For many people today, there is a large amount of entertainment to be found in sports. It’s not just watching the sports anymore, but there are also fantasy leagues for almo every sport. There are even leagues for college level sports, because college sports have become a significant part of entertainment for many Americans. However, despite its wild popularity, college sports have unappealing aspects, their detriment to academics being the most prominent. “The average student gets nothing from football programs that remain sacrosanct despite tuition increases” (Bissinger 169). It is true that college football programs only benefit the benefactors of the program. That is only if the team is somewhat successful, as well. 43% of 120 colleges in the Football Bowl Subdivision lost money according to NCAA (Bissinger 170). College football isn’t just a money pit, but it is also the downfall of other athletic programs. In the University of Maryland, eight varsity programs would be cut in order to produce an athletic budget that would save football and basketball. This was at the cost of varsity sports such as …show more content…
Megan Greenwell introduces several points concerning the topic; one of which is the decrease in male academics when the Ducks are winning. Three researchers concluded that three fewer wins in a season would increase male GPAs by approximately 0.02, reducing the gender gap significantly. Greenwell also supports the aspect of students wasting time on their own accord, not just because the Ducks are winning. Colleges put a lot of pressure on their student-athletes, as well. Greenwell makes the claim that “getting serious about their academic performance, even at the expense of practice time, is a better response than forcing ‘student-athletes’ to choose between the