Football Is a Suckers Game

“The current college sports landscape is meaner than ever, more overtly commercial, more winner-take-all. And just as in the rest of the economy the gap between rich and poor is widening” (125). He starts out by saying that football is pretty much taking over our colleges and is taking all of our colleges money with it. He points out that colleges spend so much money even if they aren’t number one. The lower division teams are losing money because they are spending so much just to stay in the game but since they aren’t on top they don’t get enough money back. But the teams that are on top show little to no pity for those who are on bottom and why would they? It’s not their problem they put more money into their own program so they could become better. “The B.C.S. consists of the major teams as determined by the marketplace. Any other system is socialism. And if we’re going to have socialism, then why don’t we share our endowments?” (126). He says that because of this want to be the best that the athletic departments overlook some of the bad stuff that goes on behind the scenes with athletes, coaches trainers etc. I agree with this because there are some athletes that get away with bad stuff because the athletic world needs them to help with their profit. Michael gives some examples about some of the bad stuff that athletes got excused form because they are athletes. “It is the desperation of cash, every bit as much as the pursuit of victory, that causes university athletic departments to overlook all kinds of rule-breaking until it splatters out into the open.” (127). He says that overlooking the rules that are broken by the athletes is now becoming normal in our college world. I agree with this also. It seems to me that more and more athletes are getting away with more and more things. Michael also points that each team wants to be the best but there are more winners in this game then there are losers. I think this is true too because there can only be one winner so all the other teams have to put more money in and try harder to be better then the best. He presents lots of examples showing how much time and money that people put into football without a second thought but why do we do this? I remember in high school football games were where everyone was on Friday nights. We get obsessed with winning and being the best. Whatever happened to playing for the love of the game and staying true to your team through the good sessions and the bad? I guess that we live for success.