A couple of economists from Clemson University muse a little bit on the state of modern collegiate athletics. based on some of the troubles at conference rival University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.
According to the way these fellows see the data and some of the trends it suggests, college sports fans may one day lose their entertainment, but not because anything will happen to the sports. They say that the ballooning costs of the major sports are coming close to the point where they will affect universities themselves. The costs balloon less because of market forces (which economists generally approve of) than because of the cartel-like behavior of the NCAA, the agency that is supposed to regulate, guide and police college sports. So the question becomes, what happens to college sports if there aren't colleges?
The article is full of economic terms like "rents," which carries a slightly different weight in technical economic settings than it does in basic checkbook terminology, but it's still pretty interesting and not impossible to puzzle out. Whether that will still be the case after colleges collapse financially and you can't get an education any more is another question entirely.
No comments:
Post a Comment