This is a disgrace

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Not that I can be all that superior: we have similar problems in Australia (like the outrageous funding of the Australian Institute of Sport).

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Gee, how much do pro football PLAYERS make each year?

What a screwy society we live in!

By Dale Husband (not verified) on 20 Oct 2008 #permalink

But on the other hand, I've never lectured to a fanatical audience of 80,000. As long as those football coaches are paid out of money the football team itself raises in ticket and television rights sales, why is it in itself a problem?

Whats the problem?
It's only four times the salary of Joe the Plumber.
To be serious, its not really a good comparison.
Try comparing the salaries of professionals who are educated to a similar level to university academics - such as lawyers, doctors or company directors (unfortunately I suspect you would see a similar, if not quite so exaggerated, disparity).

Tovarisch Barack Hussein Obama will fix all that. When glorious socialist revolution is revived in U.S. no football coach will earn more than kitchen staff in cafeteria. Grad students who lead classes in reeducation camp will be handsomely paid for contributing to revolution that Clinton started but Bush only recently made possible with nationalizing banks.

The relative scale is what is wrong - academics and intellectuals ought, in a rational society, earn significant amounts relative to top ranked executives. That something as meaningless as professional sport gives salaries in an academic institution that exceed the top person at the university's salary by three times is just offensive. I don't much care how the money is gained - it's a side issue for education.

And Mike, that's bullshit. I hope you thought you were being funny, repeating the execrable Republican talking points.

Well I guess that I can at least say my stipend is greater than the average grad student salary. Not that it's competitive with entry level toll booth collector salaries though.

One thing that I've wondered about paying football coaches so much is that, after all, what difference does it make whether team A beats team B? One of the two is going to win, no matter what. Does it make my life any better, whether team A or team B wins? Yes, if I am a fan of team A - but aren't there just as many fans of team B? Unlike, let's say, two corporations who are competing to get me to buy their product, there is at least the possibility that out of that competition, there just might result better products. But with two athletic teams, the result is, in the large scale, the same: one team wins and one team loses.

One more comparison: Compare the yearly salary of an ordinary football coach with the once-in-a-lifetime Nobel Prize.

When I matriculated at Penn State I thought the emphasis on football was excessive. Then I found out how much money Joe Paterno was bringing to PSU and State College and the surrounding communities, and it all made sense. Penn State football is not a drain on educational financing: it is a money tree.

If any professors can bring in that kind of outside money, hire them, meet their prices.

The post by Mike Haubrich, FCD is stupid beyond belief and not worth further comment.
the sad thing about the salaries posted above, and the "but look at all the money the athletic programs bring in" comments, is that fewer than 10% of the big school athletic programs make money - most run at a serious deficit to the university - there have even been cases where this is true AFTER the school plays in a BCS bowl game and receives huge dollars for it. the notion that these progams fund themselves is, by and large, untrue.

No, I'm not being funny, I'm being serious. If you think anyone who disagrees with you in the slightest is some moron Republican then you are as bad as them.

If this money was coming from the education budget, it would be a very distinct problem for me. If this money is coming from the entrance gate and television rights then attacking it is merely attacking one symptom of the larger system (malaise, if you insist).

If you banned college football, and replaced it with something like minor league baseball, would this still be offensive to you, or is it only the proximity to the world of education that offends?

Or are you singling out college football when it is the imbalances in the entire economic system that are offensive to you? If it is this case, then why is the wage of someone earnt from discretionary purchases offensive in comparison to, say, the banks handing out bonuses to their employees that pretty much match the federal bank bail-out, when we can't avoid using banks?

This to me is one of the less offensive examples of conspicuous earning, as the money comes from people who *choose* to watch the games. It is not as offensive as, say, taxpayers money going to fund stadiums to be inhabited by rich professional sports teams or the large bonuses given to bankers, who take advantage of their required position in the economy to siphon off huge bonuses for invalid reasons.

I'm quite happy for people to earn huge amounts of money from *discretionary* purchases (e.g. a music album, a sports ticket), as long as they don't act as a cartel. They put the price up too much, I no longer buy their product but buy something else instead.

I don't feel I have a right to tell other people that their discretionary purchase is invalid. Should I be told off for buying, say, a Radiohead album because Thom Yorke has loads of cash already but the local Chemistry department is a bit strapped? I don't see so, so I'm not willing to tell off people for buying college football season tickets just because I think it's a silly game, anymore than I'm willing to turn people back from going to Disneyland because it would be better to spend the money on transgenic mice than a man in a six foot mouse suit. That this particular example has got tacked onto US universities for historical reasons just makes it sillier.

