BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Tulane trolling for an SEC invite?

 

Kiffin this week said Tulane "is an SEC opponent".

That and the helmet sticker represent the sum total of critical mass in the past 60 years in support of a Tulane SEC invite.

 

I had two son's go to the University of Virginia from 2011-2018. I figure I paid $5,400 to subsidize the athletic department. The athletic department loses about 15 million dollars a year and UVA has a total enrollment of about 25,000 . One son would go to about half the football games basically to drink beer with his friends(there were no shortage of alternative places to do that). They went to zero basketball games (it is difficult for students to get tickets to the games). I really do not feel I got value for the money I was pumping into the athletic department, even if the basketball and baseball teams were really good.

 

Have a child at another state university in Virginia who doesn't give the southbound end of a northbound rat about sports of any sort. But the mandatory student fees there includes over $2000 to support intercollegiate athletics. Could be worse. At VMI it is $3,544. (using last year's numbers - this year's aren't there yet.) TF06: Full-time Undergraduate Mandatory Non-Educational and General Fees by Auxiliary Program

 

Athletics is a marketing expense, another way for schools to attract students. The amount of money my son gets charged by UAB for glossy brochures and social media management and representatives to beat the bushes at college fairs around the state doesn’t get broken out as a line item, so I can’t directly gripe about it.

 

I mean - Sports at *all* levels are a grift, guys. Whether we're talking pro stadium deals, or tuition going toward college sports programs, or the funding formula for your local high school, the ROI is poor. Colleges are still built on the cable TV model though, where X percent of the student body that cares about sports and Y percent that cares about the fine arts building are all chipping into the same pot for it to (hopefully) be balanced out, with the oversight of administrators.

 

Like I said, you might grow to hate one even if you don't follow a team.

 

When I was much younger, I was reading Robert Heinlein and he referred to the World Series as "a commercially induced surrogate interest." At the time, it pissed me off.

That's pretty much my definition of organized sports now.

 

I do wonder if some lawsuit could overturn the student fee model, similar to the way the Supreme Court has allowed employees to "opt out" of paying dues to unions, while retaining the benefits the union has negotiated. I imagine there are groups that don't feel comfortable financially supporting groups that invite certain people on campus for speeches, or the activities of some groups. I didn't see many colleges offering rebates in the last year when most of these student-fee supported activities were cancelled.

 

UVa is among the Power 5 "leaders" in institutional subsidies/student fees. Way, way out of line with the rest of the Power 5 universe. Embarrassing in an otherwise exemplary athletics program.

 

Just saw a tweet saying Austin Peay is heading to the ASun. That'll leave the Ohio Valley with six for football. I covered FCS for a long time. Never would have thought we'd see a time where the Big South would have nine members while the OVC and Southland would be scrambling for survival. I think Kennesaw and North Alabama go to the ASun-WAC thing eventually, though, which would leave the Big South with seven.

EDIT: The ASun-WAC thing I guess is just for 2021, then they split into separate leagues. ASun needs a sixth school to sponsor football, so that's probably not the end of the movement.

 

The OVC I grew up on will be down to Tech and Murray State. And I assume the Racers will soon decamp for parts unknown as basketball prestige is actually somewhat more important when you are on the Baltic Ave. side of the board.