I Say Forbidden Things About Sports
What's happening in athletics is tragic—but don't expect to hear about on ESPN
I was shocked when I learned that private equity firms plan to take over college football.
How is that even possible?
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Could a buyout firm acquire a college calculus class? Do university libraries list on the New York Stock Exchange with plans for profit maximization? Can Ticketmaster charge admission to the campus lecture hall?
Who knows, maybe those things will soon happen. Judging by the state of college sports, we’re only a step away from total commoditization of higher education.
According to Sports Illustrated:
A private equity firm led by former Disney executives has met with more than 25 power conference athletic directors to discuss "Project Rudy," a proposal for a college football super league….Smash Capital's presentation to athletic directors projects an increase of media and sponsorship revenue of approximately $15 billion over a 12-year period.
Sure, why not let Smash Capital take over the awarding of diplomas and tenure decisions? If college is about increasing cash flow, why stop with athletics?
Meanwhile, let’s check out some other recent sports headlines:
Angry gamblers are now threatening and abusing college athletes. And why not, if everything is driven by money?
Meal prices at college sports events can now run hundreds of dollars—for a lousy pizza. But, hey, when you put profit maximization ahead of everything, this is inevitable.
High school football prospects are now routinely showed Lamborghinis and other quarter-million-dollar-plus cars as part of their campus visits. (Do they do this for top computer science prospects, or future Nobel laureates, or some ultra-smart student who might cure cancer some day?)
But I’m a stubborn cuss. So I still pretend that colleges are educational institutions, where decisions are made for the benefit of society—not shareholders, financiers, and the local Lamborghini dealership.
Some of you are already angry with me. How dare I interfere with a teenager’s opportunity to get wealthy?
Let me make this absolutely clear. I have no objection with young athletes—or anybody else—making a buck. Or lots of bucks. But this is not the purpose of college, which gets corrupted when administrators imitate the billionaire owners of NFL franchises.
Go ahead and set up a pro league for teens—or pre-teens and toddlers, if you want. But when you start giving profit maximizers and private equity firms control over a campus supposedly devoted to higher education, this story will have an unhappy ending.
And if you don’t have values that are deeper than your bank account balance, you will never earn my trust.
By the way, I would also say this to people in my own fields of music and writing. If colleges started paying teen pop stars to masquerade as students, I’d call them out for that, too.
Let celebrities get as rich as they can—and drive the hottest cars in town. But is it really the job of college administrators to assist in their conspicuous consumption?
I’m now going to say something that is just plain common sense. But it’s so different from the media-driven fantasies that dominate public discourse, that many of you will be shocked and outraged.
This is the stuff they won’t mention on ESPN. So sit down and prepare yourself.
Here goes….
There are only six intrinsic benefits of athletic competiton—and these are the reasons why sports deserve our participation and support. (Note that money is not an intrinsic benefit. And we will talk about winning below—and inquire whether it is a core purpose of sports.)
THE SIX INTRINSIC BENEFITS OF SPORTS:
To promote physical fitness and healthy living
To celebrate the values of sportsmanship and fair play—because these will make athletes better human beings, better citizens, and better participants in their communities.
To teach the benefits of unselfish teamwork and counter the intense promotion of selfish individual behavior in society.
To show youngsters how to deal with defeat and setbacks (as well as winning)—because they will face these again and again in life.
To bond together a community—both among fans and between opponents by the goodwill created via fair competitions.
To instill valuable life habits of discipline, hard work, courage, and persistence.
End of story—there are no others.
These are the reasons why I want my children and grandchildren to play sports in school (or other settings).
But I can’t do that if coaches and schools operate in opposition to these obvious, common sense values.
None of this is incompatible with earning a living from athletics. But let’s get our priorities straight. I will argue that—clearly and obviously, no?—giving a a $300,000 sports car to a teenager isn’t as important as the six things I’ve just listed.
I’d like to think that we could agree on that.
But if that’s true, why do I rarely hear any of these six priorities mentioned in discussions of sports?
You can listen to sports talk radio all day long, and never hear the word sportsmanship mentioned once. Even the term physical fitness is rarely spoken—as if this is irrelevant to any discussion of sports.
The reality is that athletes now have shorter lifespans because of the way sports have been corrupted and degraded in our times. In other words, athletics now tends to destroy the most significant purpose for its existence.
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Some of you are horrified right now. How do I dare say these things that are forbidden by all sports media outlets?
But I will get even more outrageous. Because I’ll now tell you bluntly what is actually taught by sports in America today.
It ain’t pretty.
Here’s what’s actually taught by the multi-billion dollar sports business to our youngsters:
Winning is more important than anything.
There’s no value in losing. Losers get the ridicule and mockery they deserve.
Maybe you need to play on a team, but rewards will depend on your success and fame as an individual—so always look out for your own selfish interests.
Healthy living is okay, but don’t let it keep you from clubbing and late-night partying—because those are the perks of the athlete’s life.
Cheating will enhance all these beneifts—just don’t get caught.
