University Presidents Admit: We Like Money More than Fairness In College Football
After years of controversy regarding the lack of a playoff system in NCAA Division I college football, a vast majority of university and college presidents have admitted they care more about making lots and lots of money than they do about deciding a national champion fair and square. “Yes,” said a trusted colleague of the president of a major Southern California University, “we know there would be lots of money with a playoff system in football, but we’re just not sure that all that money would end up. We know where the money is now. We have it. And we like it that way.”When twenty university and college presidents were asked why Division I college football doesn’t have a playoff, when virtually every other college sport does, none of them could actually come up with an answer. But a top-level administrator in the office of the president of a leading Texas University said, “Of course we could have a playoff system. Are you telling me we can figure out how to do that in water polo and curling and horseshoes for crying out loud, but we can’t figure it out for football? But why should we? Do we care that Utah is undefeated and they never had a shot at the national title? Do we care about their players and fans? Do we care about any players or fans? The answer of course is, no we don’t, as long as they keep giving us their cheap labor, in the case of the players, and their hard earned cash, in the case of the fans.”
E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, has voiced a position which many school presidents ascribe to, when he says that he is violently and irrationally opposed to a playoff system. “We will not cross that Maginot line and get onto the slippery slope — the professional-ization of college football and a furthering of the arms race,” he said in the Columbus Dispatch. “We simply have to say no. If we don’t say no to this, the horse has left the barn totally. I will vote against it under any circumstance.”
However, a source high up in E. G. Gee’s office said,
Professionalization? Oh yeah, we had a big laugh over that one. ‘Hello, I’m the pot, you’re the kettle, and I’m calling you black!’ Let’s face it, the billion-dollar college football industry is built on finding the most talented labor possible. And if that means greasing palms and getting alumni to buy that talent, so be it. If that means getting kids booze and babes on recruiting trips, so be it. Because once they’re our property, all we have to do is feed ’em and house ’em, make sure they don’t get caught doing anything illegal, arrange so they don’t have to go to any classes, and get their tutors to take their tests and write their papers. That’s the beauty part, we don’t actually have to even educate these kids. Just checked the graduation rates if you don’t believe me. Then after we’ve squeezed everything we can out of ’em, we cut them loose, and they don’t cost us another penny. Meanwhile the stadiums keep filling up, the merchandise keeps selling hand over fist, and the TV money keeps rolling in. Of course we don’t want this to look like it’s professionalized, because then we’d actually have to give these athletes a cut of the billions and billions of dollars they’re responsible for bringing in, and by God, then where the hell would we be? I’m here to tell you that in order to get a playoff in NCAA Division I college football, they will have to get the necessary votes from the cold dead bony fingers of the rich white men who run colleges and universities in these great United States of America. Because I mean, seriously, what kind of geniuses would we be if we killed the cash cow that’s laying golden eggs?