So no, I've not a greater problem with high earning in entertainments than I have in general. I'm also of the view that they should be taxed properly on these earnings (and that's more a Scandinavian meaning of proper, not the Republican meaning of "as little as possible").

As far as the comment "look at all the money the athletic programs bring in" - sorry to repeat myself, but:

What if the football coaches were all paid 1/10 of their present salaries? Would there be any fewer people coming to watch the football games? There would still be the same number of total football victories and defeats. There would still be the same number of happy fans of winning teams and sad fans of losing teams. There would still be the same number of alumni getting bragging rights over their schools' victories over the alumni of losing schools. Would there be any net change in the contributions from the alumni? Would there be any net change in the sale of souvenirs?

Then give up academics for sport. if it weren't for football, many of your institutions of higher learning would be tits up bankrupt.

Then give up academics for sport. if it weren't for football, many of your institutions of higher learning would be tits up bankrupt

Absolute bullshit. No other words for it. In fact virtually all football programs are money losers, yes some teams get revenue from TV programming, but those same teams pay fees to be in a given conference. These costs are not included in the books for expenses. Those few teams that may make some money in a given year, do not give the proceeds to the school.

Schools spend resources on many football players (not all) who are not prepared for college. These funds take away from areas that could use the resources to educate college ready students.

While I do not begrudge making what the market will pay, the values of our society disturb me greatly. That the US market regards entertainment so thoroughly but not teachers, firefighters, police officers is socially offensive to me.

Um, if you follow the link to Mike Haubrich's blog, you will find that he's one of the Good Guys. I realize that reliably parodying the wingnuts is damn near impossible these days, but still....

if it weren't for football, many of your institutions of higher learning would be tits up bankrupt.

That's not true. Few football programs make money and no university gets funding from its athletic department for academics. One might argue that Notre Dame, and Notre Dame alone, has become a better school because more students want to come to it allowing them to be more selective in their choice of students.

Of the best universities in the country, sports are normally not terribly important. The Ivy League offers no athletic scholarships and pays their coaches less. Chicago famously walked away from big time football when it had one of the best football teams in the country. A few very good public universities also have very good sports programs. A few top-tier private universities are big time.

Like public financing for stadiums, big time college sports are claimed to be good for colleges, but the supporting evidence is never provided.

By freelunch (not verified) on 21 Oct 2008 #permalink

When glorious socialist revolution is revived in U.S. no football coach will earn more than kitchen staff in cafeteria.

In Soviet Russia, football program subsidizes you!

It is a disgrace and the reality is out of control. But we also have to acknowledge that the data are bogus, with a mixture of measurement types (median and mean) and a mixture of samples (from different years, etc.)

And the source is a comic book. But it still sucks, of course.

First, for all of you saying that most college sports lose money, you are right in that at an operational level they do lose money. However, that doesn't include the donations that are given to the university that may not be given if that university didn't have sports. I haven't seen a good estimate of this, but I'm sure many universities would receive significantly fewer donations.

A qualification to this fact is that a recent trend has been for athletic departments to seek donations that don't go to the university general fund and there have been articles in the Chronicle that suggest that these types of donations are now lowering donations to the general fund.

The total financial cost or gain to the university is not the sole measure of how athletics should be managed. Another, less quantifiable measure, is what impact college athletics has on the mission of the university, which is largely education and research. If the university has more of its revenue and costs attributed to athletics, how will this change its priorities. If a university were a profit-making organization that was taxed, I wouldn't give a rip, but nearly all universities are nonprofit, less taxed institutions that have a defined mission. If athletics becomes too large (I don't know how to define that) a part of the university, then they are probably not functioning as per their mission.

What if universities decided that they just wanted to invest their money in real estate and stocks and make money on rents and capital gains? Oh wait, that is what Harvard and Yale do.

Come on, people. I think Mike Haubrich's comment is pretty obvious parody. Notice how the point comes at the end: the biggest socialist of them all is Fearless Flightsuit, so if you're afraid that Obama would be a socialist, you deserve to be laughed at.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 21 Oct 2008 #permalink

Actually, only a handful of schools (maybe 30 or fewer) actually make a profit from their football programs, and even those are struggling with rising costs (such as travel expenses). So any attempt to justify a football coach's high salary (I'm from Iowa City--that coach is paid over $2M a year AND THE HAWKEYES FKIN SUCK!) is ridiculous and ill-advised.

BTW, the graph comes from the excellent grad-student web comic PhD Comics.

