Why Does Corporate America Ruin Sports?

[Anonymous Guy]

Did anyone watch the BCS Championship game on Thursday night?

As expected it was a big letdown, due to it being a Thursday night. Besides, everytime someone was slow to get up off the field, they went to a commercial. Some people probably got the impression that it was nothing but a "cram as many commercials in as possible" bowl.

So, who's thrilled about companies putting their names on games..like the Tostetos Fiesta Bowl?

[Eric Frost]

Sure there are some commercial elements.

I guess I'm disappointed the college players still cannot get paid - for all the money floating around, you'd think there should be some for the players.

Eric

[Anonymous Guy]

Getting paid is what the NFL is all about.

At least college football tries to maintain an appearance that the players are in it for the love of the game. However, Its probably true that all the good players view college as a stepping stone to drive their demanded salary up.

[Eric Frost]

Or just skip the stone and go straight to professional.. at least that's how it happens with basketball.
Eric

[evergree]

I guess I'm disappointed the college players still cannot get paid - for all the money floating around, you'd think there should be some for the players.

Eric

I have to disagree with this statement, if you're good and you can keep up your grades many many players get amazing scholarships which is a good check (payment) on it's own. I don't think most college football players see themselves as NFL material so getting an education for free or a greatly reduced rate would help out much more than a small paycheck for playing.

I'm not exactly sure how the bowl games work but I think one great incentive for players could be the winning team gets a cut of the profits for commercials and advertising. This would have to be used for new scholarships or facility improvements or be beneficial to the school they play for.

It's good to see students who are passionate about the sport playing just for bragging rights without throwing complications like money into the mix. I know tuition it already expensive enough as it is, could you imagine how much more it might go up if colleges have the option to pay players to come to their college? Say Jerame Maclin got an endorsement from Nike, any college might start offering him large sums of money just to say their player is a paid spokesmen for a major company. I bet tuition would go through the roof. (If you can't tell I have a large issue with college tuition, some of these colleges are demanding a ridiculous amount of money for an average to below average education and I think paying athletes would only inflate the problem even more)

Make bowl sponsors pay the winning school and increase scholarship budgets!

p.s. I hate all the commercials too

[Anonymous Guy]

Sure it's kinda good to see student athletes being excited about sports and all, but somehow it seems that sports have become too great a force in today's world.

So now we end up cocky athletes who may, or may not succeed in sports on a professional level. And if they do succeed, then if you step back - at some point you ask yourself "so what". What are sports actually providing us as society other than entertainment.

Seems like as a society we can lose focus on what is really needed. For example - what we need in this world is new engineering and the development of technology towards creation of new energy. So we have students, and many of them have to pay for their own schooling, while the jughead football player gets a free ride.

Sure, sports is great and all, but when the country crashes down and is reduced to a 3rd world dictatorship, then we'll all think it was rather silly to pay some overweight baseball player $8 million each year.