• Kairos
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    8 months ago

    Sports are profitable for Universities.

    • Aggravationstation@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      Which I can’t really understand at all as an Englishman. A lot of universities here do have sports teams but they’re mostly amateur. The only major event really is the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race which does get sponsorship.

      • thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Yeah but imagine that secondary schools and 6th forms were doing grass roots, then unis were scooping up the best players for their own uni teams.

        • Tamo240@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          Fully anecdotal, but one of my 6th form rugby teammates went to watch a high school american football game, and said they were comparably as good as we were. Only difference is they filled a stadium and we’d get 3 dads on the sideline.

          Junior teams for professional clubs do very much pay attention to school leagues and youth club rugby for players to ‘scoop up’.

          Seems like a purely cultural difference around going to watch lower level matches to me, rather than the player skill and career trajectory being different.

          • thetreesaysbark@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Yeah I don’t know enough about how the US system works. From the media it seems like every high school has a team that draws a crowd.

            My experience in the UK system was that even the same secondary school doesn’t consistently have a team for each sport.

            Also in the UK, it seems like we don’t get behind our school teams (even whilst we’re in school with them). They’re just seen as something the sporty kids do. But that’s all purely my experience of our school system. Could be completely different in a different city/county.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              The media is accurate. I don’t like sports but in high school we’d go to the football games because that was the social event.

            • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              It’s the whole setup. The marching band comes in and plays, too. I was in band but I don’t really remember if it was actually every game we came and played too but it was a lot. So they’re like big events. Cheerleaders also, that’s a lot of students with parents who want to see their child perform.

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s the problem. They shouldn’t be worried about profit. The fact that education and health are completely focused on profit in the US really demonstrates how far we’ve gone down a wrong path. (I’m not a talkie or even a leftist for the record, just hate unfettered capitalism)

      • Kairos
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        8 months ago

        Yes there was a lawsuit about colleges not treating players like employees. They should be employees.

        • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          No, that too but colleges should be places for education, not making money and not higher investments in athletics.

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      8 months ago

      Some sports are profitable. A lot of sports aren’t.

      A lot of the sports programs go back to a time when universities acted more like finishing schools for the wealthy and intelligent. It was thought that sports, especially team sports, were a good way to teach the soft skills of being a leader.

    • tech@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Now, it’s profitable for the athletes. They should probably be paying their own tuition if they’re bringing in millions in NIL money.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      But isn’t their goal to teach people things? I don’t understand how silly games and money became their main focus.