Intercollegiate athletics is the foundation on which the country’s national sports, both amateur and professional, are built. Athletes constitute the main reserve of the national teams that participate in international professional competitions. While many students have a hard time finding the money to pay for their education, hundreds of U.S. universities offer scholarships and free accommodation, and meals for applicants who have athletic talent and participate in intercollegiate sports. However, the emphasis has been displaced from physical fitness to commerce, and the perception of educational institutions has changed.
Intercollegiate athletics is an important element in the preparation of high-class athletes and provides a permanent and highly qualified reserve to replenish the country’s professional sports teams. American student sports are well organized as studies and sports are inextricably linked together (McArdle, Paskus, and Boker 57). If students make unsatisfactory progress in their studies, they will not be able to train for games or sports. In addition, sports are one of the main marketing tools used to attract students. In order to attract the strongest athletes, schools introduce funded sports programs (Feezell 186). More than a thousand U.S. educational institutions are seeking currently students for their sports teams to bring glory to their university.
Sports events are a huge interest among the U.S. population. The best teams can fill stadiums, the capacity of which exceeds one hundred thousand spectators. They have been designed for intercollegiate games on almost every campus (Jozsa 21). The press, the Internet, and television broadcasts are all at the disposal of athletics. Millions of viewers across the country watch television broadcasts of college basketball, baseball, football, and other games. Student sports in the United States is a business with an annual turnover of more than a billion dollars. Top athletes then become professional athletes and receive good incomes, although in order to become a player in the National Football League (NFL), the athlete should be a member of the university team for three years. As for the National Basketball Association (NBA), the member must be at least 19 years old.
Financing is one the contradictory issues in the sphere. The leading organizations of the NFL, NBA, and NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) try not to compete with each other and hold all of their major competitions in different seasons. The annual profit for all NCAA intercollegiate sports exceeds 10 billion dollars. Of this amount, only 30 percent is directed to scholarships and financial assistance of the players (Nixon 48). Meanwhile, professional athletes receive about half of the profits of their leagues in the form of salary and bonuses.
Sports grants, indirect financial investments, and assets, as well as the tax status, strongly influence the perception of intercollegiate athletics. This ratio includes the flow of the financial support from the institutions of higher education to the sports organizations, which is contrary to the basic concept that sports departments are self-sufficient. Needless to say, there are academic benefits for educational institutions that participate in athletics and have success in this activity (Jozsa 34). Private financial investments along with government subsidies bring additional financial resources to the host institution. Money investments enable schools to maintain good equipment as well as renew their campuses and facilities. Institutions can benefit from an increase in the number of successful athletes as well as raise their profile by selecting the best from the prospective students (Walker 4). Student athletes also realize the economic, social, and academic benefits from their link with athletics. There are cases when students with sports achievements are given priority compared to the students with a high academic profile.
It is worth noting that allocation of big amounts of resources and media coverage turns intercollegiate athletics into a business-entertainment complex. At this point, it is also crucial to note that athletics becomes the most serious threat to the academic principles of educational institutions (Won and Chelladurai 1). Colleges annually admit a significant number of students in whom they see future team players. They are invited by the coaches, who are guided exclusively by the athletic abilities of the students although these talents are not related to the true educational objectives of these institutions. Sometimes it becomes necessary to lower the admissions standards in order to adapt to the relatively low level of academic skills of potential athletes, and this perspective undermines the core meaning of the education. Schools wishing to keep their best players are forced to introduce simplified training and to soften the academic requirements. Apart from the ethical aspect, the active financing in athletics results in underfinancing of other educational departments and leads to lowering the general level of the institution.
It seems that the cons of commercialization of intercollegiate athletics, in general, are much more important than the pros. However, in some individual cases, this ratio may be reversed. In order to find good players for student sports teams, who bring considerable revenue to schools, the executives of admissions committees gradually reduce the requirements for the applicants. Everything is done to reinforce powerful teams and maximize income from athletics. Nevertheless, athletics increases the prestige of the institution and attracts investment that can improve its status as well as the conditions. The scholarships enable talented athletes to simultaneously get an education and enhance their athletic performance.
Works Cited
Feezell, Randolph. “Branding the Role and Value of Intercollegiate Athletics.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 42.2 (2015): 185-207. Print.
Jozsa, Frank P. College Sports Inc.: How Commercialism Influences Intercollegiate Athletics, Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Print.
McArdle, John J., Tomas S. Paskus and Steven M. Boker. “A Multilevel Multivariate Analysis of Academic Performances in College Based on NCAA Student-Athletes.” Multivariate Behavioral Research 48.1 (2013): 57-95. Print.
Nixon, Howard L. The Athletic Trap: How College Sports Corrupted the Academy, Baltimore: JHU Press, 2014. Print.
Walker, Adam G. “Division I Intercollegiate Athletics Success and the Financial Impact on Universities.” Sage Open (2015): 1-13. Print.
Won, Doyeon and Packianathan Chelladurai. “Competitive Advantage in Intercollegiate Athletics: Role of Intangible Resources.” PLOS ONE 11.1 (2016): 1-14. Print.