Over the years, colleges and other institutions of higher learning have been branding themselves as places where students learn, grow, mature and philosophize. Their sole objective is not doing business but provide a haven for the young generations to build on their careers. Nevertheless, it has been noted that most of these tertiary institutions are actually big businesses especially when it comes to college athletics and sports. Consequently, the line between businesses and schools have blurred even further in the recent years where sports sporting related activities have increasingly become popular in the modern school programs (“How High School Sports Have Turned Into Big Business”, 2012). It is prudent to point out that there different ways through which these institutions reap big from athletics and other sporting activities. This trend has both positive and negative effects as outlined in this paper.

To start with, stadium naming deals is a thriving business in most colleges and more specifically in the United States. Consequently, most of these colleges have invested heavily in establishing state-of-the art stadia to ensure they benefit from their naming rights. It is also imperative to point out that the institutions also benefit a lot from sale of broadcasting rights. Over the years, the college athletics have increasingly become popular amongst the fans thus making sale of broadcasting rights a thriving business (“How High School Sports Have Turned Into Big Business”, 2012). The demand for sport related products is also increasing over the years which have prompted these colleges to have business collaboration with well known sports products producers like Nike and Puma. These deals are known to fetch huge sums of money for these colleges. Coaches and other sports professionals have also made the colleges a big business as they earn huge salaries from the sporting events.

It is critical to point out that all these sporting activities provide substantial amount of money to the institutions. Additionally, the events play a significant role in enhancing physical fitness and employment opportunities for most of these students. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that the primary objective of these institutions is for academic excellence of the students and not for sporting activities. Turning sporting activities into business ventures have led to so many students putting more emphasis on sports at the expense of academics (“How High School Sports Have Turned Into Big Business”, 2012). Most of these student-athletes are also said to earn a lot of money and increased exposure to media coverage thus having negative effects to academic excellence. There’s pressure to perform through injuries, the danger of recruitment violations by coaches, the special treatment to schools – at the expense of others-that are deemed winners in their respective zones. This leads to increased discrimination amongst students and ultimately leads to low academic excellence. In a nutshell, college athletics has been turned into a big business and is likely to do more harm than good to the future of student-athletes.

Reference

How High School Sports Have Turned Into Big Business. (2012). CNBC. Retrieved 24 September 2016, from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100001024

 
Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?