Bissinger: College Football Should Be Banned

Pulitzer Prize winner Buzz Bissinger, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says enough is enough. College football serves no academic purpose, therefore it should be banned.

Bissinger writes: "The players themselves don't benefit, exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn't benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone."

He adds that according to the NCAA, 43% of Division I-A teams lost money, this at a time when tuition is skyrocketing.

"I can't help but wonder how a student at the University of Oregon will cope when in-state tuition has recently gone up by 9% and the state legislature passed an 11% decrease in funding to the Oregon system overall for 2011 and 2012," he writes.

"Yet thanks to the largess of Nike founder Phil Knight, an academic center costing $41.7 million, twice as expensive in square footage as the toniest condos in Portland, has been built for the University of Oregon football team."

Bissinger, along with the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, will debate the merits of fielding a college team with broadcaster Tim Green and Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock on Tuesday night at New York University. The event is scheduled to be streamed live at 6:45 (EST) at this link.

Update: The debate is over, but you can watch it from start to finish at the bottom of this link.

Comments

[Robin Standafer]

Mr. Bissinger may want to choose an example other than the University of Oregon. The UO athletic department is one of only a handful in the country which take no money from the university general fund; they are self supporting, and in fact are being asked by some to contribute financially to the academic side. The Oregon legislature's consistent failure to fund higher education has nothing to do with Oregon athletics or Phil Knight. In fact, in my opinion, UO academics would be far worse off without the success of the football team, and certainly without Phil Knight's generosity (check out the Knight Library and the Knight Law School for instance).