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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

> Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport?

For the poor, it is a way out. Even if you don't hit the pro level, being good at football can get you a full ride scholarship to a great school.

One of my friends at Berkeley was in exactly this situation. He grew up very very poor, played football at the local high school, and managed to get a football scholarship to Berkeley. He wasn't very good at football, and rarely played at all, but he did get a full ride scholarship that covered tuition, housing, food, books, and a small stipend for living expenses. He also got a job working in the residence halls, which also came with free housing and food, so he basically made money in college.

Then he graduated with a PhD in Education. He could have never afforded that without football.

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If only we used all of that money spent on football programs to pay for higher education for poor kids. Wishful thinking I know.

Football enriches most universities, giving them extra funds to do things like provide scholarships.

This is not true, most universities lose money on their sports programs.

I don’t know whether it is true, but “Football enriches most universities“ is not inconsistent with that. Football may bring in less money than the other sports cost.

There's an argument to be made that football helps a lot more than just the football players. At most big football schools, the money they make from football pays for all of the athletes in all sports, men and women (along with the basketball profits to some extent).

That's a lot of student athletes getting scholarships, and most of them don't continue in their sport after graduation.

The reality is that many football programs are subsidized by their universities. The elite schools may profit, but there are hundreds of schools with football programs.

There are major downsides too: The kids are often used; they work incredibly hard, get paid nothing, and then get tossed in the gutter unless they make the NFL. Literally, I've read many stories where the coach stops talking to the kid (remember, 18, 19 years old often) and then someone gives him a bus ticket home - so much for education. The great majority of those who stay don't make the NFL; they leave with a lifetime of injuries, poor education (because they were discouraged from taking serious classes and often don't graduate), and no skills or prospects. The school, however, made tens or hundreds of millions, the coach made millions, TV networks made millions (billions?) ... a great business having free labor.

Also, the money and the intense loyalty invites incredible corruption; almost every leading program has had major corruption problems, with Penn State being the worst (systematic child rape covered up for years, so that the football program wouldn't be disrupted).

EDIT: Major edits

> For the poor, it is a way out.

Which, frankly, makes the fact that you cannot enter the NFL at 18 even more egregious. It's a mutually beneficial scenario for the NCAA and the NFL at the expense of (often disadvantaged) people at or near the physical peak of their career.

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