JONATHAN CHAIT OCTOBER 4, 2010
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My item on the Northeast's lack of interest in college football spurred Matthew Yglesias to lament that his earnest agenda of college sports reform is being misinterpreted as anti-college sports snobbery:
I think it’s too bad we have this kind of regional breakdown, because it makes it a bit difficult to talk sensibly about the fact that there’s a semi-important underlying public policy issue here. Institutions of higher education actually serve an important social function and, as such, receive large quantities of explicit and implicit subsidies. At the same time, skyrocketing college education costs are a major issue for many families. So it’s fairly important that these subsidized institutions not running around wasting significant sums of money on undertakings that have nothing to do with their social function of promoting research and education. Like, for example, running money-losing sports programs.
But my suspicion is that many alumni of the non-northeastern universities that are at the core of the problem hear this critique as a form of snobbish “looking down” at their alma maters.
I will go ahead and straightforwardly accuse Yglesias of, if not outright snobbery, then at least regional, class-based myopia. Here's how high-level college sports works. Football and men's basketball generally make money, and those programs that don't make money come relatively close to making money. They plow the money they make into subsidizing sports that lose money, which is the overwhelming majority. Many programs still operate their athletic program at a surplus, but more have to subsidize athletics.
Now, I think athletics is a very reasonable thing for a university to subsidize. Universities spend tons of money on things that "have nothing to do with their social function of promoting research and education." They give their students free gyms and glee clubs and movies and whatnot. It's all part of the social experience of being a college student. At many colleges, especially outside the Northeast, attending football and basketball games is a big part of the student experience. Now, I suppose that if you had an agenda of radical parsimony in higher education, you could be crusading against non-educational experiences across the board. You don't see that from Yglesias or other critics of college sports. If you wanted to confine your criticism to sports itself, you could concede the value of football and basketball and urge colleges to stop wasting money on gymnatics and track and field. But you don't see them doing that, either. You see them concentrating their ire on the one aspect of college sports -- big time football and basketball -- that distinguishes big public universities from elite Northeast private schools.
Now Yglesias often frames his condemnation of those sports as a call for paying those student athletes. I have a lot of problems with this idea, but one clear one is that it runs headlong into Yglesias's other anti-college sports proposal. If colleges start paying their athletes, that means they have to put more money into athletics. So is the fact that colleges are subsidizing athletics his real concern?
Moreover, the argument that schools should not be funding athletic programs like football and basketball also applies at the high school level, perhaps even more. My (small-time) high school football program defrayed some of its costs by selling tickets and hot dogs at the games. Do high school players deserve to get paid? We didn't work like college players, but we were running wind sprints before dawn in the frigid Midwest darkness all winter long in a special gym class for football players, and participating in "voluntary" drills all summer long. Moreover, nearly all high school athletic programs lose money, and primary education is far more strapped for cash than post-secondary education. Yet you don't see him demanding the cancelation of high school athletics.
I'm in favor of reforming college sports in ways that help bring them into line with their ideals. There are lots of things that can achieve this: regulating limits on coaches' salaries, making all freshmen ineligible and guaranteeing them all a fifth year, cracking down on programs like Alabama that "cut" scholarship players who don't pan out, reducing the length of the season, and so on. But there's a whole other strain of "reform" that comes from people with obvious contempt for college sports and whose only consistent ideal seems to be killing off a tradition they despise. People like Yglesias may not be rubbing their hands together and snickering at the public school rubes from flyover country, but I do think their animus does have a lot to do with class and region.
17 comments
My alma mater no longer contributes to it's athletic budget anymore. The athletic program is entirely self-supported. I do agree with Jon's position though, that athletics is definitely part of the schools social function and should receive school support.
- jet
October 4, 2010 at 12:29pm
I'm a huge college sports fan, but sometimes you just have to turn your brain off and pretend not to notice that parts of it are a huge scam. That's part of why Obama's response about changing the BCS system (remember, the question was, "What would you change about sports?) was so disingenuous--it wouldn't be anywhere close to a serious person's first choice about what to change, even if you confined the answer to college athletics. But Yglesias' comments make a pretty huge jump. It is interesting to learn that, during the two years which the study examined, most college programs didn't make money. (Although the study doesn't seem to factor in donations due to athletics, a hard-to-define but very real reason why college sports exists.) But to use that flimsy evidence to claim that college sports are a key factor in the spiraling costs of higher education is just silly.
