Since it’s offseason I thought I’d throw this question out there. Has college football always been entertainment driven?
Question: Has college football always been entertainment driven?
- Thread starter Tide&True
- Start date
There is a plaque in B'ham at the site of the first Alabama/Auburn game. I doubt that game was played for "entertainment" purposes and it probably involved student-athletes who played for the love of the game. I imagine to some extent some still play because they love the game, but today is much, much more about entertainment and, ultimately, the players getting paid in the league.
Thanks for your answer BamaMoon...it does my heart good to know that at one time it did mean more.
It started out as a bunch of guys having fun in the park. Soon enough, their friends starting coming out to watch them play. Here is the wiki -
en.wikipedia.org
College football - Wikipedia
Pretty sure that was a Pepsi Super Bowl ad too...It started out as a bunch of guys having fun in the park. Soon enough, their friends starting coming out to watch them play. Here is the wiki -
College football - Wikipedia
So, the friends that came out to watch were probably entertained, right. All sport exist to entertain the people. This dates all the way back to the gladiator fights and beyond.It started out as a bunch of guys having fun in the park. Soon enough, their friends starting coming out to watch them play. Here is the wiki -
College football - Wikipedia
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From that Wiki article:
The 1899 Sewanee Tigers are one of the all-time great teams of the early sport. The team went 12–0, outscoring opponents 322 to 10. Known as the "Iron Men", with just 13 men they had a six-day road trip with five shutout wins over Texas A&M; Texas; Tulane; LSU; and Ole Miss. It is recalled memorably with the phrase "... and on the seventh day they rested."[52][53] Grantland Rice called them "the most durable football team I ever saw."[54]
The 1899 Sewanee Tigers are one of the all-time great teams of the early sport. The team went 12–0, outscoring opponents 322 to 10. Known as the "Iron Men", with just 13 men they had a six-day road trip with five shutout wins over Texas A&M; Texas; Tulane; LSU; and Ole Miss. It is recalled memorably with the phrase "... and on the seventh day they rested."[52][53] Grantland Rice called them "the most durable football team I ever saw."[54]
I think every sport started out by the players of that sport entertaining themselves. Then, people started watching.
It started out as a bunch of guys having fun in the park. Soon enough, their friends starting coming out to watch them play. Here is the wiki -
College football - Wikipedia
Yep. I think I saw it on the ESPN College Football 150 years series and IIRC they said cars pulled up for the headlights on their cars for when it got dark and more and more began coming to the games due to it's entertainment. Universities then thought they could charge these carloads of people an admission fee and they began putting in seating. So as it is now it was driven by the money. Glad they did since it is such a great sport created for college students that has brought us all a lot of joy.
To me, the Ivy League still has some of the real basis for college football, the student/athlete. The service academies would likely also fall in that category.
Good to hear from you Gray.
I just hate Tennessee.I love the entertainment aspect........
And I can't stress that enough.
At one time it was a source of unity and community for the university...with fund raising on the side. Now it is purely entertainment and fund raising...
I was coming of age in the Bear Bryant era so I can't speak for the early years. In my day it was driven by attendance and limited TV money. Today it seems driven by "unlimited" TV money and then attendance. Of course I am going of media reporting and we know how they like to promote their agendas.
The media doesn't tell me much about fundraising so I didn't mention that.
The media doesn't tell me much about fundraising so I didn't mention that.
I would add for the top 20 or 30 teams it's become more about money and entertainment. For the other 640 D1, D2, and D3 schools (730 if you count NAIA) teams it's still mostly about the student-athlete. Most still use football programs as a primary fundraiser for the athletic department and definitely keep alumni engaged for overall university fundraising. It's just a different scale at the smaller schools. It's still entertaining for fans and alumni to attend, but it's very different than at the Alabamas, Ohio States and Notre Dames of the world.
I one sense that statement is correct, sports exist to entertain the participant!
I'm sure some sports were created as a spectacle, but many were created just for fun, or to keep people occupied.
To give an example, Naismith invented basketball to be a sport that could be played inside by students during winter. That sure doesn't sound like entertaining a crowd was any sort of consideration. I grew up playing sports in most of my free time, usually there was no audience, it simply wasn't a consideration and most of the time when people are out there playing a sport there is either no crowd or a relatively indifferent one.
This then segues into the idea of big time sports being more entertainment value (like WWE) than actual competition. I occasionally pose the question of if we as fans want Alabama to succeed or merely entertain us. A championship season is usually full of boring games in which Alabama bludgeons the competition, but if they aren't good enough to do that, and can't rest their starters early and often, their chances of a championship go down precipitously.
So, I can't agree that sports exist to entertain spectators. Furthermore I'd argue that entertainment shouldn't be our biggest priority either, not if we want success for Alabama football.
I don't think those that invented the games we now pay people 100's of millions to play and for us to watch, had this in mind when they invented the games. We as a society made a business out of them, marketed it and grew the business just like any other business. Most of these games were invented for kids to play. Not adults.
Here's a link from an article in the Charleston Post and Courier regarding CFB attendance. It is primarily USCeast and CU oriented, but an indication of what issues are out there....
www.postandcourier.com
Sapakoff: Gamecocks an outlier, but college football attendance crisis is real
Football attendance went up in 2019 at South Carolina despite a 4-8 season but was down college football-wide for a sixth straight season and the sport isn't reacting fast enough
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