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There's a lot of hate towards the NFL but the NCAA is an even worse actor on CTE. 70,000 college players every year, and they aren't paid professionals like the NFL. But NCAA programs make billions of dollars off of the players (and their coaches millions). Destroying brains for profit, in the context of the education system, is truly evil.

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NCAA programs do not make billions of dollars. All NCAA programs combined might have that much total revenue.

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Clemson, where I went to school and the current defending champs had a budget of $104,000,000. Of that, they spent $103,000,000. If you'd be so kind as to identify the shareholder who's rolling in that $1 million profit I'd appreciate it.

When I was in school around 2000 it was a $30,000,000 budget. All of that extra money happened because of Tivo and Netflix making it so much easier to skip commercials on anything that you didn't need to watch live...which make live sports (that people watch) the most viable advertising channel for traditional broadcasters. Couple that with college sports having the added benefit of mostly aiming advertising at the eyeballs of alumni and you have the most valuable advertising resource in TV.

In the mean time, have a look at the new facility that the team gets to enjoy.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18614393/tak...

In regard to not being paid professionals, if you'll explain walk-ons...the people without scholarships who work to join the team on their own dime and have to meet the exact same requirements to be on the team yet might not ever see the field. The ones who clearly seem to think that there's enough value that they'll pay for the chance to participate.

Or then this: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-growing-student-l...

I'm sorry, but this whole "everybody get the NCAA" thing is just getting tired.

Why in God’s name should an institution of higher learning have a nine-figure athletics budget? That is just pure lunacy. The NCAA represents everything that is sleazy and wrong with the relationship between colleges and athletic programs, that is why everyone hates them. When the reckoning finally comes, and it will, we will look back upon this period and marvel.

Why shouldn't they, exactly?

As earlier stated, they supporting multiple programs with multiple facilities, scholarships, Title IX, coaches, strength programs, trainers/medical support, practice facilities, etc.

Of all of those programs, at most schools only 1 or 2 actually MAKE money. At Clemson, the football program supports EVERY other scholarship sport that competes at the D1A level.

Is the profit you’re counting at Clemson including stadium outlays?

As in the cost of building/improving the stadium? Those are usually multi-year projects so I'm not sure how it figures in to the accounting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Stadium_(Clemson)#Con...

Yes, that’s what I mean. Pointing that out because athletic programs are sometimes “profitable” because they bill the school for stadiums. My alma matter charges a yearly fee straight to the students for their new football stadium.

As long as I’ve been getting donation requests, the school has touted its pride in paying for everything with fundraising in terms of facility improvements.

Again, what is the purpose of our universities spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year managing multiple athletic facilities, coaches, strength programs, trainers/medical support, practice facilities, etc.? How is that at all related to their core mission of research and educating young adults? If we as a society think that we should be devoting those sorts of resources to running what is essentially a shadow professional sports system for unpaid athletes, fine. But let's dispense with the fiction that this is somehow aligned with the goal of higher education.

Do you see a purpose to the non-revenue sports?

It sure would make for a more interesting discussion if you'd actually respond to any of my questions, rather than just tossing out another one of your own. Anyways, I'm all for the scholar-athlete ideal provided there's balance between the two. Many sports on campus seem to do a reasonable job of that; off the top of my head, that would include track, tennis, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling, crew, baseball, etc. But the "big money" sports (football & basketball) are a complete farce on the scholastic side -- ask anyone at an athletic powerhouse who has had a class with or taught these students if you don't believe me. The fact that these sports subsidize all the rest is not a compelling argument for their continued existence. If we desire to have student athletics on campus we should be prepared to finance it in the same way that we do research and teaching, through tuition and government aid -- not by running exploitative minor-leagues-in-disguise for the NFL and NBA.

The solution to that is to actually enforce the academic requirements. Clemson actually tried this in the mid-2000s with an academic review committee called (AARC) who would tell the coaches if they didn’t think a potential recruit could succeed on his own academically and disallow them from recruiting him. This all blew up when a top wide receiver prospect who we weren’t allowed to recruit turned around and signed with UNC, who was supposed to be a higher rated academic school. Years later we found out how much academic fraud was happening there and it made more sense.

IMO that stuff should be heavily policed to the point that doing so jeopardizes accreditation.

Fans of the school will turn out to watch walkons playing as long as the field is level with all of the other teams.

One of the reasons Dabo was hired is because he understood that Clemson’s administration didn’t want to go back to the win-at-all-cost mentality of the 80s and he was actually the staff member under Tommy Bowden who attended all of those AARC reviews.

$104M was the budget, Clemson produced $45M in revenue last year, notably less than half of Alabama the other national championship team. But these two teams are likely outliers, way less revenue per school on the long tail.

http://www.businessinsider.com/football-revenue-alabama-clem...

