By Professor Doom
I don’t often
cover the immense fraud of college sportsball, there are so many frauds in
higher education that I focus more on things which impact the real students on
campus. On the other hand, I do often talk about the immense pay our
administrators on campus make, and their luxurious lifestyles, and this guy really
is
par for the course:
“…there’s one
particularly impressive home, with a 600-bottle wine cellar, a wraparound
shower with massage jets, and a sizeable pool with a waterfall and Jacuzzi
overlooking a lake…”
--what is it with these guys and their
lakefront property? Perhaps H.P. Lovecraft was on to something...
So many admin on campus,
they have so little to do individually. What’s this guy’s job?
“…run the
Outback Bowl, a second-tier college football postseason game featuring
third-place teams…”
Aaaand…that’s the
entirety of his job. Now, I concede I don’t know exactly what this entails but
just how hard can it be? Most of it seems pretty self-correcting, as you have
the teams and vendors coming right to you to sign up to show up at the stadium.
What kind of money does he get for this one game?
“…$1,045,000
in 2017, according to the bowl’s most recent tax filing…”
Take a million off
that you have more pay than most faculty in higher ed, even faculty with 25
years’ experience (voice of experience, here) will ever receive.
This game is between distant contenders, in a season that’s already
over. So, it’s no surprise that the whole bowl generates less than $12,000,000
a year…and a sizeable chunk of it goes to just. This. One. Guy. Man, it must be
nice to be at the top—the bowl only has five full-time employees, incidentally.
The bowl also
donates to charity, $500,000 in the last two years. I feel the need to mention the sportsball
players themselves get nothing.
Does the guy have
some explanation for why he’s so precious?
“…a new
policy forbids Outback Bowl officials from publicly discussing compensation…”
Um, this one guy runs the whole show. He had a heavy hand in the policy, if not made it himself.
It’s not like I haven’t mentioned before how these guys hold all the cards.
It’s no surprise they also take all the pots, too, I suppose.
Actually, I was
wrong when I said the players get nothing. For risking life and limb in an
extremely violent game, a game where some 90% of
the players, even at the college level, have permanent brain damage from
playing it, they do get something:
“…each get
$550 of souvenir gifts, the maximum allowed under NCAA rules…”
Whoop. De. Doo.
When you consider just how many hours the players spent practicing for this
particular game—recall this is an extra game, not part of the regular
season—I’d be surprised if their hourly pay is much past $5 an hour.
Meanwhile, the
one guy “organizing” the game gets over a million bucks.
It’s little
different on the academic side of campus, where the dean who “organizes” the
poorly-paid adjuncts rakes in enough to get her own slice of lakefront property
while the students impoverish themselves with future debt.
The article I’m
quoting from has over 500 comments, and one requires clarification:
“…These
guys are entrepreneurs. Who is to say how much they are paid?...”
I suppose this is
correct, but he does work for a tax exempt corporation...all taxpayers thereby get to say how much of the free loot goes to him. I still feel
there’s a deep iniquity here. That bowl doesn’t generate all that money because
of this one guy, it generates it because people find it amusing to watch the players
on the field smash into each other and get brain damage…I think the players should get
more than a few hundred bucks’ worth of tchotchkes.
In fact, only a
few of the comments seem to “get” that there’s a real disparity here between
who’s generating the money and who’s getting the money. I’m clearly in the
minority, but I’ll take such comfort as I can in not being alone.
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