[NU Sports] Tipping Point Near ?

[Dennis W. Brandt]

> This is silly.

No, it isn't.  It's about you et al arguing for a policy that increasingly 
grants privilege to a few.  It's about exclusivity more than money.  When it 
comes from a university that spends so much capital on preaching equity in 
life, sometimes absurdly so, it is rank hypocrisy.  I'm amazed all you 
liberals out there aren't shouting your disdain for the money-grubbing 
capitalists who run our centers of learning.

> First, NU is a private university.  But even if it was state supported,
> it has every right to limit access to its campus and its events to those
> that it chooses to invite.

This conversation has never been about what rights universities have or 
should have but what they should be doing.  In short, it's a moral question.

> If higher ticket prices mean more kids can afford to
> go to NU, that makes sense to me.

What does the price of a football ticket have to do with the price of 
tuition?  Are you saying that athletic department income is routinely routed 
to the general operating budget to reduce tuition and/or offer additional 
non-athletic scholarships?  I don't know, but I'm dubious.

> Your outrage and sense of entitlement etc.

A. I'm outraged by this country's unenlightened reaction to the threat of 
terrorism, not the price or availability of a football ticket.  I simply 
disagree with you.  (I also realize that nothing I propose will be accepted 
as long as the money is there.)
B. I have no sense of entitlement, but it would be nice if the taxpayers who 
help fund these enormous state universities be given some entitlement.  Penn 
State represents all of Pennsylvania and is funded in large part by all of 
Pennsylvania even though it tells the general public, "Screw you," when it 
comes to the availability of football tickets.  (Extrapolate to every other 
state here.)  I call for no law requiring such things, but I do point out 
the hypocrisy in it.  This is about money.  Nothing else.  No matter how 
much college football pulls in, universities want more, and the general 
public be damned.

> P.S.  Cirque du Soleil was worth every penny

Once; maybe again ten years later.  But spend $1,500 for six or seven 
performances every autumn?  And Cirque du Soleil performers are 
professionals.  You should not on one hand demand that college football 
players be good students while charging professional admission prices to 
their games (not to mention insanely high parking and refreshment costs). 
There is a balance to be found here, but we've slipped well beyond the 
fulcrum of this money-grabbing seesaw.