whom belong within a country mile of an institution of higher education in any case?
ReplyDeleteThese is the way things work in slightly saner countries. Cambridge and Oxford do not enroll physically gifted but intellectually stunted young football (soccer) players as ringers for the university team. Young talent is nurtured entirely by the football industry itself, and institutions of higher learning confine themselves to more intellectual pursuits.
The American collegiate-sports complex corrupts both colleges and sports. And it has very detrimental results on racial matters as well.
Steve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is
ReplyDeleteNot if you aren't going to take advantage of the academic environment as well as never use anything you learn when you become an athlete.
It would be simpler if the NFL had farm teams. Football players are obviously detrimental to any environment, so what the fuck are they doing on a campus?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be simpler just to pay the players?
ReplyDeleteYou mean in addition to their full ride scholarships?
I don't know about "simpler", but it's not an unreasonable question considering how much revenue the sport brings in for a good number of schools.
So on the one hand it's a question of basic economic fairness.
On the other hand, I have a feeling the question comes up more nowadays because many of the 'student athletes' today obviously should not be in college at all. And speaking of the ones who have no chance to go on to a professional career (ie the vast majority), too many never graduate, or graduate with a worthless soft degree which will be of little economic benefit to them later. So their only chance to make money playing football is in college; otherwise going to college does them little good. So why shouldn't they be allowed to cash in?
Inkraven, are you confusing cost and value?
ReplyDelete>Inkraven [who seems to think the players get a great deal], are you confusing cost and value?
ReplyDeleteThis.
Also, top college players have often spent their childhoods racking up concussions, forgoing academics, and succeeding at a highly competitive venture that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars (sometimes millions) per player to other people over four years, after which their special talent is usually useless. These amateur athletes are not the rich 19th century Brits who developed the modern tradition of amateur athletics (e.g., Chariots of Fire). They often come from desperately poor families that are hanging hopes on the long-shot possibility of a pro career. Bribing these golden goose kids with video game palaces and personal barbershops is unconscionable exploitation.
Inkraven said...
ReplyDeleteSteve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is?
Actually at schools like those ones, the total value is zero, when compared to the Ivies and other blue chip academic schools that turn out the best in science, mathematics, medicine, law, etc.
How naive and foolish you are. Remind me again how much the BILLIONS in profits that go directly to athletic dept most of which the university NEVER sees a penny of that loot. Remind me again how much the coaches' make in salary per yr at these football schools? If the coaches can be paid more than the uni president and in some cases are the highest paid state employee in the state....let the players get paid. That's what they're there for. Stop exploiting the players, do the right thing, and pay them.
On the other hand, major college programs building lavish football facilities like these tends to keep the football players segregated from the greater college environment (and the white coeds) for extended periods of time. I italicized "segregated" for a reason.
ReplyDeleteThink of these lavish facilities as a feature, not a bug.
Even easier:
ReplyDeleteSubsidize sorority houses so that each girl gets a private room with a sink.
Shut city schools and brown-bomb the suburbs. But conservatives cheer because they hate the teacher's union so much that they think anything that undermines public education in the city is good. But if city schools shut down and if students are given 'choice', won't they be streaming white schools?
ReplyDeleteCons are so stupid.
But libs are not. On this issue, they totally get it. They definitely dont want the wrong sort of folks coming into their SWPL suburbs. Which is why the pipe dream of school choice hasn't made much headway in US by and large. Plus the libs will make sure to use the courts to make sure true school choice is blocked.
So nothing to worry about in short run.
> "Subsidize sorority houses so that each girl gets a private room with a sink."
ReplyDeleteIs that a Monica Lewinksy / Bill Clinton joke?
Because, if not, then it just soared right over my head.
"Remind me again how much the BILLIONS in profits that go directly to athletic dept"
ReplyDeleteIt is actually worse than this. There are about 12 college football teams that are consistently profitable for the rest of the school, and another 15 that sometimes are. Another 50-100 lose millions are year each. And the profitable ones are often located in regions that are are big enough or almost big enough for an NFL team, but don't have one, like Columbus and Austin.
Look around and you'll see all sorts of schools trying to break into this group by building $100 million stadiums, $30 million athletic centers, $5 million a year for coaches, etc. Yet who can name 3 examples of schools that have broken into the top tier of football programs in the last 10 years?
Currently UC Berkeley is groaning under the massive debt used to fund its new stadiums and athletic facilities, which were supposed to pay for themselves with new revenue, but aren't even close. And they actually had a plausible case due to being in a major media market and having a large and rich alumni base.
Big Sports are a bit like the military industrial complex in tapping into our base desire for violent team competition, and exploiting us for tens of billions are year.
