Colleges and gross income from sports questions

[Phredd3]

[W]hy fight for making sure the exact same amount of girls play sports as boys? It's a stupid thing to try and organize.

Why is it stupid? Other than the word "exact" - which isn't accurate as things stand now, anyway - why is it 'stupid' to attempt to achieve parity for women in athletics? Is it also stupid to try to achieve parity in classrooms? In faculty? In the House and Senate? Where does the stupidity end?

As it stands now, it is infinitely harder (by percentage) for a male to get an athletic scholarship...so by trying to make it equal over here (scholarships total for boys and girls) they have made it very very unequal over there (percentage of male athletes who get scholarships versus female ATHLETES.) It's PHONY equality...sounds nice and virtuous and high minded, but when you dig down, it's hardly equal at all.

It's harder (by percentage) for males to get scholarships precisely because there are fewer women playing sports in high school. Part of the reason there are fewer is because there just haven't been many opportunities available after high school, and extremely few opportunities as professionals. Although the Minnesota Lynx filled up the arena when I was there this summer, the league is still subsidized by the NBA. But as the arenas get full and the TV contracts come in for women's sports, too, perhaps some of those percentages will equalize.

That seems like a pretty good goal, to me, and not particularly stupid, whether we are talking about athletics or other pursuits.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Why is it stupid? Other than the word "exact" - which isn't accurate as things stand now, anyway - why is it 'stupid' to attempt to achieve parity for women in athletics? Is it also stupid to try to achieve parity in classrooms? In faculty? In the House and Senate? Where does the stupidity end?
.

You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there....and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. This is just the way it is. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

I appreciate your endless ability to point our reason and logic for the rest of us on this board. I also appreciate your statistically significant sample size of 3 to show women are only interested in men's sports.

Try spending time with different people. I know LOTS of men and women who follow various women's athletics programs and/or sports as enthusiastically as we all follow our beloved Duke basketball. Heck, there's folks on this board who are more passionate about Duke women's ball then men's.

I don't understand why you are against this twisted institution attempting to "square a circle" by offering opportunities to young women and encouraging participation in sports.

Moreso than that curious take, I would beg you to please do making all of your arguments so myopic and patronizing. This board has lots of divergent opinions, and we mostly manage to have discussions without using thinly veiled insults regarding our ability to reason or reckon with reality. It puts everyone on the defensive, and doesn't contribute to productive conversation, whether the subject be NFL mascots, Title 9, other potential PPB subjects, or even Blue Devil strategy.

We are all fanatic zealots here, self selecting into this strange community. But let's focus on what we have in common and be respectful where we don't share the same opinion.

I am not a mod your mileage may vary, blah blah.

Let's go Duke.

[cato]

You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there...and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

I would love a less strident tone.

As far as I can tell, you are saying that you value certain things. Other people obviously value different things. To ignore that would be ignoring an important reality.

[sagegrouse]

You are simply ignoring reality in two very specific areas. There is nothing similar or the same about mens and women's sports at any level. In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality. In fact, where they have interest in sports, it is always men's sports. My oldest daughter is HUGE Duke fan...and I doubt she could name a single women's athlete in the history of Duke. This is just the way it is with a lot of FEMALE FANS. Trying to square this circle is simply not ever going to work, nor should it be a goal IMO. It sounds very high minded and enlightened, but it ignores realities that are likely never to change.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there...and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

OMG, HBCK, are you really peddling this junk? Women's participation is sports is one of the most positive social developments in the past 50 years. The benefits are -- and are supposed to be -- to the athletes, not the fans. Title 9 of the Education Act was passed in 1972 and signed by Pres. Nixon. It provided for equal access by both sexes to any school program or activity. Implementing regs were signed by Pres. Ford a few years later. The act was attacked by pro-revenue sports advocates and the NCAA. The bills all failed, and the NCAA and others failed in court.

