For those who really want to know if we will have a Football season, you might want to tune in to the far left's version of sports on HBO this month. My take is that they very effectively make the SEC look like the modern day Plantation Owners, who still are keeping the black folk in the field (or on the field) making the Mastah's lotsa money (2 Billion according to this) while making the poor boys do waivers so that if they catch the Corrona and die, it will be no problem for the rich and mighty. After watching this yesterday, I have lost what little hope I had for the season, and then I looked at the Polls for the Election and got really depressed. Can yall tell?
HBO Real Sports eviscerates College Football
- Thread starter slobberknocker Dawg
- Start date
Objectively speaking - it's a weird system. Only one like it in the world really. It's an accident of circumstance and capitalism that what is effectively an insanely popular exclusive minor league for the most popular professional sport and most profitable television enterprise in the country was so closely intertwined with higher education and "amateurism" from the beginning. Still love it. Still love the traditions, how it connects personally with my own college experience and therefore forges a "fan" connection (and separate "rivalry" connections) that is unique...but it's still a really weird, sometimes negative system when you take a step back and look at it. I think it's okay to just admit to being a fan of something that probably isn't the most equitable or efficient setup economically or societally speaking, while being open to ways it can change to improve it.
It was a disgusting , straight up hit piece. Bryant Gumbel and the other dude should have their asses kicked. And the Hintons , that cried poor me while one son is on scholarship at Michigan and another at Stanford. What a p$ssy.
You do understand that every player in the SEC has the option to sit out this season and their scholarship will be eligible for next season automatically? So, how is the SEC forcing these players to do anything? Don't buy into the BS.
Won't watch, HBO and ESPN are disgustingly left and I'm sure they make every SEC school look just how you describe. Nobody is forcing these kids to play college football and THOUSANDS would gladly trade places with these athletes who are treated like ROYALTY on their college campus. Just so ridiculous.
From reading this board the last several months, that sounds about right.
Real Sports is a trash franchise in general. Everything they put out is a cancel culture, whiny, hit piece.
Real Sports lost me last season when half their panel of correspondents said they'd like to meet Kaepernick out of any athlete in the world. lol
It was another hit piece by Gumbal. They have turned that program into a political hit piece to.push their left leaning agenda. I quit watching it last year because it has gotten so bad. One time they would cover some great sports but now it's turned into one huge what left wing agenda can we push. It is pathetic.
injecting politics into things that people use to take a break from politics is a horrible business model.
We can save it by making it more equitable re: functional courses of study (for student-athletes aka scholarship athletes) toward marketable degrees & realistic career opportunities outside “the arena.” All of this could be done to the benefit of everyone involved (institutions, players, coaches & support personnel, sponsors and media networks IF enough of us gave a crap. But, most of us don’t. We just want a good seat and to be entertained. We don’t wanna be bothered with how this production comes together. Makes our heads hurt.
Yeah, I know it's not politically correct to say, but sports- and specifically football & basketball- open the door for a large majority of these kids to get an education they otherwise would never qualify for or have access to. An education and a degree that can take them far in life, in many cases farther than they might otherwise have had a chance to go. Georgia has gotten incredibly difficult to get into for anyone, and it's no secret that most of our football team wouldn't be able to gain acceptance to Georgia if they were just applying as a regular student. Been that way for 50+ years, at UGA and almost every other Power 5 school. So if they don't want to enter into that situation or feel it's unfair to them, they can either give up football and try to go to college, trade school, or enter the workforce on their own, or find some league to play in for 3 years after high school until they're eligible for the NFL- which is an NFL rule, not a college rule, by the way.
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This is a great take, so unfortunately it isn’t permissible here.
The baseball system is more honest and I wish football would move that way. It hurts the players and the Universities.
I find it interesting to see the left leaning cry about kids in college football being taken advantage of and then one breath later talk about the travesty of student loans.
These kids get a free education, free room and board, free/excellent medical care, a stipend for spending plus treated like kings for 3-5 years. To claim there is no value being given to them is absurd. Do a few players have claims they are under compensated? Sure, but many, many more are likely overcompensated plus it allows thousands of other student athletes the chance to go to school and compete.
Also interesting to see how many liberal sports writers appear to absolutely hate the sports they cover.