Am I exaggerating? Not in the least. If anything reality is even worse—I haven’t even touched on steroid use, or the daily news of scandals and criminal behavior from the sports world.
Let’s now look at the highest paid public employee in each of the 50 states.
Why are coaches paid more than other public employees? The obvious answer is: They are paid more in order to win.
Everybody agrees with this. Go read news articles about coach hirings, and you will see confirmation of the well-known sports aphorism:
"Winning isn’t everything; it's the only thing."
But here’s something else that should be obvious. This is a zero-sum game. The number of winners in team sports is always exactly equal to the number of losers.
You can’t maximize winning in any holistic or inclusive sense. No closed system should even pretend that it can.
If these highly paid public servants actually maximized fair play, sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline, persistence, healthy living, and the other real social benefits to athletics, I might be persuaded to pay them enormous sums.
But for the government to pay ten million dollars to an individual so that the recipient can win but others lose is a ridiculous misallocation of resources.
Nobody dares to say this. Well, except right here—but I will take a lot of heat for speaking obvious words of truth.
And then we get to the biggest trend in sports today—the fastest growing segment in the sports economy.
Can you guess what it is?
Maybe March Madness? Or soccer? Or women’s basketball? Or college football?
Nope—it’s none of these. The fastest growing segment in the sports economy is gambling.
It’s already a $10 billion business. But experts anticipate it soon growing to $45 billion.
How much do you think that contributes to health and fitness?
Years ago, NBA star Charles Barkley stirred up controversy when he declared “I am not a role model.”
Of course, he did this as part of a paid endorsement for Nike, which absolutely wanted him to be a role model for people who buy shoes—that’s how deeply deceit is embedded into the sports business model.
Even more to the point, anybody who has their act together and is trying to live a kind, decent life already knows that you do not turn to the sports world for edifying life examples.
But there are a few. And we need to celebrate them—because they offer us a glimmer of hope. And they show how we could actually fix athletics if we cared enough to do so.
In that spirit, let me share some of the words tennis legend Roger Federer shared a few days ago on the occasion of Rafael Nadal’s impending retirement.
Federer and Nadal rank among the great rivals in sports history. I’ve written elsewhere about how much we can learn from rivalry—but only when we respect our nemesis, and find (through intense competition) how much we share in common.
There’s no hatred in that kind of rivalry—just a mutual challenge to betterment.
That comes across beautifully in these words from Federer. (You can read them in their entirety here.)
He starts by talking about the most taboo subject in all of sports—how you can benefit from losing.
And then he goes on:
“Rafa, you made me enjoy the game even more….
“We were both at the start of our journey and it’s one we ended up taking together. Twenty years later, Rafa, I have to say: What an incredible run you’ve had. Including 14 French Opens—historic!…You made the whole tennis world proud….
“You have always been a role model for kids around the world, and Mirka and I are so glad that our children have all trained at your academies. They had a blast and learned so much—like thousands of other young players….
“And then there was London—the Laver Cup in 2022. My final match. It meant everything to me that you were there by my side—not as my rival but as my doubles partner. Sharing the court with you that night, and sharing those tears, will forever be one of the most special moments of my career.
“Rafa, I know you’re focused on the last stretch of your epic career. We will talk when it’s done. For now, I just want to congratulate your family and team, who all played a massive role in your success. And I want you to know that your old friend is always cheering for you, and will be cheering just as loud for everything you do next….
“Best always, your fan, Roger”
It’s inspiring to read that, no?
And that’s the true spirit of sports when played at the highest level. Money isn’t even mentioned here.
It would be an insult to mention it.
That doesn’t stop athletes from making lots of money. (Nadal’s lifetime earnings are estimated at more than $500 million, and Federer may have brought in twice as much.) But you can never measure sports greatness in dollars and cents. Don’t even try.
And if the dollars come at the expense of discipline, courage, dedication, decency, health, and sportsmanship, it’s a losing transaction for everybody.
These perhaps sound like unrealistic values given the current degraded state of the sports business. Who dares talk about health, integrity, fairness, and decency in the face of all that?
But the very fact that these are eliminated from the bargaining table—and everything in sports now takes place at some kind of bargaining table—tells us how much we need them.
Can we make any progress on this front? I don’t know. But I’m certain of one thing: The first step has to be talking honestly about how broken sports is today. Unless we do that, no change is possible.
Could not agree more. Thank you for this. I was always a big college basketball fan but have mostly given up on it. The legalization of sports betting was a terrible mistake. And it is very sad that we have abandoned the traditional view that high-level college athletes are compensated by receiving a free education and now think they ought to be paid as well. As you say, then they should just have their own pro league and skip the pretense of college. Keep on sayin' it!
I do have to put a plug in for “St Johns” of Annapolis/Santa Fe. They strongly encourage ALL students to be involved in intramural competition. They play only The Naval Academy yearly in , drum roll please, lawn croquet. Which they generally vanquish the Navy at this. Excellent school that teaches you to read discerningly, respectfully explain your views, and listen carefully.