By Uche Onyebadi

MY normal Saturday morning rituals consist of tracking local and international news and watching the English Barclays Premier League football, or soccer as the game is known in the United States. Last Saturday, I ignored both rituals. The league had taken a break due to international soccer tournaments in Europe. As for news, I guessed the world would still be there later in the day when I would catch up with what I might have missed earlier. What I did was to watch all sorts sporting activities when I was not grading students’ papers.

As I watched American College Football, I recalled two of my 2012 sports communication and promotion students. One of them is Jayson DiManche. Dreadlocked Jayson is an American of Haitian descent. Today, he plays professional football (not soccer) with the Cincinnati Bengals. The other student is Eze Obiora, a British national of Nigerian parents. He had a professional football stint in Montreal, Canada, before returning to the U.S. where he is currently seeking ways to break into the professional football league.

Jayson and Eze were prominent football players in the Saluki team at Southern Illinois University. As a result of their football prowess, they were in school on football scholarship. They were by no means the only athletes in my various classes. I have had the privilege of having athletes from diverse sporting activities in my classes. What is important is that these students were offered athletics scholarships to see them through college. To many of them, getting university education might not have been possible without the scholarships.

Upon completion of their studies, the lucky ones among them move on to play in the professional leagues and get rewarded for their hard work. I looked up Jayson in spotrac.com, a web site that tracks practically all you need to know about professional athletes in the United States. I was able to gather that 24-year-old Jayson signed a 3-year contract with the Cincinnati Bengals for $1.5 million, which comes to an average salary of $500,000 per year. This is about ten times what, on average, new-entry teachers with doctoral degrees in most public universities earn per year. Jayson also had a $15,000 sign-on bonus. Should he maintain his form, remain disciplined and be free of injuries that might terminate his career, Jayson’s financial future is almost secured.

Jayson’s fortune is just a glimpse into the power of college sports in America, especially the prominent sporting activities such as football and basketball. College sports are collectively estimated to be an $8 billion-dollar industry in the Unites States. In 2010, the CBS and Turner Broadcasting company bought the rights to broadcast the games of the U.S. college basketball Division 1 “March-Madness” tournament for $10.8 billion-dollar in a 14-year contract. It is estimated that an audience of about 80 million viewers watch the tournament that determines the national college basketball champion in the country.

College football is the main revenue earner in college sports in the United States. Here are some interesting figures from Forbes. In 2013, the average cost of the top twenty most expensive college football tickets was $360. The most valuable team in the country is the University of Texas Longhorns football team. It is valued at $139 million. Of course, in several U.S. public universities the coaches of the football and basketball teams earn more than their school presidents. Nick Saban is the coach of the prime Alabama university football team. He is on a $7 million-salary per year. According to the influential Chronicle of Higher Education, E. Gordon Gee who, in July this year left his position as the President of Ohio State University, was as at 2013 the highest paid president of a public university in the U.S. His basic salary was $851,000. When his severance, bonus, deferred, retirement and other payments due to him were added together upon leaving his position, he went home with $6 million, a clear one
million dollars less than what coach Nick Saban takes home per year.

The reason these coaches earn more than the presidents of their universities is that their teams bring in fantastic revenues for their universities, from their teams’ merchandizing activities to television rights. So, the coaches are valued on the strength of the revenues they attract. The impact of college sports is huge in the U.S.

In some university-towns and cities where the university is the most prominent industry or institution, the power of college sports teams is huge. At my alma mater, the University of Missouri, whenever the Mizzou Tigers (the name of our football team), have a game the entire city of Columbia grinds to a halt. Practically everyone, young and old, is intrested in the success of the team. Should the Tigers lose a game, the entire city was thrown into some sort of mourning. When we won, it was ecstasy all the way. You might even hear priests discussing the victory as part of their sermons in churches.