Agreed. Both systems have their own problems, but baseball's it a least a bit more transparent. Universities have gotten to be such a big business (degree factories) too, which is a different but related issue.
Someone needs to tell you that a big part of the political push to pay athletes is from free market righties like the Fla governor- I realize your whole world is “liberals bad, conservatives good” but its a lot more nuanced than that in the adult real world.
Football offers one of the few ways African American males can get out of the ghetto. That is the reason young black boys get into drug running (Freakenomics).
Why I support college football:
I grew up with segregation in a farming community. I worked with James Polk, an African American whose both brothers have spent many years in prison.
James was some what an outcast among his peers and made fun of "for being to white."
After high school graduation he migrated (new liberal buzz word) up North for the opportunity it presented. Years later, he died of a drug overdose.
It had always bothered me that there was nothing I could do to help him so I tried several ways to establish a scholarship to help poor African Americans males get ahead.
I approached the local high schools and UGA about setting up a scholarship with specific criteria but I couldn't accomplish it. Finally, I decided the best way was to donate to the Hartman Fund because it was the closest thing I could do to honor him.
At least, any athlete, who comes to Georgia, chance increases greatly.
Why I support college football:
I grew up with segregation in a farming community. I worked with James Polk, an African American whose both brothers have spent many years in prison.
James was some what an outcast among his peers and made fun of "for being to white."
After high school graduation he migrated (new liberal buzz word) up North for the opportunity it presented. Years later, he died of a drug overdose.
It had always bothered me that there was nothing I could do to help him so I tried several ways to establish a scholarship to help poor African Americans males get ahead.
I approached the local high schools and UGA about setting up a scholarship with specific criteria but I couldn't accomplish it. Finally, I decided the best way was to donate to the Hartman Fund because it was the closest thing I could do to honor him.
At least, any athlete, who comes to Georgia, chance increases greatly.
It's more a general view and it's generally correct.
The push to pay for likeness is a result of the Bannon lawsuit and other states moving forward with it and thus having a competitive advantage at that point, not from governors thinking it's the way to go. I don't have a problem with compensation for likeness at all or even stipends but the general "these kids are modern slaves" narrative is almost exclusively from the left so no, I don't need to be told anything, thanks for your concern.
My, how we love to choose sides, even before a thought can be completed. College athletes do have an opportunity to earn degrees, to have a lifetime of benefits directly from their “college experience,” which should and could be more than partying & playing ball. BUT we have to demand that “commitment” mean more than 1 or 2 active seasons and barely any “classroom” experience. The system could use a good balancing of opportunity & commitment by BOTH school and athletes. Play college ball by committing to the whole package. Stay & play and get the degree, a meaningful degree.
Don’t commit? Then wait for a League to call. This shouldn’t be all on the HS athlete to decide & bear the consequences. His family, HS coach and chosen mentor ALL should be accountable to his actual commitment or his “free agency” right out of HS or Jr. High if that inner circle is held accountable for their student-athlete’s choice.
Make it a FUNCTIONAL 2-way street. All of this can easily be managed IF we care enough to demand it.
Don’t commit? Then wait for a League to call. This shouldn’t be all on the HS athlete to decide & bear the consequences. His family, HS coach and chosen mentor ALL should be accountable to his actual commitment or his “free agency” right out of HS or Jr. High if that inner circle is held accountable for their student-athlete’s choice.
Make it a FUNCTIONAL 2-way street. All of this can easily be managed IF we care enough to demand it.
You're right! They are taking away all of our safe spaces!
College football is, inarguably, a multi-billion dollar industry. The players don't receive anything remotely close to fair market value for their involvement, based on every study of the economics ever done. Athletic departments spend like drunken lottery winners because if they showed the profits they so easily could, it would draw more scrutiny to the fact that it's all done on the back of cheap labor. And college "athletes" don't enjoy the same rights and privileges normal students do because of a set of arbitrary rules. E.g. a regular student could sign endorsements, find clever ways to profit from things like content creation on social media, etc.
Those are not arguments based on lef/right, convervative/liberal viewpoints. It's just the way things are.
Did you just realize all of this?
You answered my question. I don’t have to read any further. If Gumbel is still part of that program it’s not really about sports any more.
What would their (HBO/RS) reaction be to the demographic changes that would occur if P5 conference dropped football/hoops scholarships? It is peak hypocrisy.