Just yesterday, I heard someone say - on a Boston *sports* talk station - that Obama was a far-left liberal, further left than the socialists in congress. *facepalm*

Yes, Mike H.'s comment was obviously a parody, but we have some confusion between Mike and "Mike [no last name]" - I think "Mike" took John's comment, which was aimed at Mike H., as being addressed to him. Mike, I do believe it was Mike H.'s tongue-in-cheek comment that was being compared to "the execrable Republican talking points" in which Obama becomes a Socialist. Your comment was quite reasonable, IMO.

Anyway, the numbers don't reflect university priorities, they reflect societal/cultural priorities. Capping salaries won't change any of that. Besides, such an action would be ... *cough* ... un-American. ;-)

What if universities decided that they just wanted to invest their money in real estate and stocks and make money on rents and capital gains? Oh wait, that is what Harvard and Yale do.

That's what ALL universities with endowments do (i.e., any large university). Named professorships and endowed scholarships get their money on invested stocks, dividends, rents, etc.

If you don't like it, stop buying all of the branded crap they sell, don't go to games and don't watch it on TV.

Supply and demand, folks. High demand, limited supply: high salary.

When academics bring in as much money and influence as coaches do, they'll be paid as well. Not before.

By Barbara Verna (not verified) on 21 Oct 2008 #permalink

I dunno, I think australians should spend a lot more on important sports events like the Philosopher's World Cup, perhaps hosted by prestigious schools like the University of Wallamaloo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vV3QGagck

Mike: sorry for my ill-tempered snark. I shall endeavour to present only good-tempered snark from here on.

Jeff: I interviewed a couple of days ago for a job at the University of Wollongong. Does that count?

I'm impressed, to be sure. But does that carry the same clout as *the* philosophy dept at the University of Wallamalloo?

Not as much as the U of Woolloomooloo.

By Zarquon(Bruce) (not verified) on 21 Oct 2008 #permalink

Sport is immensley important in a modern society like ours, where millions of common rabble have ample leisure to get up to mischief. Once the oil runs out and once again the commons must toil from dawn to dusk to keep body and soul together, sport won't be as needed.

Not as much as the U of Woolloomooloo

So it is. The spelling in the MP scripts is inconsistent, and not being an aussie, I wouldn't know the difference. I always learn something on John's blog.

The rule is if it's an aboriginal name or derived from one, add as many "oo"s as you can. I live not far from Toowoomba, just near indooroopilly, for example.

And I'm in charge of the sheep dip.

Do what you love.

We have choices, offhand I can't think of anyone I know who would have been interested in both these careers.

If you really want to be a professor, paying you an extra $900K a year in exchange for you giving up the career you love is not going to make you happy.

And here's a funny truth: even bad coaches work really, really hard, its a 24 hour a day passion, and they'd do the job for less, but

the market sets the price - supply and demand is the key

By the way, most football coaches are not coaches, they are trainers, defensive coordinators, maybe assistant coaches, or most likely: between jobs. Its a tough profession where only continued competitive success, a statistical anomaly, keeps you employed.

Come to think of it though, both jobs do sound fun.

Of course, everyone is missing the real point: 'Big Ten' athletics is a modern slave trade. Young (mostly) men grow up in school districts in the American Third World (Appalachia, 'Gulf States,', etc.) where they are hardly educated, and if children of color, not educated. But they can do sports and the system of education allows them to put as much time as they want into this because there are no scholarly demands.

The Big Ten (and/or other But Sports U's) harvest the top athletes for use gladiator style (sans lions) in order to keep The U in favor amongst the various sports-loving constituencies that have been mentioned already upstream on this thread. Considerable honest and well meaning effort is spent helping these academically sub-standard (because of their crappy education) athletes to the end of their college career. NCAA rules regulate the system at a gross level, but within that there is enough hypocrisy to go around and to do real damage.

There are many bad aspects of this system. To me, the most annoying is the production of big dumb black football players. This is an effect of the system, its internal workings and its selective process. But the result is an apparent affirmation of negative and scientifically insupportable racial stereotypes.

Self interest is at play from many quarters and at many levels here, keeping the system very much in place. Any possible engine of change vis-a-vis this system is flooded by de-nile, which is no longer just a river in Africa. The problem is almost unfixable because of its deep institutional reification and the huge physical investment, not just in coach's salaries but also in stadia and other infrastructure, and in school identity.

And it is a moral and ethical calamity.

John, don't forget that football coaches at major universities bring in revenue that helps to float the salaries of philosophy professors.

Go Penn State.

I'll concede that that there are cases where a major university football program doesn't help to float academic programs. And in those cases, such salaries are unjustified.

Go Penn State!

Local newspaper says a single University of Texas home football game generates $25 million for the Austin area.

By Jim Thomerson (not verified) on 25 Oct 2008 #permalink