Most college football fans are quite aware of the excesses of the sport, but may be tired of hearing about them or immune to caring about the game’s questionable practices. It’s possible that “Billion-Dollar Ball” might jar some of these jaded followers with what the author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, has turned up. For example, that many of America’s largest and most prestigious universities are spending 10 times more on their football players than on their top students, or that college football coaches are the highest paid public employees in 27 states. The fallout from this is familiar but newly presented: greater emphasis on athletic corporate branding and profits than on clear-sighted commitment to a university’s academic mission.
Here’s an excerpt from Billion-Dollar Ball:
“For the most part Oregon’s Football Performance Center reminded me of an upscale shopping mall. Each time we turned a corner we came upon another expensive bauble or design to consider; a players’ lounge with PlayStations and two custom-made foosball games imported from Portugal; a barbershop for quick pre-practice trims; a ring room to display all of the rings Oregon players received for playing in bowl games; meeting rooms with seats made out of Ferrari leather; locker rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass walls and marble flooring imported from Italy; a separate room for visiting NFL scouts to download practice video, and so on and so forth. This was the athletic arms race on steroids.”
