Football is a suckers game

This article turned out to be really interesting. I am a huge football fan but was surprised to see exactly what big college football programs had come to. They are "grossly over funded, overproduced commerical ventures wholly disconnected from the major and even peripheral purposes of a university." (p. 124) College football programs are beginning to less and less represent the students which is what their supposed to represent. Most decent seats are resevered for alumni or businesses who have made financial contributions to the program. Which leaves the high rise seats for students and the public. I have been trying for a long time to get ahold of some tickets to a USC or UCLA game but it just doesn't happen.
Not only is it tough to get tickets to a Div I football game, but it is even tougher for teams to move up to Div I. In the article Michael Sokolove follows an emerging football program at the University of South Florida which is trying to become a contender with other big name
Div I schools. The first level of competition is financial. " The saying you need to spend money to make money" leads to quite a bit of spending. Which can lead to lots of money losing. There are way more losers than their are winners in College football, teams that spend millions in there hopeless mission to the top. (p.128) Not only will a successful football program bring in money for U.S.F. but it is the easiest way to build an athletic program that is well known. (p. 128) Football brings more spirit, more visibility and more community engagement. (p.129) It can also help out kids who have no chance of getting into a university by there grades alone. Big time football programs give out 85 scholarships to guys, including walk-ons. That's a possible 85 guys that could not have afforded to attend a University and now get a chance to get a higher education. Of course there number one priority is probably football and maybe they study and get good grades just because they have to, but think about where these guys would be if they didn't get a scholarship. Some probably to community colleges, others maybe not to college at all.
In this article I tend to disagree with Michael Sokolove as football being all bad. Granted the salaries of the coaches are outrageous and the football programs money is ridiculous. But this world is obsessed with entertainment, and if that's how much its going to cost to entertain then its only going to grow.