Michael Sokolove - Football Is a Sucker's Game

This article talks about the positives and the negatives of football. Although there are many postives to sports, the negatives definitely outweigh them. It mentions that "to build the U.S.F. athletic complex will cost as much as $15 million. To furnish it - starting with $425,000 in weight-training equipment, a $65,000 hydrotherapy tub, portable X-ray machines, satellite uplinks and downlinks, trophy cases for a U.S.F. sports hall of fame in the atrium entrance - will cost up to $5 million more." From this fact, we can see that football is definitely not a cheap sport. In fact, a dozen athletic departments have a budget of $40 million and up. Even with such a large budget, some schools "face the choice of spending themselves into oblivion or being embarrassed on the field." With the rediculous amount of pads and equipment needed for a football team, the costs can rack up quickly. Only schools with an average attendance that exceeds 100,000 are guaranteed a reimbursement of the spending. In many cases such as these, schools are paid to lose. College sports have escalated in expenses to such an extent that some of the largest schools end up losing money. "The University of Michigan, which averages more than 110,000 fans for home football games, lost an estimated $7 million on athletics over the course of two seasons. Sokolove's use of evidence proves that football costs more than some may think. With the cost of equipment and coaches, many teams are not guaranteed revenues. I think that Sokolove's point in writing this article is that even though many think that football is worth the cost, they don't realize how much the cost actually is. He says that football is a sucker's game, and I agree. We are wasting money on sports, when the funds could be put towards departments such as nursing. Yes, the people love their football and will support it until they die. But is the cost of entertainment too much when put into the grand scheme of things? I believe so. The loss is much more than the gain, and this is proven through the facts that Sokolove uses to prove his point. I think that this is a good peice of writing because it shows evidence that football is soaking up a large amount of funds, and it proves the point that football is a sucker's game.