Let me start by saying I love your guys’ work and am happy to have supported this project financially. It’s been an enjoyable listen throughout this season.
That being said, you came so, so close to tying this epilogue and series up with a satisfying answer, one that ties up all these ends and weaves it into a larger narrative about academia and America.
The true seventh suspect, and in fact the real killer if there can be said to be one, is not the fans, who are only guilty of loving a thing. It’s an entity lurking around this entire investigation just under our noses all along.
It’s not any second-order institution or outside player. It’s the prime movers, the true loci of control in the system.
Schools.
Schools sued to be able to negotiate their own television rights, catalyzing the tidal wave of money from television.
Schools choose conference alignments, making or breaking historical ties and geographic continuity.
Schools decide the bylaws of the NCAA and vote on its leadership, setting the terms and enforcement mechanisms by which the system is internally governed.
Schools decide what level of competition they play and thus what subset of rules they’re bound by. To Godfrey’s point, the reason the NCAA sees Alabama and ULM as the same thing is because that’s the level of competition (the FBS) ULM has chosen for itself.
Schools decide what to pay coaches and act as market makers, based on their assumptions of what success could mean for them financially and reputationally. There is no structural coercion at work in these negotiations.
Schools lean on and lobby their elected officials, both directly and through the NCAA, not to rock the boat.
Every step of the way throughout our timeline, the schools have made the choices. Choices about what this sport is, who gets to play it, what institutions they associate with, and how the entire enterprise makes money.
Every step of the way, they have chosen more money over everything - over principle, over academics, over tradition, over their own students. Specifically, more money for themselves. *That* is how we’ve arrived where we are today. No one held a gun to their head.
This discussion we’re having about college football is just a subset of a larger story about the blob-like growth of colleges and college administration that well outstrips their missions.
Similar to their athletics, colleges have gotten drunk on free money coming from the federal spigot (not just grants, but the entire federal student loan program) and from families desperate not to see their children fall behind economically. That glut of money is how we’ve gotten luxury dorms, record-size-setting hot tubs, and falling faculty-to-student ratios alongside rising administrator-to-student ratios. The profits have to go somewhere.
More critically, that’s how we’ve gotten to a national student debt figure of $1.74 trillion today, a sum that makes college football look quaint economically.
Who killed college football? The colleges themselves. Now we just have football. Any college element is just vestigial.
Let me start by saying I love your guys’ work and am happy to have supported this project financially. It’s been an enjoyable listen throughout this season.
That being said, you came so, so close to tying this epilogue and series up with a satisfying answer, one that ties up all these ends and weaves it into a larger narrative about academia and America.
The true seventh suspect, and in fact the real killer if there can be said to be one, is not the fans, who are only guilty of loving a thing. It’s an entity lurking around this entire investigation just under our noses all along.
It’s not any second-order institution or outside player. It’s the prime movers, the true loci of control in the system.
Schools.
Schools sued to be able to negotiate their own television rights, catalyzing the tidal wave of money from television.
Schools choose conference alignments, making or breaking historical ties and geographic continuity.
Schools decide the bylaws of the NCAA and vote on its leadership, setting the terms and enforcement mechanisms by which the system is internally governed.
Schools decide what level of competition they play and thus what subset of rules they’re bound by. To Godfrey’s point, the reason the NCAA sees Alabama and ULM as the same thing is because that’s the level of competition (the FBS) ULM has chosen for itself.
Schools decide what to pay coaches and act as market makers, based on their assumptions of what success could mean for them financially and reputationally. There is no structural coercion at work in these negotiations.
Schools lean on and lobby their elected officials, both directly and through the NCAA, not to rock the boat.
Every step of the way throughout our timeline, the schools have made the choices. Choices about what this sport is, who gets to play it, what institutions they associate with, and how the entire enterprise makes money.
Every step of the way, they have chosen more money over everything - over principle, over academics, over tradition, over their own students. Specifically, more money for themselves. *That* is how we’ve arrived where we are today. No one held a gun to their head.
This discussion we’re having about college football is just a subset of a larger story about the blob-like growth of colleges and college administration that well outstrips their missions.
Similar to their athletics, colleges have gotten drunk on free money coming from the federal spigot (not just grants, but the entire federal student loan program) and from families desperate not to see their children fall behind economically. That glut of money is how we’ve gotten luxury dorms, record-size-setting hot tubs, and falling faculty-to-student ratios alongside rising administrator-to-student ratios. The profits have to go somewhere.
More critically, that’s how we’ve gotten to a national student debt figure of $1.74 trillion today, a sum that makes college football look quaint economically.
Who killed college football? The colleges themselves. Now we just have football. Any college element is just vestigial.
I did NOT consent to Ted Cruz in my ears