College bowl games: razzle-dazzle triumphs

By DAVID KITTREDGE
With the countdown to the new year comes the college football bowl games that often become barn-blazing spectacles with the razzle-dazzle fakery while each team’s band performs their respective fight songs whenever the teams execute a superb play. These games can be high scoring events because of the trickery and superlative fakes executed by the offensive squads while the opposing defensive squads lack the ability to react to these shenanigans. As a matter of fact, while I was watching bowl games on New Years Eve day the television cameramen were so badly flummoxed on some of the plays that it took them several seconds, in some instances, to relocate the camera shot on the actual ball carrier.

Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s there were less than 20 bowl games. This bowl season there are 40 games with 35 being televised by ESPN and a mere five bowl games being televised on network television. It’s obvious that the bowl games have become a big business because most of the games are no longer televised on network channels and are being televised on pricier cable TV. It has been reported by CBSSports.com that ESPN bid an estimated 475 million per year to televise the college football playoffs, to include the semi-final games the championship game and four other major bowl games. This package is a twelve year deal worth more than $5.64 billion. ESPN is one of the most expensive channels on cable charging about $5 per month. I realize that they have the right to charge what the wish to view their channel and that we can choose not to subscribe to be able to watch most of the bowl games being played. I did subscribe to ESPN a few days ago so I could watch the college football playoffs. 

Lebron James, a basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, in a recent interview referred to the NFL team owners as being slave holders. This statement is mere hyperbole due to the fact that the lowest salary paid in the NFL in 2018 was $480,000. That can hardly be considered “slave wages” when the average yearly salary paid to an American worker is about $52,000 this day and age. In all fairness Lebron was alluding to the fact that lower echelon players who don’t have long term contracts in the NFL can be fired if they don’t have a good game versus the players with long term contacts. These long-term contacts are afforded to players who have performed well in previous seasons and who have helped their respective teams win and they are considered to be crucial cogs in a teams winning efforts.

College and professional football are brutal games where a player’s career can be finished in an instant with a devastating, bone crushing hit. Thankfully the equipment, game rules, and concussion protocols have been vastly improved over the years. But regardless, these players choose to play the game knowing the risks. This is especially true in the professional ranks where you are paid a princely sum of money to take these chances where all the players are highly gifted in speed, size and strength. 

College players, on the other hand, volunteer their services as amateurs in that they receive no pay to perform. Most of the players are granted scholarships in return for their services. They are also clothed, fed and housed by their respective colleges and universities. There is something poetic in watching a college game when you realize that most of these boys are giving their all and are putting their heath in jeopardy merely for the glory of their school. The word amateur is derived from the Latin root word amare meaning to love. Amateurs play sports for their love of the game.

Few of the collegiate players are rewarded the chance of being drafted into the NFL where they can go on to make fabulous amounts of money through contracts and product sponsorships. But fewer than 2 percent of all college football players are drafted, and being drafted is no guarantee for a successful professional career.

With this new era of college playoffs and multi-billion television contracts this use of athletes providing us with entertainment without pay is grossly unfair. Although most of these players receive a good education, it is time that they should be paid for their bowl appearances. If a player’s team qualifies for a bowl game he should receive some monetary recompense even if it is only a few thousand dollars with all these billions of dollars flowing around. Besides the television revenues there are also proceeds from the tickets sold for each event. Rose Bowl tickets start at $95 each and there are about 91,000 seats in this arena. 

Apparently some of the bigger universities do hand out swag bags to their bowl players. These bags contain such items as PlayStation consoles worth about $400 or in other situations the players may receive Beats wireless head phones at $300 a pop. I am sure most of these young men are dazzled by these electronic baubles but they are worth very little after having been used. Why not instead of plying them with soon to be worthless gizmos, cough up some dough. If the NCAA is worried about the sanctity of the game being impinged, pay all the bowl players the same amount of money win, lose or draw right across the board. These college bowl games have become big business and it is time the players got a piece of the action.