Wednesday, August 25, 2010

One More Reason ...

that I'm done with college sports.

In step with the tradition of going after the big bucks, rather than caring about the students, the "student" athletes, or even alumni, the Big Ten (10? 11? 12?) has expanded in order to add a football championship game to its schedule each year.
This extra game will bring in plenty of TV money, no doubt, but it has the added benefit of making all the traditional rivalry games of the end of the season less important, and much less likely even to be at the end of the season.
Michigan-Ohio State, Indiana-Purdue, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Et cetera-Et cetera. 
It doesn't matter if your students and alumni have always (or at least for several decades) looked forward to ending the season against that one main rival. 
It doesn't matter that in some cases, that win might be the only redeeming act in an otherwise futile season.
All that matters is that ESPN will give us a whole pile of money to spend on more football stuff, so we can play more football and get more money from ESPN.

What a bunch of crap.  College sports once were about the students and the student athletes playing for their school's glory and honour.  Now it's just the minor leagues, with major league budgets.  [I know, many will say there never was such a time, but I think that's simply revisionist history attempting one of two things; either to justify the current batch of hypocrisy (because it's always been this way), or to say that all college sports are always bad.  I don't accept either position.]

grr.