The unraveling begins
The pursuit of profit over mission undermining college sports
The recent decision by an administrative judge in the Labor Department to declare athletes at Dartmouth College to be “employees” who can pursue unionization is being greeted as a great victory for college sports by the supposed expert class.
While Democratic politicians and media talking heads are proclaiming this another step on the march toward “justice,” the fact is that college sports continue to lose money — with the balance largely paid for by non-athlete students.
As with the rest of the once-academically elite Ivy League, Dartmouth doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. And, as a conference with non-elite athletes, the Ivies lack any kind of big-money TV contract — although most schools in the Big Ten and SEC are also losing money on sports.
To flog a dead horse, it doesn’t matter mow much money you’re bringing in, if you spend more than that you will lose money.
While the geniuses in our national media debate just how much money college athletes might be able to make in years to come, a far more likelier outcome is this: The Ivy League ceases operations. Shuts down. Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Penn, et al, simply stop fielding intercollegiate teams.
No more football games or basketball games, not even rowing or field hockey.
They. Simply. Stop.
At that point, a huge cost center disappears from their budgets. No more coaches salaries, no more plane tickets or leasing of buses.
Salaries currently going to trainers and nutritionists and tutors can be redirected toward, well, probably more diversity officers, to be honest, but you get the picture. Some of the smarter university administrators will actually put those savings toward the bottom line — reducing the need for ever-spiraling tuition hikes.
Once the Ivies drop intercollegiate sports, a floodgate will open and there will be no going back.
Small liberal arts schools will drop their programs. Then we’ll see smaller public universities with broken budgets, and two-year community and junior colleges all follow suit. (Sinclair Community College in Dayton dropped all intercollegiate sports programs in 2020, and somehow is still in business educating students.)
As more and more schools realize that the world doesn’t end when they stop sponsoring intercollegiate sports programs, more will be willing consider the idea.
It’s not as if this some kind of crazy, untested idea, either.
While I realize that the presidents and boards of American colleges and universities are convinced that without athletics programs they will not attract as many future students, applications are already down as more and more American families are coming to the realization that far too many colleges are in the business of indoctrination, not education. And with the price of a college degree far outstripping the general rate of inflation, fewer families can afford a college education for their children — even at the state schools their ever-rising tax bills subsidize.
When we look at Europe and India, the colleges and universities there don’t have the kind of massive, semi-professional sports programs their U.S. counterparts do.
Collegiate sports in the rest of the world resemble what collegiate sports were in the United States before World War I: Athletic clubs, not much different from drama club or chess club, only organized around a sport. You choose your university based on what you want to study (or where your friends are going), and once on campus join a club if you’re so inclined.
While our talking heads here stateside assure us that that kind of idealized notion of amateur sports is dead, somehow Oxford, Heidelberg and the Sorbonne manage to get by.
Notably, professional soccer in Europe runs its own youth developmental leagues — and does not rely on universities to provide a supply line.
Back on this side of the Pond, last May the small Catholic Holy Names of Jesus and Mary University in Oakland closed completely after 154 years — simultaneously ending their participation in NCAA Division II athletics.
And just last week, north of Los Angeles the University of Antelope Valley abruptly shut its doors — grounding its baseball and softball teams just weeks into the new season, and leaving their opponents with cancelled games throughout the rest of the spring.
In just the last four years, at least 50 colleges and universities — if we’re counting UAV — have now shut their doors in the United States.
Many of them offered athletics programs; all of those who were doing so were losing money at it.
The insane amounts of resources we pour into entertainment in this country are unsustainable, and difficult to justify in any case.
San Diego State University’s men’s basketball coach just received a raise that makes him the highest paid employee of the California State University system. More than any campus president, more than any professor conducting groundbreaking or even life-saving research.
While the Aztecs men’s basketball program still generates revenue for the school, even with Brian Dutcher’s new contract factored in, the school’s athletics program as a whole loses $28 million a year.
Congress could fix this, but we live in an age where the two major political parties are willing to do anything to gain or hold on to power, from ignoring election results to coddling anti-Semites — so reforming a broken college sports system is unlikely to be high on the agenda.
Look for more colleges to fold this year.
And look for others who are hoping to stay in business to drop their intercollegiate sports programs to stop the bleeding.
We’ve reached a tipping point.
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