Nowhere is the difference between the United States and Britain better illustrated than by college sports. To most Brits the high point of the college sports calendar is the annual Oxford versus Cambridge boat race each spring.
In America college sports is a huge business with a long history, especially in gridiron and basketball, which are the mainstays of the TV channels during their respective seasons.
The college basketball season finished on Monday night and 17 million people tuned in to watch North Carolina trounce Michigan State … and because the game was a blow-out that was the least number ever recorded.
The numbers are even higher for college football. In the championship game in January around 26.7 million viewers watched University of Florida beat the University of Oklahoma.
But when lots of people think about college sports in the US, the one number that comes to mind is Zero … because that is the amount of money paid to the actual athletes who fill the stadiums and arenas.
College Sports UK Style
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, which overseas the sports, is a zealous watchdog ensuring that the players don’t profit from their talents until they leave and turn professional. Whether that is right is forever being debated.
What makes the situation stranger is that colleges and their sponsors can pay big bucks to the team coaches. For instance Bob Stoops, the head coach of Oklahoma’s football team makes $3.6m a year. On the basketball side John Calipari just joined Kentucky for an eight-year deal worth $31.65m.
Personally I didn’t take much interest in college sports when I first came to America. It wasn’t too big a deal in California but once I arrived in Tampa Bay I was sucked in to the local football fever.
On any given Saturday you would see masses of people – men and women – wearing either University of Florida “Gator” tee-shirts or Florida State University “Seminole” shirts.
Naively I thought these shirt-wearers were graduates of these two pillars of education but after while I realized that many of these fans – just like football fans in the UK - would have had trouble with high school never mind college.
It turns out Floridians – and I guess college fans everywhere - support their team because it is local and successful and that support has nothing to do with actually attending the place. How weird is that or how naïve am I?
Thursday, April 9, 2009
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2 comments:
I guess supporting (and wearing logo shirts) for your local college team is about as weird as someone supporting a local pro team when they're not from that area. Strange.
I just discovered there are a couple of Tampa Bay Bucs supporters clubs in the UK. How weird is that? Also there are gazillions of Manchester united supporters around the world who have never been to England. Stranger and stranger.
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