James C. Cobb is the Spalding Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Georgia. He is also a righteous man.
Is college football selling its soul and its future, by pursuing profits in ways that could irreversibly change its cultural meaning on campus and beyond?
I admit that such a question might take on greater urgency for someone like me who has been reveling in college football as a live, participatory spectacle for many an autumn at this point. I also concede that, on the surface, it may seem a bit daft to worry about where the sport is headed when more than 25 million people watched this year’s NCAA championship game and staggering television payouts have helped to boost gross revenues for the 25 most lucrative college football programs to $2.7 billion last year.
But these intoxicating financial benefits should not blind us to another, more sobering set of figures indicating that the sport is not quite the picture of health its overall earnings statements might suggest. According to a recent report, attendance fell by 7.6 percent between 2014 and 2018 at games involving the 130 big-time programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and the average turnout in 2018 was the lowest since 1996. Not only do major powers like Alabama and Clemson struggle to sell out their home games, but a 2018 Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that, on average, only 71 percent of those holding tickets for FBS games in 2017 ever made it through the turnstiles.
In fact, the money pouring into the sport may have triggered a backlash. Some of the income derived from billions in TV payouts has gone to support non-revenue-producing sports—from field hockey to track and field. Yet, that money also seems to have ignited an orgy of spending on new and upgraded football facilities and super-sized coaching salaries. With such expenditures now at levels too extravagant to be sustained by TV royalties alone, major programs seem more dependent than ever on bigger donations, not only from traditional high-dollar private benefactors but also from less affluent ticketholders as well.
Preach, brother, preach.
You should read the whole damned thing.
(h/t DawgLeg Right)
Get The Picture 
A very good read, for sure. Professor Cobb hits more than one nail on the head in that piece.
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He was my favorite professor at UGA. My favorite story he told, whether true or not, was the southern women were most angry about reconstruction because northern soldiers came and stole their silver (like silverware).
He also told how in many small southern towns daylight savings wasn’t typically universally accepted, often differing by congregations. But when the Methodists got to the diner first and ate all the chicken, the Baptists decided to get on board too.
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I love a good Baptist joke 🙂
Mostly because I was a miserable failure as a Baptist.
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You know the main difference between Baptists and Methodists right? A Methodist will speak to you in the liquor store, while the Baptist will act like he didn’t see you.
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Never go fishing with just one Baptist, he’ll drink all your beer. But go fishing with two Baptists and you won’t have to share any of your beer.
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That is why i love being catholic, we get to drink as part of the service.
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Paraphrased conversation during my exodus from the Baptist sect:
Fellow church member (With backup): “Is that a beer?”
Me: “Yes”
“But we’re baptists. We never touch alcohol.”
“Nobody told me that.”
“Oh yes. When you get Baptized, you’re a Baptist and baptists don’t drink alcohol.”
“I got baptized when I was 8. Alcohol wasn’t an option then. Why are you showing up at my home unannounced on Saturday afternoon?”
“We heard that you had been drinking and wanted to talk to you about it. You can’t drink and be Baptist.”
(To backup church member) “Didn’t your wife drop you like a hot rock for boning a seventeen year old girl in the Sunday school class that you taught on a “prayer retreat”?”
“Well…uh”
“But I can’t be in your club because I drink beer.”
“Now look here Cowdog…”
“Look here hell. Get off my porch.”
And that is how I came to be a Methodist.
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You know the difference between a Methodist and a Baptist.
The Methodist will say hello to you as they walk out of the liquor store. 😉
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I’m going to have to answer for my persecution of the Baptists at the pearly gates. But I’m not a fan of hypocrisy of any sort and they are pretty easy targets, just based on familiarity. kind of like Bluto and the Eagles.
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Depends … there are some Baptists that are very reasonable.
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Oh I know. There’s more to the story of course and I might not be completely blameless. 😉 My in-laws and parents are Baptists and they are wonderful people. And very tolerant of my heathen ass, I must allow.
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And let us not forget Brandy, Penny, and Fanny as long as we be joking…
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Don’t forget the reason Baptists won’t make love standing up guys. They are afraid people would think they are dancing
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And, as an aside. beach people might want to read a book by his buddy and UGA PhD Hardy Jackson entitled “The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riveria”.
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I live here. .very curious now
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My friend’s dad was raised in Orange Beach and at his 50th highs school reunion there was much teeth gnashing about how no one cared about the beach and that they could have bought property for a song!
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Attendance doesn’t pay the bills.
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PTC Dawg is right. I saw an interview with a Atl. Brave official who said exactly that. He said that fans in the stands were not crucial for that organization to make a profit. Sports is a TV show. The fans are walk-ons; background for the spectacle. The game draws consumers to watch the commercials that produce the flood of money.
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“Sports is a TV show.”
I rarely watch live sports anymore other than a Georgia game I don’t attend. I admit I didn’t watch a minute of the national championship game. I won’t watch the Super Bowl this weekend unless my kids want to watch the commercials (unlikely). I haven’t watched a baseball game from inning 1-9 in probably 10 years. I watch the Masters religiously because there is limited commercial interruption.
With all the challenges for me, there’s still nothing like being in Sanford live. Watching the Notre Dame game on TV couldn’t compare to being in Sanford for those 3 1/2 hours.
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And that is sad, live sports is where it’s at….the soul has been sold, 5 hour football game is not far away….
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Football is a spectator sport. It’s different in the stadium. I know people like Section HD, the beer and food in the kitchen and the restroom right down the hall. I love the trumpeter in the southwest corner and Krypton before the Dawgs come on the field. I love high-fiving the people I see 6 or 7 times a year after a big play. I love calling on the Dawgs and singing “To hell with (name the opponent).” I love seeing those beautiful hedges and lighting up Sanford with 4 fingers in the air.
Call me old fashioned, but the day I stop going to games by choice is the day my college sports fandom is dead.
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I would be curious to see if there is a decline in people watching “live” sporting events. Personally, I haven’t watched a “live” game in quite a while. I record everything and start it like 60 to 90 minutes after the game starts so I can skip commercials and halftime. I’ve found I enjoy it more, can watch more games and be more productive around the house. I also have three kids so my weekends are pretty booked right now. If you sit and watch a college football game with all the commercials and halftime it’s almost 4 hours now.
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I think about it this way. I’ll go to a high school game that kicks off at 7:30 is over between 9:45 and 10:00. Sure, the quarters are 12 minutes instead of 15. There is no reason a college game with almost the same clock rules as the NFL now shouldn’t be able to play in a 3-hour window … other than the TV timeouts.
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slow clap
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What is really interesting in the article is how he ties the future of attendance to the challenge of alumni support and fund-raising. I wonder if anyone on North Campus and Milledge Avenue is thinking about this.
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You should interview him.
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For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul” -Mare 8:36
That other Mark, not Emmert
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Funny, because Georgia tickets are well out of reach for the common folk.
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Back when the SEC network went live and I learned that every school was guaranteed all that money my first thought was “how in the hell did college football survive without all that tv money?” There’s nothing like throwing $40mil at a solution without a problem.
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Amen, the professor missed his calling. As well as college football is losing its soul to the $. Perhaps it will crash and deep inside up even older and grayer would stand on the bridge and yell from the tracks if it were not for the 4-1/2 hour game and the gaudy scoreboard that was put in to be a screen to keep the outsiders out. Lord knows you can be on Baxter and still here the ringing of that damn sound system
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