If it's a problem that the college players are black then how come the Duke basketball is so hated by whites?
ReplyDelete"That's not something one can say about other college sports, again, many of which only exist because of funding from revenues generated by football and basketball."
ReplyDeleteHorsepuckies. Football, with its ginormous stadiums, mega salaries for coaches and hookers and blow as recruitment tools, costs more than it brings in.
http://www.montana.edu/econ/seminar/Archive/siegfriedcollegesports%20052010.pdf
"Instead, it’s goal is to help the university accomplish what is the ultimate goal of any university these days, winning football games."
ReplyDeleteAnd...WHY is it the ultimate goal of any university to win football games these days? Cuz university regents like to watch football. And they LOVE to be able to do it at taxpayer expense.
In other words, free tuition and room and board and other amenities aren't doing much good since few of the 'student athletes' will amount to anything after college. A few will be picked by the pros and the rest will go back to shoveling shit in Lousiana since they have no academic reason to be there.
ReplyDeleteIf indeed they were TRUE student-athletes, free tuition would be sufficient reward since they will get some studying done and even if they don't make it to the pros, they can use their degrees for SOMETHING. But most of the black athletes aren't there for any academic reason and won't earn any degrees that means anything.
Even a guy like Chris Zorich who tried so hard to become a lawyer failed and got embroiled in some scandal.
Let the professional teams develop their talent through youth leagues tiered by age. Unfortunately there is too much money in college sports. It would probably take an armed conflict to institute any real change.
ReplyDeleteIt would be so very easy to do. Set up a "Triple A" style football league which pays the players decent money - up to 100k/yr - and virtually every single college football player will instantly defect to it. The same is true for basketball. The TV networks won't care one way of the other, they will be happy to air the new series. The venture capitalists who fund the new league will make a ton of money. And America's colleges will lose a lot of stupid thugs who have no business being there in the first place.
The only down side is for the colleges affirmative action bureaucrats, who will have to find some new excuses to admit unqualified blacks applicants.
A side benefit of setting up professional leagues for football and basketball for levels below the NBA and NFL is that these leagues would almost certainly not be as black dominated. Blacks dominate college sports because dumb black jocks are favored in the college admissions process over dumb white jocks. This is the real reason blacks do not predominate in baseball the way they do in football and basketball.
ReplyDeleteAny money the players get goes directly to the strip clubs.
ReplyDeleteAlbertosaurus,
ReplyDeleteInteresting theory, but if pro/college football dies in America, I don't think it will be because of helmets and padding. I think it will be because of a few more rounds of this concussions=long term brain damage panic there was all over the media a year or two ago.
The current system allows the schools to pay other people -- like the people who build arcades and barbershops, as well as cooks and so on -- to provide the players with the luxurious lifestyle that they've earned. I assume that this circuitous method is used because the people who run the schools think that if they gave the players the money directly, they'd spend it on hookers and blow rather than things like quality meals and wholesome entertainment.
ReplyDeleteThat would seem to make the people who run the schools enormous racists, but I can't really tell anymore.
An even better solution would be to stop pretending sports have anything to do with education. The relationship is tenuosus at best at small high schools where kids might learn some teamwork and a lot of the coaches are volunteers. But at the college level where people are making good salaries and there are significant ad revenues, it's silly to pretend it's about that. It's about keeping the money flowing and bragging rights for alumni; that's all.
"A side benefit of setting up professional leagues for football and basketball for levels below the NBA and NFL is that these leagues would almost certainly not be as black dominated."
ReplyDeleteA more effective way of diversifying football would be to take a page from soccer, which, as Steve has noted, requires more of a balance of endurance and speed due to rules that limit substitutions and minimize breaks in the action. Football could do something similar by limiting game day squads to, say, 16 or 18 men (which would require most to play both offense and defense) and by shortening the play clock to, say, 20 seconds.
This would bring down the average size of NFL players too, as few 350lb linemen could play both ways at that pace. It would probably reduce injuries as well. An added bonus would be occasionally seeing a star QB play against another as a free safety.
"Steve, remind me again what the total value on 4-5 years of free tuition, fees, books, room and board is?" +1
ReplyDeleteJust set up a football minor league or just dispense with whole charade of the student athlete in NCAA football and basketball. The players get a paid apprenticeship and the fans will still cheer for their favorite school ball players. Everybody wins. Right now it's just our recruited blacks vs. your recruited blacks.
After a few decades Whites will care less and less about sports they have no stake in anyway. It's already far along that path with the post-Jordan NBA. Whites no longer care about pro basketball.
>Puggg said...
