And that’s important, because while UCLA’s head football coach, Chip Kelly, works on $4.7 million a yearthe School head coach for girls rowing earn about $100,000 in a city with some of the highest housing costs in America. To stay competitive, both UCLA and USC need to be able to hire not only top head coaches but also assistant coaches and sports information directors – and that staff needs to be able to afford it. buy house. TV money can help.
What makes the Big Ten so lucrative compared to, even the SEC so profitable? Brown told me it contains not only major media markets, like Chicago and Detroit, but fans of the Big Ten teams. live across the country, distribute themselves across the United States in ways that fans of other conventions often don’t. Together with the Big Ten group of research universities, these moves really make a lot of sense, Brown said. “If you were a USC official, you could say, ‘We’re an organization on a par with Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois,’ he said. (This is no light for the State of Mississippi, a fine university that has tried for decades to ban people from ringing the bell. at football games before giving up. Clanga.)
But Brown told me the move, while reasonable, still upsets him. He says the commute will be extremely challenging for athletes. Imagine trying to cross from Ann Arbor to Los Angeles for a midweek meetup and back with the finals coming up. But more importantly, he worries that conferences that aren’t linked to a particular region or are filled with schools with a history of going head-to-head will lack the intimacy that makes college sports so enjoyable. taste. “I think part of what makes college sports, not just football, but college sports, a unique and exciting business for consumers and fans is that it’s not a very provincial NFL. I didn’t go to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I went to Ohio State,” he said.
I understand that. Part of the reason why I love college sports is that when you say you’re a Michigan fan and you meet an Ohio State fan, you instantly have a relationship (yeah, a relationship). competition-based system). And if you grew up in the Midwest, you can rest easy knowing that people have attended virtually every Big Ten college, which has become a family affair. I may not have met you yet, but if you’ve been to Penn State, I’ve got a lot to discuss with you. But I didn’t grow up with anyone who went to UCLA, and I personally only know one USC graduate.
“When you look at the competition and the places where college sports are most unique, energetic and exciting, that’s where you get that closeness. That is Holy War where every church is full of Utah and BYU fans. That is Egg bowl,” Brown said, referring to the annual competitive game between Ole Miss and Mississippi State. “The game is not just about football. It’s about religion, culture and class and Mississippi. And when we break that down in the name of trying to reach the largest casual audience, I worry that you’re going to sabotage the whole value proposition and what makes this so exciting. And then it eventually becomes something like the young NFL. And then people will realize, ‘If I want to watch the young NFL, I want to watch the NFL where all the players are good. “
