Football is NOT a Sucker's Game

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University and Princeton University played the first ever college football game, starting one of the most profitable sports the country would ever see. Since that historical day, America has seen this sport blossom into a multi-billion dollar business. Not only has this game helped schools make major profits, it has brought communities together and encouraged some younger teens to go to college. But over the years, college football has cost the majority of universities lots of money. But the reward is worth the risk. The entertainment value and economical benefit of college football is worth the amount of money spent because the pride and pageantry is important to the community of the city and university alike.

In Michael Sokolove’s article, Football Is a Sucker’s Game, he states that, “Football is the S.U.V. of the college campus: aggressively big, resource-guzzling, lots and lots of fun, and destructive of everything around it." Sokolove continues on about college football and its excessive spending. He claims that college the football program drains other athletic and academic programs within its respective university. He states that most schools lose money on an annual basis. He also claims that the players take a beating just to make money for themselves and the university. What Sokolove doesn’t talk about, is the importance of the sport to each respective community and university, economically, educationally, and entertainment wise.

The biggest problem with college football, according to Sokolove, is that most schools lose money annually. Every year, schools put money into marketing, equipment, concessions, merchandise, salaries of employees, scholarships, traveling costs, medical supplies, nutrition for players, facility electricity, facility heating, facility, air-conditioning, facility water, gym-upkeep, stadium-upkeep, practice field-upkeep, and treatment center-upkeep and amenities. The school tries to make it back by selling advertising space, tickets, television payouts, and bowl payouts. The odds are, schools will lose money. But, Sokolove doesn’t seem to understand passion or the idea of a goal. The people who run athletic programs have a strong passion for their school and the game; they have a goal, make money and win. The goal of EVERY football program is to be successful, win, and make money. Every programs wants to become Notre Dame, Michigan, USC, or any other traditional national powerhouse. For schools like Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, and Oregon, their dreams of being a national powerhouse are close. They have big football programs, with great communities surrounding them, and big donors funding their program. Smaller schools like South Florida, Rutgers, and Boise State, they are further away, but on the right track. They have recent success in the win column and they are getting national recognition, but they have yet to play in numerous big bowls and they have yet to find big donors. The key to turning a program around is finding big donors.

Oregon has been a poster-child for smaller programs like South Florida, Rutgers, and Boise State. For years, Oregon was a Pac-10 cellar-dweller. Oregon has]d numerous losing seasons, rare bowl appearances, and very few big names to give the school national recognition. In fact, Oregon was so bad in the late-70’s and early-80’s, that the Pac-10 conference was considering dropping Oregon and Oregon State and adding Texas and Oklahoma. Oregon’s play finally started to it pick up. In 1989, quarterback Bill Musgrave, led Oregon to their first bowl game in decades, as the Ducks went to Independence Bowl. They started getting a little more attention and they were able to recruit with more results. In 1994, Oregon had a breakout year and went to the Rose Bowl after winning their first conference title in over a half-century.

The big season for the Ducks got them national recognition and access to the top recruits in the country. But the biggest thing that the successful season did for the program was bringing attention to big donors. Nike Founder and CEO and Oregon alum, Phil Knight was impressed by his alma mater’s success and decided to start donating money. Along with Knight were the Linquist, Pape, and Moshofsky families and Pat Kilkenny. All 5 of these big donors have donated massive amounts of money recently. Phil Knight has donated over a half billion dollars to the University and football program. His biggest contributions have been paying for most of the $90 million renovation of Autzen Stadium, Knight Law School, Library renovation, and most recently, he donated $100 million dollars to the athletic department. His recent donation is the 2nd largest single donation in NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) history.

What Sokolove doesn’t understand is that donors provide much of the funding in football programs, not the university, so with success brings more donors and more money. Since 1994, the donations of the big donors have provided Oregon with the nicest facilities in the entire country, including NFL facilities. In fact, Desmond Howard was recently quoted regarding Oregon’s facilities, “It's my first time being here. Those practice facilities are just plush. It's better than any NFL facility I've ever been in. It's beyond first class.” The upgrade in facilities, success, and fan support has boosted Oregon to being one of the nation’s most recognized teams and every year brings in top recruits.

Sokolove talks only about the financial benefit of the university and athletic department, yet not about the community. For many schools, football on Saturday brings together a community. Through tailgating, cheering for their team, and going through ups and downs throughout the year, football can bring a community together. For many schools, it does. Schools like Alabama, Wisconsin, and Oregon, are the poster-children for college towns who thrive on the university and especially the football programs within each respective community.

At Alabama, they have statues of old coaches who represent their historical success and I have never witnessed a school who more can say that they live for saturdays. At Wisconsin, they have a tradition for the entire stadium of 95,000 fans to jump up and down to the song, “Jump Around” by hip-hop group, House of Pain. Before the gams, the entire town is basically shuts down and there is tailgating all throughout Madison. Oregon itself basically shuts down and people from all over the state come to Eugene to watch the Ducks play. The city’s population rises about 50,000 people.

Communities not only come together through football, but football can be a huge economical benefit. The success of football programs can produce lots of advertising revenue and local businesses can thrive off of football weekends. During a football weekend, businesses, such as car rental services, hotels, restaurants, and parking services can really benefit from it. Through success, many people in the community donate small amounts of money every year, which helps with funds.

Not only do the games bring the community together and help the local economy, but it can have a major affect of education. Lots of kids grow up around sports and many find football and these games to be a passion of theirs. They grow up watching the student section and feel the gameday experience. These events can really motivate a child or teenager to work harder to attend the college of their dreams. I myself grew up idolizing Oregon’s student section and during high school, the thought of being a part of this university pushed me to work harder so that I could attend the school of my dreams. Infact, most of the facts from this article is stricty from my knowledge because that is how passionate I truly am and that is why I pushed myself, so that I could become a part of Oregon’s history, community, and tradition.

Having the community back a school strongly and showing other prospective students what type of tradition and pageantry a school has can really have a major impact on students attending a university. When prospective students visit a college campus, seeing the tradition and pageantry of the school and community can truly sway a student’s decision one way or another.

In defense of Sokolove, the majority of schools do not reach that eternal goal and do lose money annually. Most schools don’t have the resources or the right people in charge to make that jump from mediocrity or sub-mediocrity to being nationally recognized as a contender. Some schools like Vanderbilt and Stanford have enough money that losing some money annually to keep the students happy, doesn’t hurt, but not all schools have that luxury. In fact, Stanford recently spent $90 million on a new stadium, while their football team has lacked any success in the past 5 years and financially, they should have taken a huge hit, but Stanford has too many donors to allow that to happen. Many fans are outraged with the unusually large GPA requirement for athletes, 3.4, because it does not allow the football program to recruit the best players they can and the fans find it disingenuous to give off a perception of success with a brand new stadium while not being able to win.

Put yourself in the following situation. Let’s say that you wanted to become a lawyer for a career and you were passionate about law. Would the fact that it is hard to become a successful lawyer stop you from trying? Studying takes up time and money, and the chances are, you won’t become a top lawyer in a major firm, but do you stop because the odds are against you? I would like to think that most people strive for their goal even if it’s hard. Football is no different. Football is a sport of passion and just because it is unlikely that all schools will achieve great runs of success, it does not stop those who love the game from trying.

To many, college football is more than a business, more than a day of entertainment, more than a sport, but it is a lifestyle and for others it is life itself. Football brings joy to people, teaches people about the ups and downs of life, and brings together all sorts of different people who would never come together in any other way. College is about more than just an education, but about experiences and because college football in America is almost a way of life, football is as big of a part of universities across America as the education itself.