>Clemson, where I went to school and the current defending champs had a budget of $104,000,000. Of that, they spent $103,000,000. If you'd be so kind as to identify the shareholder who's rolling in that $1 million profit I'd appreciate it.

How does one account for the potential of Hollywood accounting when looking as just a few top numbers? If you look at the cost verses income of movies using the same standards, most box office hits were financial disasters, no?

Because unlike Hollywood the books are open for examination. A large percentage of these schools publish budgets that tell you were the money is going. You are free to look through them and if you find anything suspicious you can file a Freedom of Information Act requests for more details since many of these schools are state universities that receive government money.

I don't understand these arguments. Are they forcing players to do it? If the players are well aware of health risks and still make decision to play the game, how is the sports organization to blame?

95% of the people playing contact football are minor children. The NFL and NCAA, and their equipment partners, underwrite and promote the youth sport but do little to mitigate the brain injury issue...frankly it is unethical to permit under-18 kids to play contact football.

College with $50k+ of debt, if even able/eligible to get in -- versus "free" college. In many cases I suspect it's the "only chance" for some of these kids and, at best, it's extreme exhortation for most all of them.

I wasn't aware that people without college education in US suffer from mass starvation and getting it is a matter of life and death.

You jest, but I've been noticing over time that that kind of joke is, very gradually, but definitely, becoming less of a joke that gets as big a laugh as it might have in, say, 2006.

It really depends on where you stand on the freedom vs society protection debate.

Some think that society should protect vulnerable individuals (in this case, mostly poor people that see in football a way to get well-off/rich) from predatory organizations (in this case, a monopolistic organization that has proven to have no regard for the health of its workers).

Notice that most people aren't asking for a ban of the sport - just some rule changes to minimize the health risks.

Admittedly I haven't looked to see what proposals are out there, but I have a really hard time picturing rule changes that could minimize the risks. The game seems designed explicitly to cause harm.

Your premise is wrong. It sounds as if it should be right, but the framing is awry

The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters.

The sports organization is aware of the risks and are using the players to make vast sums for themselves, they are pushing the glamourous path and they are not supporting the discarded players. They are ignoring the debt to society incurred generating their profit and that is not good unless you think that their tax payments should cover it (do they? I don't know..)

>The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters.

I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks. There are likely neighborhoods where people raise families that are less safe than playing in the NFL.

And I'm sorry, but 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more, so I don't buy that defense. These are adults making adult decisions: http://www.footballperspective.com/2016-av-adjusted-team-age...

What I would buy as a defense is that NFL has a serious amount of propaganda and actively works to suppress medical knowledge which can fool anyone, child or adult.

It is a very similar kind of propaganda for selling military careers by associating it with video games to high schoolers except that you can actually join the US military at 17 with parental consent.

And 17-18 yo is the age of accepting a football scholarship to an NCAA school.

> a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks

Good, then this is easy: let's tell them, and make it their choice.

This particular thread was about the NCAA, which does recruit players at 17-18 (just entering college).

Oh. I should read more.

The recruiting actually starts earlier than that for the most gifted players.

I see what you are saying but its framed wrongly, again. That is the average age of the team players. Do you know the average age of player entering the team? (average career length might be helpful?) Also, what is the average age of the people who dream of playing on the team, or who are making decisions that would lead to them being on such a team?

I might agree that 25 is an adult but lets be realistic here.. if you can find somebody who at that age made the decision to join the sport and actually got into a pro team, well I'll be amazed!

> I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks. There are likely neighborhoods where people raise families that are less safe than playing in the NFL.

Yes, some of these athletes are choosing between sports and poverty. That's another reason why it's messed up, not why it's okay.

> I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks

Nice guess, but that's not your decision to make. I'm not sure what movie you watched that gave you such a deep understanding of the trade offs, but is it possible you don't fully understand them?

> 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more

They're not? News to me. Maybe I'm just getting old.

> And I'm sorry, but 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more, so I don't buy that defense.

I'll say this because it fits the demographic here on HN, but have you ever met mid-20-something techies in the bay area? My experience has been that many of them are still very impressionable. Being technically an adult doesn't magically make you immune to being impressionable.

Remember the state of being impressionable is about a lack of critical thinking. Given what we've seen with the recent election, it seems very plausible that many adults lack critical thinking. No?

Looking at this more objectively - 1 out of 4 college football players drops out of school and doesn't finish their degree. Also, more objectively, at the age of 25, you're only a third of the way through your expected life (~78). So, yes these people are still considered "young".

>I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks.

They would still play even if we took steps to minimize the risks.

Evil runs on volunteers better than it does coerced conscripts.

Let us also remember that to a large swath of Americans youth, sport is seen as an avenue out of poverty. You better believe that if it was your "one shot" to change social class, you might take it at 16 without thinking about the literal brain impact.

It's literally the closest thing you can get to modern day gladiators.

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