JULY 19, 2019 – Trigger warning: I’m about to bash . . . big-time college sports.
What lit my fuse was my bus ride home this evening. Typically I take the “61,” which runs straight through downtown, but construction raised havoc with the route. My alternative was a “3,” which follows a circuitous path through the main campus of the University of Minnesota. As it turned out, however, construction there forced a detour past TCF Stadium and 3M Mariucci Arena a few blocks away from the heart of campus.
Unlike many people I know, like and hang out with, I’ve never attended a Gopher football game in TCF Stadium, and I’ve not seen a single Gopher basketball game.
As the bus idled at a traffic light outside TCF Stadium, I got a good look at the size of the place, the high-end construction and surrounding amenities. I saw the names of the super donor-alumni whose gifts bought immortality—for their names, at least—in lettering six feet high over the entrances.
I then recalled what several people from overseas have told me about their impressions of the U.S.: the number of large college/university stadia. You just don’t find those in other places around the world. We Americans take college sports for granted—especially football and basketball. They are as much a part of our culture as are “mom and apple pie.” At the mega universities, football and basketball assume a mega presence and importance.
As the bus pulled away from TCF Stadium, however, I wondered how in the world we allowed this situation to evolve as it has: rich alumni donating staggering sums of money and tens of thousands of rabid fans paying lots of dough for tickets, beer and food and cheering their lungs out for what is essentially a circus—A Circus of the Animals (as the Camille Saint-Saëns, composer of the work by that name, could never have imagined) including Badgers, Gators, Bulldogs, Tigers, Wolverines and . . . Gophers (gophers?!).
What, please tell me, does any of this have to do with education and research? Oh, I know, I know. It’s the “entertainment,” the “tribal colors,” the “sentimental attachment” value, which translates to tens of thousands of alumni opening their wallets and showering their alma mater with millions dollars. It’s about filthy rich alumni giving millions more to see their names in lettering six-feet high. It’s about TV revenue and apparel deals. It’s ultimately about Forbes’ review of the top 25 schools in sports-generated profits—about $249 million over the three years, 2014-16.
Okay, fine. Let’s go with that . . .
Really? Is the case for education, for breakthrough research such that we have to sell the circus in order to fund universities? What does this say about our values and priorities?
Oh, and uh, um, where do the arts figure in any of this? Oops! I forgot—circus vs. symphony? Absolutely no contest there.
Sorry, sports fan(atic)s.
© 2019 Eric Nilsson
