Sports Illustrated on college sports hypocrisy
Michael Rosenberg in Sports Illustrated attacking the hypocrisy of big-time college sports. He mentions a little about Michigan, lots about Michigan State.
https://www.si.com/college/2020/12/29/global-pandemic-exposed-ncaa-inc
A key observation:
"Successful administrators understand that the most important part of their job—even more than winning football games—is appearing obsessed about winning football games. Customers want to know that whatever the team does, the school expects better.
"Not everybody can win, but everybody can be obsessed, and everybody can market obsession. That is the prominent business model in college sports: Prove to your customers that you are as irrationally committed as they are."
December 29th, 2020 at 1:37 PM ^
Guy is kinda a putz, but he is a good writer. Truth is truth and it is all a facade. I am a hypocrite who will still watch though.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:16 PM ^
The article has a lot of truth in it. Great observations about Dabo, MSU, etc.Don’t much care for Rosenberg but it’s hard to argue a lot of the points he’s making.
A worthwhile read for sure.
December 29th, 2020 at 1:47 PM ^
This seems like the same griping you read from the same people. Just repackaged for SI.
For many FBS teams the players, coaches, and fans wanted football. So they tried. Many were successful, some weren’t. I appreciate the effort by everyone involved in making a season, albeit a weird one, happen.
Mr. Rosenberg can hold up the Ivies as examples but the bottom line is that athletics just aren’t as big of a deal to those institutions. Which is fine. To some institutions it is a big deal, which is also fine.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:00 PM ^
The irony of Rosenberg attacking hypocrisy is not lost on me. He landed his cushy SI gig off the backs of those college sports.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:11 PM ^
That’s ridiculous logic.
December 30th, 2020 at 2:41 AM ^
You got ratioed, son
December 29th, 2020 at 2:16 PM ^
Quite the hypocrisy - so bad athletes volunteer for it year after year, fans go to games year after year, TV viewers tune in year after year, SI writes about it year after year. Must be quite awful.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:19 PM ^
And Rosenberg, being a sports writer, serves as the industry's free marketing/advertising arm.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:25 PM ^
Yeah. For sure hypocritical. Not arguing that at all. Just saying he does make some points. MSU cuts swimming and then pays two different head football coaches a combined 13 million?
December 29th, 2020 at 3:55 PM ^
Maybe I'm a douche for not reading the article before commenting on it, or at least the statement you just made. I'm not sure what's hypocritical about this? You are paying 2 coaches that amount of money because the 1st coach help to provide the budget to make those sports (swimming, rowing, wrestling, etc) possible, and the idea is the second coach will keep adding to that budget by winning and keeping the football crazed fans and doners paying money to keep the machine going. You don't have doners for swimming have coaching positions named after them. When was the last time you saw the college rowing championship on national tv?
December 29th, 2020 at 4:10 PM ^
You’re probably not a douche so I’ll let it slide. The point he makes is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your point if we admit college sports is what it is - a multi billion dollar company. Universities should stop trying to say it’s an “aw shucks non profit, non professional college atmosphere” when in fact the reality is that it is anything but that for Football and Basketball. Rosenberg says is exactly that. Don’t pretend it’s anything else, because it’s not. If AD’s continue to live in that world of make believe they shouldn’t cut sports where student athletes work just as hard, but they are non revenue. His point is just admit NCAA football and basketball for what it is. I’ve condensed a lot here. You really should read it in its entirety.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:14 PM ^
And the hypocrisy of the article is that Rosenberg made it to where he is now by covering the big business that is the NCAA, and of course exposing UM for that diabolical period known as “stretch - gate”.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:12 PM ^
But if they had to cut swimming, then the coach didn't help provide the budget to make that sport possible. I think that's the problem. The article makes an even clearer point about Cincinnati
In April, with the financial reality of a national shutdown settling in, the state university decided to cut its men’s soccer program, saving $726,498. In August, the school bumped football coach Luke Fickell’s annual salary up from $2.3 million to $3.4 million.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:24 PM ^
FYI Rosenberg is a Michigan guy. Wrote with him at the Daily years ago. Talented writer. Probably on this board. Keep it going MR.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:26 PM ^
Rosenberg is a traitor.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:55 PM ^
Now you've piqued my interest. What did he do? Serious question because I don't really know much about him.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
Remember Stretch gate? That was him
December 29th, 2020 at 4:19 PM ^
Oh shit. I didn't know that. Thanks!
December 29th, 2020 at 7:05 PM ^
He knowingly interviewed freshman that were experiencing college training camp for the first time as if their take was well informed or thought out. He was then, reportedly and quoted, as being unapologetic about fabricating the story. Finding a freshman to claim they were worked too hard, I would imagine, is not that hard and most would consider inappropriate especially if you don't identify the quotes as coming from a true freshman. (You can look up the name and figure it out but you had to do your own research.)
December 29th, 2020 at 4:24 PM ^
Nice try, Rosenberg! You can't throw us off the scent that easily!
December 29th, 2020 at 3:14 PM ^
Was a Michigan guy.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:35 PM ^
Interesting read - I'm working through it right now. I've been working on a diary I'm about to post that says a lot of the same things.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:02 PM ^
After sitting next to him at Brady Hoke's last game vs Notre Dame, and having him tell me that he didn't care who won, F him.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:07 PM ^
A lot of opinion and not much substance.
We know coaches make a lot of money. We know wealthy alums are hit up for specific causes, like new fields, buildings and coaches. We also know college sports, with the exception of elite football and men's basketball programs, are funded by student fees and tax money.
