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Mythical National Championship part of college football’s excess

5 min read

Are you ready for the Cesspool Bowl?

It’s all set for Monday Night on ESPN, Clemson University against the University of Alabama.

ESPN has paid a couple billion dollars for the right to televise the game and they would really appreciate it if you would consider it the national championship of college football.

Of course, since who got to be in the final four to play for the “championship” was based on people’s votes, it’s really still mythical.

The amount of money being generated is ridiculous and it has – as usual – caused quite a few bleeding hearts in the media to say how sorry they feel or the players, who won’t be getting paid.

You would think that not being buried in debt when they leave college – like most of their non-playing football friends – would count for more, but apparently not.

It would be nice if the people in the media, who are lamenting the fact that college football players aren’t sharing in the millions of dollars generated by their games would spend more time focusing on why the NFL doesn’t have a farm system like Major League Baseball and the NHL.

Neal Walker, who used to play for the Pirates, could have taken one of the many football scholarship offers he received after playing at Pine-Richland High School, but he chose to take the Pirates’ offer after they made him their No. 1 draft pick.

The Pirates gave him enough money to pay for himself and several of his friends to go to college. Walker went to work instead.

Of course, Walker had to live and play in out of the way places and take long bus rides before he made it to the big leagues.

The underclassmen who will be playing for Clemson, most of whom are Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management majors, will probably be around long enough to enjoy their school’s $55 million football facility.

When it’s finished, it will have a miniature golf course, movie theatre, barber shop, sand volleyball courts, laser tag and bowling alleys.

And it will be for football players only.

I was too tired to check into what the Clemson basketball players get.

According to the Washington Post, the 48 schools in the Power 5 conferences spent $772 million combined on athletic facilities in 2014, an increase of 89 percent from $408 million spent in 2004, adjusted for inflation.

I would be willing to bet that the football players at these schools are eating pretty well.

And you can bet that there is plenty of academic fraud, beginning with admitting kids who have shown in high school that they should not be taking up space on a college campus. At the expense of good but not great football players who actually project as college students.

If those kids played baseball or hockey, they could become pros as soon as they finish high school. Just like Neal Walker.

As ridiculous as it may sound, the Mythical National Campionship game is supposed to be college students from Clemson, who happen to play football, playing college students from Alabama, who happen to play football.

Believe it or not, that’s what college football was at one time.

The hypocrites who oversee major college football like to maintain that illusion because they don’t want to see really good, young football players have the option that really good baseball players have. That would dilute the product and create competition.

And the overseers have a big stake in the success of college football and basketball.

The Washington Post points out that the commissioners of the Power 5 conferences are making big, big bucks. PAC-12 commissioner Larry Scott made $3.4 million in 2014. That’s six times more (allowing for inflation) than his predecessor made in 2004.

Since 2004, the salaries of the Power 5 commissioners save gone up 542 percent.

If you have a son or daughter going to a Power 5 school, then you’ll be happy to know that part of his or her massive debt when he or she gets out could be a result of him or her paying to support the athletic department.

The athletic director at Clemson thought it would be a good idea to have all 17,000 students pay $350 a year to keep Clemson athletics competitive.

University of Virginia student Paige Taul, who makes $8.25 working in the bookstore, has to work 80 hours to pay UVA’s $657 student fee. She told the Post that she expects to be at least $30,000 in debt when she graduates.

ESPN will pay the NCAA $7.3 billion over the next 12 years to televise the Mythical National Championship and other bowl games.

Instead of advocating for football players who are not getting paid, the media should spend more time pressuring the schools to use the money generated by the sports to lower ridiculously high tuition costs for everybody, instead of spending ridiculous amounts on facilities and coaches.

Alabama coach Nick Saban made $7.1 million this year.

That’s enough to reduce the tuition costs of 236 students by $30,000.

John Steigerwald writes a weekly sports column for the Observer-Reporter.

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