College pride vs regional stride

With the insanity of March Madness rocking the United States, I started thinking about the differences between collegiate athletics in America and Ireland.  It’s absolutely ludicrous when you actually realize how prominent college sports are back home. 

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the governing body of all college sporting events.  According to an NCAA budget released Feb. 15, the Indianapolis-based group raked in $757 million through TV and marketing rights fees, championship revenue and other services last year.  This unfathomable amount of money is a direct result of how much Americans love watching collegiate sports.

In the states, top athletes get recruited in high school to attend a college that excels at his/her particular sport.  While they don’t get paid to play, most Division 1 athletes receive part or most of their education funded.  With the average cost of attending a Division 1,2, or 3 university being just over $44,000, these scholarships can drastically help top athletes financially.  After 4 years, athletes in team sports such as soccer, basketball, football, and baseball can be drafted to play for a professional team, where he/she would make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

This process is drastically different from the set up in Ireland.  With GAA and rugby dominating the nations sporting world, athletes compete at a regional/county level and then get selected to play for the national team if he/she is good enough.  This helps keep the playing field as even as possible, as wealthier teams aren’t allowed to ‘stock up’ on the best players.  Due to this set up, college athletics doesn’t seem to be very important whatsoever.  Here at UL, there’s a GAA and rugby team, but I haven’t once heard a promotion to attend a match.  In America, I attend a university that is just over 2,000 students and attending football and basketball games is huge, even though both teams aren’t very good.

The same level of separation between the two countries can be seen in the athletic facilities themselves.  All Division 1 colleges have a football stadium that’s at least the size of Thomond Park, if not bigger.  As mentioned in my last post, the biggest collegiate arena (at the University of Michigan) holds 105,000.  That’s over twice the size of the Aviva, which is the stadium that the Irish rugby team hosts international competitors.  It’s very interesting to note how drastic the two countries are in terms sporting level of importance.  This is the first time that I’ve truly thought hard about the societal difference between home and here, and I’m blown away by these facts.

Works Cited

Schlabach, Mark. "NCAA: Where does the money go?" ESPN (2011).