I can’t help but even wonder if those stadiums actually turn a profit?
Regardless, my rural yeehaw high school was a fine point of all of this. My dad kept pointing out how loaded the superintendent and administration was while the school itself was low quality and practically falling apart. There was even this stench of “we suck and we’re proud of it!”
If that shit wasn’t profitable, then it is a sad display of what this country values: us children of poor families may get to engage in some sports until we’re 18 and then it’s off to some backbreaking blue-collar job, or a retail job that’s minimum wage or a buck above if you’re lucky. If you go to college there’s a good chance that porky ain’t in the hiring mood and you get mocked for your arrogance in trying to do social mobility.
And if it is profitable, why the hell would they want to invest in academics or their teachers? They don’t make the superintendent money and after all this country tries to predetermine us rural folk into trades or military. The propaganda that porky is “all set” with college level professionals is all part of the war on education.
I can’t help but even wonder if those stadiums actually turn a profit?
They don’t, even if sometimes the administration ghouls will make that promise toward credulous parents (whose property taxes pay for that shit, mostly) and toward faculty (often with the most condescending language in bulletins about how we “all need to tighten our belts” to the amount of the cost of the stadium).
It was that way in the college I went to as well. Administration got themselves a massive administration-only expansion to their own recreation center and some pretentious flex architecture to the campus and turned the library (the LIBRARY at a fucking UNIVERSITY I might add) into a pompous and LOUD coffee shop with some books on the walls used as DECORATION.
my college did the same thing but they sold it to the alumni association by saying it was gonna at least be a local coffee shop. It was for 2 years until the university raised the rent on the local shop so they could put in a Starbucks lol
The university system is a fuck and nothing made me hate it more than attending it.
I enjoyed college life for the most part, but the peonage of the “adjunct” system was unjust and you can see the weariness and precarity in the instructors’ eyes, though the handful of older tenured “fuck you, got mine” types certainly seemed to enjoy their little perches.
Two, just two, of my tenured professors were actually amazing and were full comrades, up to and including on-the-street cred for being there for key Civil Rights skirmishes.
I fully sympathize. Like don’t get me wrong, I really liked college and if I could, I’d love to wake up as 18 again and go once more, but college in the us is cooked and the war on education has made sure of that.
nobody wanted it but the admin. we got a new university president around the same time and he implemented several dumb things to “modernize” the university. They also got rid of a pretty popular student run burger spot in the student union for a Subway. I guess they thought chains would bring prestige or something. it sucked
I can’t help but even wonder if those stadiums actually turn a profit
They don’t but I don’t think it matters. We shouldn’t care if school facilities turn a profit bc that’s the logic used to cut funding for the arts. A properly maintained stadium is actually good bc sports are good for community and they could be used for a lot of things besides just football games or whatever.
The problem is we live under capitalism so the stadiums are overly expensive, contain a bunch of unnecessary bullshit like luxury box amenities (more of a college thing) and are built way too often.
I know it’s not the real answer but I just pretend it’s necessary for the sports to bring in the big bucks to fund the massively inflated coach salaries in a giant “chicken and egg” scam where each side of the equation justifies the cost of the other side as part of the same huge fucking scam
As someone from outside the US I’ve always found it baffling that not only does Yankee universities have official sports teams, those teams are also professional teams with huge money involved.
When I went to university, the athletic high point of the year was student unions doing a beer race in inflatable boats on the campus pond.
One time, my university put on a massive prop-laden and super expensive “homecoming party” for some very important millionaire sportsball coach, with many buildings on campus decorated garishly to tickle his narcissism. This happened the same year that budget cuts were actively fucking over students with tuition hikes and the like.
Yeah its a very “they’re dabbing on us” feeling when they talk about needing to fund X or Y important thing and yet the first thing they do when they get the money is spend it on something else. And they don’t even hide it. Like apparently we’re all supposed to be mad if you give a homeless guy money for a sandwich and instead he buys a beer but when taxes go up to pay for public works and it just results in the cops getting an APC it’s just part of life.
When I was in college they had to raise tuition again while cutting back on university services but they had money to expand the rec room for administration and turn the library into some pompous Steve Jobs-wanking coffee shop with vague book decorations.
When I was a teacher, I was told I had to tighten my belt because of a big budget shortfall and on the next page of that fucking newsletter it proudly announced a new sportsball stadium for the most prestigious high school in the district that costed the same amount as the shortfall!
I can’t help but even wonder if those stadiums actually turn a profit?
