Tight End of the College Sports Craze

Sometimes journalists look for the opposite of the silver lining. That’s the case with this month’s New York Times report on how the now-giant business of “college” football has tightened the home-rental markets in university towns hosting big sports events. Viewed commercially, one great aspect of the NCAA-bred fandom is that it has spread wealth around the nation. Most of the athletic powers are located in flyover country, away from the financial and corporate centers of capital in the U.S. For at least half a dozen weekends a year–more often in those places that also sport top-notch basketball programs–the tables are turned, with alumni and other followers converging for games and other social revelry. Yes, it can fill up the available beds. After awhile, however, people and properties adjust. Some folks get the short end of the stick, as always happens, though maybe they can catch a few of the extra bucks in the wind. One other benefit of what is a decidedly mixed blessing of big-dollar sports productions: They are a remarkably unifying element among a population that is otherwise rent asunder by politics, race, status and various other “isms.” The teams gather tribes that anyone can join.