there's a lot of faulty reasoning and assumptions being made in this article that could be easily picked apart too. this guy could have made good points, instead he got pissed off that some fancy pants northeasterner was his beloved footbaw. he's says as much in the title/1st paragraph, established off the bat that he's taking a biased POV and is going to get in his fair share of snarky comments, which makes it difficult to take his article with much objectivity. for instance this segment:
"'I can't help but wonder how a student at the University of Oregon will cope when in-state tuition has recently gone up by 9% and the state legislature passed an 11% decrease in funding to the Oregon system overall for 2011 and 2012. Yet thanks to the largess of Nike founder Phil Knight, an academic center costing $41.7 million, twice as expensive in square footage as the toniest condos in Portland, has been built for the University of Oregon football team.
Always important to feed those Ducks.'
Yes, when I think of Oregon students, I think of a group that hates their football program and would vote to ban it in a heartbeat if they had a chance.
The first fallacy of Buzz's argument is that Phil Knight was going to donate that amount to the University of Oregon regardless of whether they had a football program. Yes, that money would be better spent on purely academic purposes, but we live in a world where people spend too much money and attention on sports. That obsession pays a portion of your salary, Buzz, so pay for your ticket and don't complain."
i don't think buzz every initially said that money would still be donated without football, but he's saying that the mentality as a whole of caring more about your alma mater's football program than your alma mater's academic prestige is a problem. it's a mindset that one can argue needs to be changed.<div>
</div><div>now i will say that phil knight has built a lot of academic buildings on oregon's campus too. and maybe the argument could be made that without football, the academic donations wouldn't follow, but again, that's getting back to changing the mindset of the alums and what it is they take pride in about their alma mater.
and another segment:
"'Who truly benefits from college football? Alumni who absurdly judge the quality of their alma mater based on the quality of the football team. Coaches such as Nick Saban of the University of Alabama and Bob Stoops of the University of Oklahoma who make obscene millions. The players themselves don't benefit, exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn't benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone.'
Ask the average student at a school with a major football team whether he/she benefits from having the team. Unless there is a secret groundswell of support for banning college football among that class of students, then Buzz is just engaging in a paternalistic exercise, telling students that he knows their interests better than they do. In any event, to answer Buzz's question, here is a non-exclusive list:
1. Students who like having a diversion from their studies.
2. Students who participate in non-revenue sports, which are funded almost entirely at major football schools by ticket and TV revenues generated by the football program.
3. Citizens of states like Alabama and Nebraska that do not have pro sports teams, but still want to be able to cheer for a local side."
1) maybe students should go out hiking or playing intramural sports or whatever themselves to divert their attention from studies? i know for a fact that a bunch of 18-22 year olds can find plenty of ways to divert attention from their studies, many of which are more productive than spending an entire saturday drinking and cursing out opposing college football players and refs.
2) while true, one can also argue that non-revenue sports would cost less without football tying them to conferences that are further stretched out. for instance, without football, MSU might be in a conference consisting of only MS, AL, and western TN schools, which reduces the travel budget. we wouldn't have to worry about FBS or AQ status without football. i'm just presenting a counter point here.
3) if the 3rd best benefit you can come up with for having a major CFB program is so fans in states without pro teams have someone to cheer for, well, let's just say you are struggling to come up with benefits. for centuries, people have gotten along fine without having a "home team" to cheer for.
just seems like if this is the only part of the article he's gonna put bullet points, he would have hit a home run, instead he didn't say much of anything of any persuasion. </div>