- ulexamp
October 4, 2010 at 12:34pm
"Football and men's basketball generally make money, ... They plow the money they make into subsidizing sports that lose money, which is the overwhelming majority." Wow - they "plow" the money? That sounds dramatic, selfless, and brave ... very very brave.
- benberger
October 4, 2010 at 1:30pm
Ouch. Devastatingly argued. I'm from the northeast, have no interest in college sports, and even I agree with Chait's argument.
- sokol8
October 4, 2010 at 1:46pm
Take that, you liberal elitist, Matthew Yglesias. Pretty much anything that Yglesias is against I am for. I used to think similarly to Yglesias a long time ago but I have long thought the way Jonathan does, despite the fact that I have almost no interest in sports.
- liberal reformer
October 4, 2010 at 2:14pm
- Not only is the survey suspect, it shouldn't be used to wander into territory he clearly doesn't understand. Though anecdotal, I know one university is only able to fund all other athletic programs through football revenue. How important is basketball, baseball, softball, swimming, lacrosse, hockey, soccer, track & field, tennis and fulfilling Title IX? Yep, no football - - no woman's sports. And Yglesias clearly doesn't understand the relationship between athletic success and alumni donations. Or does he have an alternate source for the hundreds of millions which public and private schools rely upon?
- michaelg
October 4, 2010 at 2:43pm
What a load of crap. Division 1 athletics, particularly Football and Basketball, is a perfectly reasonable "part of the [residential] college experience" - intercollegiate amateur competition - run completely amok. It is not only not part of the chartered mission of the universities that practice it, but it is completely antithetical to that mission, being for the student athletes an enormous distraction from their education - if in fact they happen to be at the school for an education - and for the rest of the student body, an exercise in irrational herd mentality (for those who take it seriously) or completely irrelevant (for the rest, who may in fact be a majority). And on top of that, the identity University = Sports Team means that in many states the most common way people encounter the largest and most prestigious state institutions entrusted with the education of the next generation, is as mindless entertainment and idiot rivalries (c.f. Jonathan Chait). What a way to build support for the crown jewels of American education. Sheesh. There is nothing to defend here. And, no I'm not a Northeasterner masquerating as a resident of a flyover state. I've lived in flyover country my entire life. If I'm an elitist snob, I'm a homegrown one - maybe because I took my own education seriously enough to not waste it worrying about "the college experience" but rather, studying.
- IowaBeauty
October 4, 2010 at 3:53pm
Couldn't help but be amused by the juxtaposition of this entry and the earlier one in Mr. Chait's blog with the "TNR on Football" selection of archive pieces, including the little gem from T.S. Matthews in 1930 on "Football Morals." (http://www.tnr.com//article/politics/football-morals if you're not seeing it). Noted merely for amusement, no comment. Now please stop bothering me with this football rubbish. The major league playoffs are about to start.
- cspencef
October 4, 2010 at 4:34pm
I find it absurd to assert that the idea of paying football and basketball players at big-time college programs should apply also apply to high school. Just about all high schools take whatever students they wind up with and try to make the best teams they can out of them. The big time sports schools recruit players, often only marginally academically qualified, and then give them the easiest ride they can so they can continue playing. Their main purpose is not to increase the academic quality of the school, or even to get a quality education, but to win games and increase revenues (which is not to diminish those athletes who do take advantage of their educational opportunities--but then look at those who leave early for the pros, and those who aspire to do so). It's not elitist to recognize that the big time college sports programs are essentially semi-pro programs. Consequently, it's not elitist to suggest that the players get paid accordingly. Instead, it would inject a new level of honesty to the enterprise: that many of the players are there to play, not to study. If some of them choose to study, they should be applauded; but if they were recruited to play, then I don't see the point of making them study. I think colleges should go the Ivy/Division III route, or go ahead and pay players without making them attend class; but I find the current middle ground indefensible.