We pretend Michigan football is an amateur sport when we all know it isn't, but the alternative is simply not having a team that can compete in Columbus (viruses and the last decade or so of losing ground to OSU notwithstanding).
I'll get bashed for this, fine, but it's pieces like this that make me glad I let my SI subscription expire decades ago. Hawt takes are ubiquitous, but journalism is a lost art.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:32 PM ^
The article is a series of Stephen a Smith level hot takes. Corona did nothing other than wound the Golden goose. The golden goose kept non-revenue sports alive, but with the Golden goose now bleeding profusely those non-revenue sports are going to disappear unless things get back to normal quickly.
All of the article's others recriminations about football or basketball spending money is just sour grapes. His complaints don’t solve the basic economic model of the non-revenue sports - ultimately his article is just whining about the way some of the programs choose to spend their money. Many of us might even agree that some of those expenditures seem silly, but without those big programs there aren't going to be the smaller non-revenue sports.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
The non-revenue sports can just be club sports. Unless a school really wants to spend money there.
There really is no world of 15+ scholarship-granting team sports at each school absent the massive flow of money from football and (to a lesser extent among the power conferences) men's basketball.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:18 PM ^
I do have to say that I chuckled at this line:
When the SEC boasts that in the South “it just means more,” that’s not a comment on GPAs.
December 29th, 2020 at 5:34 PM ^
seems like everyone knew this like 20 years ago...
Football and Basketball continue to move forward because they do generate revenue, simple as that... Non-revenue sports are on the block for that reason: they don't generate revenue.
I think that there are some misconceptions though: as far as I know, all these Universities aren't private corporations - no one is lining their pockets per se
Undoubtedly, there are ancillary benefits (like higher salaries, shiny new buildings) to the AD and those programs, but 'for profit' suggests something that is not accurate imo
Doesn't Michigan have to basically zero out their AD budget annually? Including sending some money into the general funding for the university as a whole?
December 29th, 2020 at 6:51 PM ^
Its not so much the 'revenue' its the 'profit' FB and BB 'profits' have mushrooms over those 20 years but that has been hidden by exploding coaching salaries (I dont think CF programs were competing for coaches with Pros back then...20 years ago doubt a successful SB runner up coach like Harbaugh moves back down to college without the sports world even batting an eye), crazy lockerooms and facilities, extra staff, Admin in the conference office suites, NCAA admin, etc And it works to hide just how much these programs exploit their labor...as there is no way the value of a scholarship has kept pace. I mean the scholarship that a Jabrill Peppers gets is the same scholarship that the guy on the rowing team gets but the value of their talents to the University is vastly different...its not even in the same stratosphere.
December 29th, 2020 at 7:52 PM ^
the gulf between scholarships and what ADs are making as a result of TV contracts are definitely exploding and that has funded the arms race for college programs...
The profits go back into the University as far as I know - funding of non revenue sports, capital investments (granted typically benefitting the AD and the athletes) salaries for coaching and support staff and general revenue to the university...but the athletes compensation has remained relatively flat.
i don't have a problem with paying players frankly... i know some people do, but that world doesn't exist any more, and the train left the station when TV started to pay out huge dollars for broadcasting rights.
its just figuring out a way to do it that is transparent and levels the playing field as opposed to magnifying it.
December 30th, 2020 at 1:07 AM ^
That is exactly the problem. Their “non-profit” status is an entirely an accounting fiction. They technically accrue “surpluses” which must be spent down to zero to of course show no profits. That leaves a lot of room for gold-plating facilities, boondoggles, and exaggerated salaries. And it contributes to lack of foresight with regard to saving for a rainy day which then ultimately pushes the onus back on tuition and taxpayers because nothing has been saved.
My problem with Rosenberg’s take is that he offers no solution beyond saying pay the players and declare the whole thing a hypocrisy.
That lets the NCAA and schools off too easy. If anyone else did this they would be cited at a minimum for tax avoidance, and sanctioned. It also represents a fundamental fairness issue in admissions when schools that have very tight standards make very atypical admit decisions for revenue sport athletes potentially at the expense of normal applicants. The schools always claim otherwise but logic dictates that there are only so many residence hall spots, and accommodation can’t be made for all. So push comes to shove, scholarship revenue sport athletes displace spots that otherwise go to normal students. Not a good trade off if academics are supposedly your core mission and the basis of your non-profit charity tax status. Moreover, since most athletic departments generate no surpluses, this sacrifice can’t be justified by what they give back to their parent institutions unless you believe that the publicity encourages more applications and donations to the academic units. This is a dubious presumption at best.
With that said, I have no problem with it. Just call it what it is and strip the athletic departments of their non-profit statuses, make the athletes employees, and make them apply separately to become students If they so choose and meet the same standards as any other applicants. No scholarships and no automatic eligibility for typical student athlete awards like varsity letters, etc because this is not what they are.
December 29th, 2020 at 7:12 PM ^
He has a lot of quotes about people's opinions about what they think are the motives of others. Not much real content.
December 29th, 2020 at 8:18 PM ^
WTF stupid. Don’t click on this shit. SI is obsessed with negative reporting just for the clicks. Don’t, just don’t click this garbage.
December 30th, 2020 at 5:18 PM ^
Hypocrisy?
SI?
Jeez --did Playboy start putting football players on their covers to sell magazines-- or was that SI putting bathing beauties on their covers to sell magazines?
It seems that mission statements just may tend to change in all lines of work.......
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