Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Putting on the Capitalist's Devil's Advocate hat for a moment...
Those professional players help (if not play the primary role) in generating over $5Billion/yr ($186M/yr/team) (2015-16) in revenue. They then collectively bargained a guaranteed share of that revenue ($70M/team, 2015-16). Relative to some significant economic factors, they have earned those salaries. (Note: the same principle applies, to an extent, with college revenue-sport coaches, albeit, IMO, not as much because they are doing on the backs of unpaid labor...)
This does not obviate either the value judgment/ethical argument about "society's priorities", or the potential indictment that could be levied against Big Uni's funding allocation priorities. Rather, it's just an objective statement about how/why people spend their money, what they spend it on, and how those service providers do earn their fair share of that generated revenue.
"Generation of revenue" does not translate to "generation of net revenue". Subtract off the cost of the stadium, the travel, all the sub-coaches and sub-sub-coaches and ball washers and equipment. Subtract off the goddamn sports building. And then go back to your donors and tell them you're a school not a sports franchise.
Although some big schools probably make a profit even counting all of that, small ones (like ours) probably don't... but we chase it anyway because, as far as I can figure, no one on staff or admin or even the alumuni actually cares about, you know, school.
It is my understanding that it is very rare for money to flow out of the athletic department to other parts of the university, and very common for money to flow from other parts of the university to the athletic department. This is especially true if you include required "athletic fees" as revenues flowing from the rest of the university (i.e. the students) to the athletic department, and don't try to offset that flow with things like counting the supposed retail value of tickets to games that are often played in mostly empty (very large) stadiums (because the students don't care, or because many of them are busy pulling shifts at local watering holes and hoping that the home team wins mostly because that will mean bigger tips).
I'm not quite sure why the athletics persist nonetheless, but I think the answers lie somewhere along the lines of (1) promotes name recognition, and (2)allows administrators to boast about the size of their budgets (total budget, of course, not academic budget)
Excuse me while I VOMIT...HARFyorkGLAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at the salaries of some of the football and basketball coaches, you'll want to vomit some more.
ReplyDeleteSomething most undergraduates learn is that one can continue vomiting long after one thinks one is finished. And you thought it was first-year comp?
DeleteIt for dang sure isn't first-year calculus, or first-year physics.
DeletePutting on the Capitalist's Devil's Advocate hat for a moment...
ReplyDeleteThose professional players help (if not play the primary role) in generating over $5Billion/yr ($186M/yr/team) (2015-16) in revenue. They then collectively bargained a guaranteed share of that revenue ($70M/team, 2015-16). Relative to some significant economic factors, they have earned those salaries. (Note: the same principle applies, to an extent, with college revenue-sport coaches, albeit, IMO, not as much because they are doing on the backs of unpaid labor...)
This does not obviate either the value judgment/ethical argument about "society's priorities", or the potential indictment that could be levied against Big Uni's funding allocation priorities. Rather, it's just an objective statement about how/why people spend their money, what they spend it on, and how those service providers do earn their fair share of that generated revenue.
Yes, Aaron Clarey also made this argument in his book "Worthless." I'm sure Paul Ryan would find it very convincing.
Delete"Generation of revenue" does not translate to "generation of net revenue". Subtract off the cost of the stadium, the travel, all the sub-coaches and sub-sub-coaches and ball washers and equipment. Subtract off the goddamn sports building. And then go back to your donors and tell them you're a school not a sports franchise.
DeleteAlthough some big schools probably make a profit even counting all of that, small ones (like ours) probably don't... but we chase it anyway because, as far as I can figure, no one on staff or admin or even the alumuni actually cares about, you know, school.
It is my understanding that it is very rare for money to flow out of the athletic department to other parts of the university, and very common for money to flow from other parts of the university to the athletic department. This is especially true if you include required "athletic fees" as revenues flowing from the rest of the university (i.e. the students) to the athletic department, and don't try to offset that flow with things like counting the supposed retail value of tickets to games that are often played in mostly empty (very large) stadiums (because the students don't care, or because many of them are busy pulling shifts at local watering holes and hoping that the home team wins mostly because that will mean bigger tips).
DeleteI'm not quite sure why the athletics persist nonetheless, but I think the answers lie somewhere along the lines of (1) promotes name recognition, and (2)allows administrators to boast about the size of their budgets (total budget, of course, not academic budget)