As a result, women's participation in college level (and HS-level) sports has soared. The results are clear if one looks at Olympic medals and US world champions in soccer and other sports. More to the point, I have read that many of the women CEOs and executives were college athletes. One among hundreds of examples is Sue Gordon, Principal Dep. Director of National Intelligence and a 25-year CIA veteran -- she played basketball at Duke. (FWIW, the majority of the CEOs from my era at Duke were football players -- John Mack, Roy Bostock, etc. Hard to believe, I admit, but true.)

Sports are important. And the equal treatment of women and men in HS and college sports is a fantastically good development over the past 50 years.

[Phredd3]

In fact, in gymnastics all the time, and much of the time in tennis, the women's game attracts more spectators and participants...but it's the other way around in just about every other sport. The mens sports are paying for the women's sports for the most part. This is a fact in college and in the NBA. And that's fine. I have no problem with that...but I have no doubt about it's factuality and I have no problem admitting it. It is what it is.

Although the Minnesota Lynx filled up the arena when I was there this summer, the league is still subsidized by the NBA. But as the arenas get full and the TV contracts come in for women's sports, too, perhaps some of those percentages will equalize.

It's not clear to me what I got wrong there.

My wife and two daughters are not upset about this reality.

Forgive me if I do not find it surprising that your relatives feel the same way you do. But for folks who do have an interest - and I find interest in women's sports to be MUCH higher in younger demographics (among folks who were actually raised with Title IX already in place and effectively implemented) - doesn't it make sense to give them the opportunity? Also, I just wonder about the general social strategy of "that's just the way it is" when it comes to human activity. Not to say that the circumstances are truly analogous, but there was a time when sufferage was a men's-only thing, too. And at that time, there were plenty of women who didn't particularly care if they had the vote or not. Was that a circle that shouldn't have been squared? I'm not trying to be combative, I'm honestly trying to figure out why you think this way about this issue.

And your explanation for the percentage situation is about 40 years out of phase. Heck, there were equal opportunities in HS when I was there...and that is 40 years ago. Nice try.

You must have lived in different places than I did. I'm 35 years out of high school myself, and the opportunities were most definitely not equal at my school, and there was still plenty of resistance to the terms of Title IX at the local level where I grew up on the very liberal West Coast. There was certainly nothing like numerical parity.

But my high school is still open and there is parity of opportunity now. I consider that a positive development for those young ladies.

[Jeffrey]

Good luck calculating a true ROI on any athletic program! The multitude of required assumptions, in any modeling system, will result in GIGO.

I will confidently say, the Duke basketball program is profitable!

[wncgrad]

The conventional argument is that athletics is the "front porch" of a university, an avenue for promotion first and foremost. And an inducement for happy alums to pull out their checkbooks.


Somehow, MIT, Cal Tech, the University of Chicago and others seem to have survived without bigtime athletic programs.

But, as Hyman Roth so eloquently put it, this is the business we've chosen.

As far as canceling the volleyball program, Title IX makes it very problematic to cut a women's program without also cutting a comparable men's program.

"Large issues" in college sports come up from time to time but I have never seen any references to our resident campus expert, Charles T. Clotfelter. Professor in Policy Studies in the Sanford School. He is a Duke undergrad '69 and a Harvard Ph.D. If not too academic the following may be of interest: Big-Time Sports in American Universities (2011), Is Sports in Your Mission Statement (2010), 80 Years of Trade-Offs in College Sports (2009), What the Future May Hold for College Athletics in the ESPN Era (DVD 2015), Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology. Titles are from library catalogue and campus bio. How you can find them is up to you.

[budwom]

I enjoy Duke sports immensely (particularly hoops, football and lacrosse) but readily concede that the importance of sports like football and basketball at U.S. universities is beyond absurd. (For many reasons...the amount of money spent, the salaries of the coaches generally being far far greater than those of the most celebrated professors, on and on.) Nonetheless I like following them. Can't help myself.

I'm not aware of any other country doing anything quite like this...does the Sorbonne pour millions into its soccer (futbol) program? Does it even have one?
Cambridge and Oxford like to row skinny boats against each other, not sure they do much else.