ReplyDelete>On the other hand, major college programs building
>lavish football facilities like these tends to keep the
>football players segregated from the greater college
>environment (and the white coeds) for extended
>periods of time. I italicized "segregated" for a reason.
>
>Think of these lavish facilities as a feature, not a bug.
Are you worried about about racial integration and interracial dating? Do you think black football players go around raping white coeds and others in the greater college environment?
Ed - And of course, having minor league sports teams be run and operated by the country's higher education system that only Americans came up with and saw fit to implement. If you take a step back from it, it makes no sense on any grounds. I don't even know what "reforms" are appropriate to college sports, since the whole concept is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteAgree 100%
Why not go a step further and have their own burger chains, car washes or indeed their own boy bands. Makes just as much sense.
Pat - Fully armored - and thus plausible - Troopers wouldn't work in the movie because it would then be just battles between CGI bugs and CGI Troopers. To have the audience identify you have to see the human face.
ReplyDeleteI heard the main reason for dispensing with the suits in the movie was that the CGI just wasnt good enough at the time. Most of the book isnt about actual ground fighting anyway.
In response to:
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
> "Subsidize sorority houses so that each girl gets a private room with a sink."
Is that a Monica Lewinksy / Bill Clinton joke?
Because, if not, then it just soared right over my head."
Guess you've never visited the cribs? Google "crib Maiden Lane"
Big Bill, you made me laugh with "foobaw" and "bakkabaw"!
ReplyDeleteThe value of tuition and fees at places like UNike and Alabama, in today's higher education environment, approaches zero.
My alma mater discontinued its foobaw program back in the Nineties, as they hadn't outdrawn our perennial powerhouse hockey team in 30 years. The hockey program has recently taken some heat for the antics of the 100% white players, but that's mainly because today's feminist Puck Bunnies are out of touch with the old mantra "No means yes, yes means anal!"
The behavior of the bakkabaw team, on the other hand, mostly black with a sprinkling of white and Latino benchwarmers, has been mostly exemplary. This may be due to the liberal attitudes young Jewesses (school is 30-35% Jewish), a target-rich environment for black athletes even 30 years ago in my day.
If it's a problem that the college players are black then how come the Duke basketball is so hated by whites?
ReplyDeleteIs it? I think if you look deeper, you may find that a lot of hatred towards Duke is driven by Jewish sports writers who consider white Southern males to be simply Nazis in waiting.
I heard the main reason for dispensing with the suits in the movie was that the CGI just wasnt good enough at the time. Most of the book isnt about actual ground fighting anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhat I heard was that the special effects budget would cover either CGI bugs, or CGI powered armour, but not both.
The universities ought to kick in some cash for local law enforcement, rape training, rape kits, and rape counselors.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that that training would focus on the usual suspects at Duke's rivals rather than the unbelievable suspects they turned up at Duke.
The Starship Troopers movie was parody of the "American Fascism" by a Dutch diretor. It hadn't anything to do with the Heinlein book.
ReplyDeleteThe Starship Troopers movie was parody of the "American Fascism" by a Dutch diretor. It hadn't anything to do with the Heinlein book.
ReplyDeleteWell I just finished the book so until my memory fades (again) I'm an expert. The book itself promotes fascism. It specifically invokes the rods and axes. These are the fasces carried by the lictors of Roman magistrates with the power to impose death sentences on the spot. As I remember this was Praetors and Consuls. Questors had only one lictor whose fasces bundle had no ax. The rods gave them only the power to beat citizens.
Heinlein clearly admired fascism. The movie captured a little of that. Another big difference in the movie was sex. In the movie the troopers are uni-sex taking showers naked together while in the book the sexual relations are Victorian. The book was written before the sexual revolution.
I don't buy the idea that the CGI for the armored suits was too difficult. I use to do a lot of 3D graphics. Solid machines and fish are easy to model move and render while animals birds and humans are very tricky. That's why they use motion capture for people.
The armored suits described in Steakley's and Heinlein's books are like little submarines without arms and legs - very easy to model.
Albertosaurus
Actual cost of the facility was released yesterday and it was actually 138 million dollars not 68 that was just an old estimate for the project Alabama new facility was only 9 million dollars...... Lets be realistic here this isn't much of a debate
ReplyDeleteThe 68 million dollar price tag was actually an old estimate for the project. The actual cost is not being released but I read an article two days ago that said the actual cost was at least 138 million dollars. Alabama has nice facilities but their building only cost 9 million dollars. It is hard to really compare the two those video games aren't that expensive my friends have them in their garage lol sorry but saying this is even a debate is hilarious
ReplyDelete