Can someone explain to me the infatuation with amateurism and the need to not be a pro league in name only?
Fair question. I think the point you raise is different from the point I was making about academics at Michigan, so I'll just kind of address both. First your point:
1) From my perspective, if it's just going to be a pro league, then its basically the
minor leagues, and I personally don't have much interest in watching generic minor league football on tv. What gave/gives college football -- and college team sports in general -- that additional interest is being association with a particular college or university. But if they're just bouncing around from team to team based on whomever offers them more money, then it doesn't seem very college-y at all.
It's kind of what non-SEC schools used to say about the SEC -- that they weren't really schools at all but just sports factories because they didn't care at all about academics. But even that level of academic facade is kind of torched by this kind of perpetual free agency.
I understand others might feel differently, and maybe really enjoy the minor-league aspect of it without caring too much about the college association/affiliation. But for others, it greatly diminishes interest in the product.
2) As far as the comment about Michigan, I'm kind of fascinated by the mindset expressed in the tweet to which I was responding about the "ivory tower elites". It seems that tweeter overlooked the fact that Michigan is a
university first and foremost, and an extraordinarily good one at that. The football program is just kind of an "extra". A great many of the people who attend it/have attended it in the past don't care all that much about the football program. At least, not to the extent that it would obligate them to pour tons of money into buying aspiring college players. They'd rather give their money to, say, a new endowed chair in the chemistry department. Sure, they'd like to see the team go well. They're just not willing to pay for it.
I just think its funny that some folks apparently believe there is something wrong with that, so that those people deserve the negative label of "ivory-towered elites". You don't want to throw money at their chemistry department, so why should they throw money at your football team?
3. Just on a side note, I realize there are a lot of calls for colleges to just start paying football/basketball players directly. Apart from the fact that a lot of schools just don't want to do that, it also raised Title IX implications. That makes a rather interesting argument that it would then be
impossible to pay players what they're worth because any salary you give to those players would really be only half of their worth, because the other half would be going to those whose economic value is much, much less.
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