- dsimon
October 4, 2010 at 5:12pm
I am with Iowa on this, I taught in a University in China and here in Mexico, there is none of this athletics as part of the university experience. People can play soccer or basketball on their own time (and in Mexico Baseball). College football is mostly for over 40 something old farts pretending they are young again. If we want to continue to compete this century we need more engineers, scientists, linguists, programmers, etc. not 300 pound communications majors. and I tutored in College, most of my tutorees were football lunkheads. Honest to God exchange in a tutoring session in comparative religions "What are the 5 precepts of Buddha" "Who is Buddha?"
- blackton
October 4, 2010 at 6:46pm
Hey, those people over there are having fun! Somebody stop them!
- W_Bombay
October 4, 2010 at 9:14pm
Hail to the Victors valiant Hail to the conquering heroes Hail Hail to Michigan the Champions of the West! I'm proud as hell of all of Michigan's accomplishments on any field of battle, whether athletic or academic (as a student, I was just as proud). When you strive for excellence it doesn't matter the battle field, sorry. Watching the Pat's v. Dolphins with all the Michigan alum on the field is a point of pride, not embarrassment. And the NCAA is the single most corrupt athletic organization in existence and that's saying a lot. The only people not making $$ in college football are the players and that's BS. Jon, keep up these posts - the haters just don't understand. Go Blue!!!
- mollybrown
October 5, 2010 at 12:32am
Go Blue! Kick some Spartan butt. When that's finished, maybe the University of Michigan can produce some engineers, scientists and so forth to get us through the next century and make blackton happy.
- roidubouloi
October 5, 2010 at 7:25am
Has anyone ever done any thorough accounting to actually verify the claims that major sports (men's football & basketball) self-fund, make money and actually fund money losing programs? I don't doubt that in a basic cash income basis they appear profitable, but does this really account for the buildings and land used and occupied by these programs? The land doesn't generate property taxes, the facilities generally consume large amounts of energy -- without listing all the expenses, it does seem like there are plenty of places where these programs can get a free ride (eg, central heat plants or power) or actually cost their host community money (tax exempt land). The contrast in mind is professional sports -- continually in search of taxpayer financed stadiums despite massive TV revenue and merchandising profits. How is it these teams are on the brink of insolvency -- or so we are told -- yet University programs in football or basketball not only make money but use their profits to prop up women's teams and less popular sports? While I don't completely oppose college sports, there's something about the massive scale they are staged on that seems distracting or even perverting from the institutions' research and educational mission, especially the way the programs are justified not for their athleticism or expression of amateur sportsmanship but because they produce revenue and that revenue supports other...sports.
- mobocracy
October 5, 2010 at 1:09pm
Sign me up as a snob, a Phi Beta Kappa from a state university system that (back then) awarded no athletic scholarships at all. I wish that were still the case. The argument against big time college athletics isn't (or shouldn't be) about money primarily. It should be about the perversion of the entire academic system that's necessary to keep up the pretense that a bunch of steroid-soaked flunkies are actually students. If the real students need a team to root for, maybe the administration could buy a minor league team for them to watch. But let's make it abundantly clear that the team and the university are different entities, tied together only by colocation and a bunch of snazzy sportswear.
- gwcross
October 5, 2010 at 3:53pm
I dunno, GW. During my three years at Michigan, where I went to every home football game and even sat in freezing rain to the very end of a 60 (or something) to nothing blowout against Northwestern, I never found that the existence of a football team interfered at all with my education. And it was a great release on Saturday afternoons to have an excellent reason not to study. What, precisely, is the harm done to education by athletics? The mission is too "confused" to learn what you need to learn? I happened to like the fact that, in part due to athletics, there was a more diverse student population than otherwise.
- roidubouloi
October 5, 2010 at 4:30pm
Also, does Yglesias consider alumni contributions? I imagine that many people who give to their alma maters do so in fond rememberance of their college experience, which may well include the athletic programs. Despite being from the midwest, I have zero interest myself in college sports and never did. Maybe that's because I went to Northwestern. But I can see why others would, and it need not interfere with the primary academic mission. At the same time, I wouldn't lower academic standards for admission. What's the point of hiring a bunch of ringers? The whole thing is taken way too seriously, and I can see why some would perceive in the big athletic programs a sense of misplaced priorities and dubious values.
- JakeH
October 7, 2010 at 2:55pm