Regardless, my rural yeehaw high school was a fine point of all of this. My dad kept pointing out how loaded the superintendent and administration was while the school itself was low quality and practically falling apart. There was even this stench of “we suck and we’re proud of it!”
If that shit wasn’t profitable, then it is a sad display of what this country values: us children of poor families may get to engage in some sports until we’re 18 and then it’s off to some backbreaking blue-collar job, or a retail job that’s minimum wage or a buck above if you’re lucky. If you go to college there’s a good chance that porky ain’t in the hiring mood and you get mocked for your arrogance in trying to do social mobility.
And if it is profitable, why the hell would they want to invest in academics or their teachers? They don’t make the superintendent money and after all this country tries to predetermine us rural folk into trades or military. The propaganda that porky is “all set” with college level professionals is all part of the war on education.
They don’t, even if sometimes the administration ghouls will make that promise toward credulous parents (whose property taxes pay for that shit, mostly) and toward faculty (often with the most condescending language in bulletins about how we “all need to tighten our belts” to the amount of the cost of the stadium).
It was that way in the college I went to as well. Administration got themselves a massive administration-only expansion to their own recreation center and some pretentious flex architecture to the campus and turned the library (the LIBRARY at a fucking UNIVERSITY I might add) into a pompous and LOUD coffee shop with some books on the walls used as DECORATION.
my college did the same thing but they sold it to the alumni association by saying it was gonna at least be a local coffee shop. It was for 2 years until the university raised the rent on the local shop so they could put in a Starbucks lol
The university system is a fuck and nothing made me hate it more than attending it.
I enjoyed college life for the most part, but the peonage of the “adjunct” system was unjust and you can see the weariness and precarity in the instructors’ eyes, though the handful of older tenured “fuck you, got mine” types certainly seemed to enjoy their little perches.
Two, just two, of my tenured professors were actually amazing and were full comrades, up to and including on-the-street cred for being there for key Civil Rights skirmishes.
I fully sympathize. Like don’t get me wrong, I really liked college and if I could, I’d love to wake up as 18 again and go once more, but college in the us is cooked and the war on education has made sure of that.
I actually enjoyed college overall, though the actual college part of that experience sucked. Weird.
Who in gods name wants a starbucks over a local coffee shop? Lower quality and more expensive.
nobody wanted it but the admin. we got a new university president around the same time and he implemented several dumb things to “modernize” the university. They also got rid of a pretty popular student run burger spot in the student union for a Subway. I guess they thought chains would bring prestige or something. it sucked
They don’t but I don’t think it matters. We shouldn’t care if school facilities turn a profit bc that’s the logic used to cut funding for the arts. A properly maintained stadium is actually good bc sports are good for community and they could be used for a lot of things besides just football games or whatever.
The problem is we live under capitalism so the stadiums are overly expensive, contain a bunch of unnecessary bullshit like luxury box amenities (more of a college thing) and are built way too often.
I know it’s not the real answer but I just pretend it’s necessary for the sports to bring in the big bucks to fund the massively inflated coach salaries in a giant “chicken and egg” scam where each side of the equation justifies the cost of the other side as part of the same huge fucking scam
As someone from outside the US I’ve always found it baffling that not only does Yankee universities have official sports teams, those teams are also professional teams with huge money involved.
When I went to university, the athletic high point of the year was student unions doing a beer race in inflatable boats on the campus pond.
One time, my university put on a massive prop-laden and super expensive “homecoming party” for some very important millionaire sportsball coach, with many buildings on campus decorated garishly to tickle his narcissism. This happened the same year that budget cuts were actively fucking over students with tuition hikes and the like.
Yeah its a very “they’re dabbing on us” feeling when they talk about needing to fund X or Y important thing and yet the first thing they do when they get the money is spend it on something else. And they don’t even hide it. Like apparently we’re all supposed to be mad if you give a homeless guy money for a sandwich and instead he buys a beer but when taxes go up to pay for public works and it just results in the cops getting an APC it’s just part of life.
That happens in so many places.
When I was in college they had to raise tuition again while cutting back on university services but they had money to expand the rec room for administration and turn the library into some pompous Steve Jobs-wanking coffee shop with vague book decorations.
When I was a teacher, I was told I had to tighten my belt because of a big budget shortfall and on the next page of that fucking newsletter it proudly announced a new sportsball stadium for the most prestigious
high school in the district that costed the same amount as the shortfall!
Where’d they get the money? Guess we’ll never know! Shit feels like gaslighting or whatever the term is.